The Crucible of Religion in Late Antiquity: Selected Essays 3161606914, 9783161606915

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Preface
Table of Contents
Introduction. A New Religious Ethos
Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom
1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus
2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered
3. The Jewish and Christian Afterlives of Orphism
4. To See or not to See: On the Early History of the Visio Beatifica
5. Mystère juif et mystère chrétien: le mot et la chose
6. In illo loco: Paradise Lost in Early Christianity
7. Christ’s Laughter: Docetic Origins Reconsidered
8. The Greek and Jewish Origins of Docetism (with Ronnie Goldstein)
9. Sacrifice and Martyrdom in the Roman Empire
10. Les martyrs chrétiens et l’inversion des émotions
Part II. A New Axial Age? Sacrifice, Intolerance, Manichaeism
11. The End of Sacrifice Revisited
12. Les sages sémitisés
13. Cultural Memory in Early Christianity: Clement of Alexandria on the History of Religions
14. Moses the Lawgiver: The Idea of Civil Religion in Patristic Thought
15. Axial Religion in the Late Antique Scriptural Galaxy
16. Christian Intolerance and its Roots
17. Titus of Bostra and Alexander of Lycopolis Against Manichaean Dualism
18. The Words and the Works: Augustine and Faustus
19. Anti-Manichaean Polemics: Late Antiquity to Islam (with Sarah Stroumsa)
Conclusion. Shapes of Time in the Abrahamic Religions: A Phenomenological Sketch
List of First Publications
Index of Selected Topics and Names

Citation preview

Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity Herausgegeber / Editors Christoph Markschies (Berlin) · Martin Wallraff (München) Christian Wildberg (Pittsburgh) Beirat / Advisory Board Peter Brown (Princeton) · Susanna Elm (Berkeley) Johannes Hahn (Münster) · Emanuela Prinzivalli (Rom) Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt)

124

Guy G. Stroumsa

The Crucible of Religion in Late Antiquity Selected Essays

Mohr Siebeck

Guy G. Stroumsa, born 1948; 1978 PhD; Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Emeritus of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, and Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.

ISBN 978‑3‑16‑160691‑5 / eISBN 978‑3‑16‑160778‑3 DOI  10.1628 / 978‑3‑16‑160778‑3 ISSN 1436‑3003 / eISSN 2568‑7433 (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021  Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to repro‑ ductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset using Minion typeface, printed on non-aging paper, and bound by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen. Printed in Germany.

For Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier, Hubert Cancik »Die Sage versucht das Unerklärliche zu erklären. Da sie aus einem Wahr­ heitsgrund kommt, muß sie wieder im Unerklär­ lichen enden.« Franz Kafka, Prometheus

Preface Like its twin volume, Religion as Intellectual Challenge in the Long Twentieth Century: Selected Essays (Tübingen, 2021), this volume includes a number of texts written over a number of decades. I am grateful to Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, Director of Mohr Sie‑ beck, for his kind offer to publish these two volumes, as well as to Christoph Mark‑ schies, Martin Wallraff and Christian Wildberg for agreeing to publish this volume in Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum. I am deeply indebted to David L. Dusenbury, who has closely collaborated with me on the preparation of these two volumes, throughout the long and difficult period of various limitations and lockdowns in Jerusalem, during the coronavirus pandemic, and, at Mohr Siebeck, to Elena Müller, who skillfully accompanied the project. There is no point in attempting here to summarize the twenty essays of this vol‑ ume, written over a number of decades, mostly as contributions to workshops and conferences, and for the most part independently from one another. Most of them have been published in the past, and follow the style of various journals and pub‑ lishers, in a number of countries. While most essays were written in English, a few were composed in French, my mother tongue. After some hesitation, I decided not to translate these into English, and to keep their original linguistic garb. I am pleased to retain in these two volumes of Selected Essays certain tangible marks of my intel‑ lectual biography. All essays have been lightly edited, also in order to follow the pub‑ lisher’s editorial policy, but it would have been futile to seek to update them. I do not claim, of course, to deal with all, or even most of the key problems of late antique religious history. What I have sought to do, rather, is to adumbrate some of the major themes linking these problems together, as I perceived them at the time of writing. While these essays in no way amount to a search for a grand theory, I do hope they reflect my wish to search relentlessly for the new religious ethos emerging from the interface of religions in the long late antiquity. Chapter 8 was written jointly with Ronnie Goldstein, and chapter 19 with Sarah Stroumsa. I wish to thank them both for having agreed to their new publication here. In the Conclusion, I briefly reflect on perceptions of time in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In this way, I hope to emphasize the sacred character of history at the very core of the Abrahamic religions and of their ideas of salvation. It remains for the reader, and not me, to judge the extent to which these essays point to a solution of historical riddles, and to decide whether they help us appre‑ ciate the almost infinite complexity and riches of late antique religious history. As I look at the traces of my own idiosyncratic trajectory, at least, I can detect in my

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quest more serendipity than a clearly preconceived plan. In the words of the Sinolo‑ gist Marcel Granet: »la méthode, c’est le chemin une fois qu’on l’a parcouru.« In any case, I feel a profound gratitude for the intellectual effort and pleasure throughout the years spent on this interminable journey, across centuries and continents. I have been lucky to acquire many friends, in many places, on this journey, which I have accomplished together with the most demanding and most rewarding of compan‑ ions: Sarah Stroumsa. This book is dedicated to four brilliant scholars, my first friends in Germany. Jerusalem, May 2021

Guy G. Stroumsa

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Introduction. A New Religious Ethos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Part I.  Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom   1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13   2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24   3. The Jewish and Christian Afterlives of Orphism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30   4. To See or not to See: On the Early History of the Visio Beatifica . . . . . . . . . 52   5. Mystère juif et mystère chrétien: le mot et la chose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66  6. In illo loco: Paradise Lost in Early Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78   7. Christ’s Laughter: Docetic Origins Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91   8. The Greek and Jewish Origins of Docetism (with Ronnie Goldstein) . . . . 109   9. Sacrifice and Martyrdom in the Roman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 10. Les martyrs chrétiens et l’inversion des émotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Part II. A New Axial Age? Sacrifice, Intolerance, Manichaeism 11. The End of Sacrifice Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12. Les sages sémitisés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13. Cultural Memory in Early Christianity: Clement of Alexandria on the History of Religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14. Moses the Lawgiver: The Idea of Civil Religion in Patristic Thought . . . . . 15. Axial Religion in the Late Antique Scriptural Galaxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16. Christian Intolerance and its Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17. Titus of Bostra and Alexander of Lycopolis Against Manichaean Dualism 18. The Words and the Works: Augustine and Faustus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19. Anti-Manichaean Polemics: Late Antiquity to Islam (with Sarah Stroumsa) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

151 163 176 193 206 224 246 256 267

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Conclusion. Shapes of Time in the Abrahamic Religions: A Phenomenological Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 List of First Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Index of Selected Topics and Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos Late antiquity may be defined in a number of ways, some more restrictive and some broader, in terms of both space and time. According to all definitions, however, the focus is on the Christianizing Roman Empire, at a time when pagan cults were still present in mental as well as in physical landscapes. The religious dimension in the meeting of worlds, indeed, constitutes an essential character of late antiquity. For the historian of religion focusing on the interface between systems of belief and religious communities and its transformations, it makes sense to embrace the centuries from early Christianity to early Islam, and the Near East as well as the Mediterranean. It is only through both la longue durée and les vastes espaces that one may fully iden‑ tify the new religious ethos blossoming in late antiquity, an ethos in which religious belief and religious praxis interact in new, previously unknown ways.1 Two main paradigms seem to compete for the understanding of the deep trans‑ formations of religion in the Mediterranean and the Near East through those cen‑ turies. The classical paradigm emphasizes the essentially revolutionary character of the new forms of religion during that period. This character is epitomized in the passage from paganism to Christianity (and later to Islam), or from polytheistic to monotheistic systems. In the last generation, this paradigm has been seriously challenged, mainly by new approaches to late antique religious history. One often argues, in particular, for an essentially benign and gradual change, through the identification of a number of passages between the worldview of traditional religions and that of Christianity, as well as between the latter and the worldview of the early Islamic world.2 The contradistinction between the revolutionary paradigm and the evolutionary one informs much of contemporary research. This rather artificial dichotomy, how‑ ever, unduly blurs our understanding of intertwined religious history. While there is no serious doubt about the momentous transformation of religion in late antiquity, identifying it with the Christianization of the Roman Empire may be misleading. The religious revolution of late antiquity seems, rather, to be reflected in a broader array of new forms of religious belief and practice, of which Christianity is only the 1   On this trajectory, leading to the emergence of Islam, see G. G. Stroumsa, The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2015). On the question of the transformation of an ethos, see in particular chapter 12, below. 2   See A. Cameron, »What Exit from Antiquity?« in S. H. Nasser and N. al‑Baghdadi, eds., The Arab Muslim World in Universal History: Forms of Authority, Power and Transformation (Leiden, forthcoming). Cameron singles out Peter Brown as a leading voice for this approach.

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Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

most perceptible one.3 One might then speak of revolution, but only as the final consequence of an incremental evolution – or re-elaboration – of ritual as well as theological transformations in a highly complex society. The theological dynamism of the period is represented by the passage from poly‑ theistic systems to monotheistic and dualist ones, while the ritual dynamism may be followed in the move from rituals centered upon sacrifices in temples to rituals established upon scriptures, in churches, synagogues, or mosques. This double dyna‑ mism of beliefs and rituals sheds light on the transformations of religious ethos.4 In a sense, the two parts of this book reflect this double argument. The essays in Part I mostly deal with mental aspects of religion in the Roman Empire, as expressed in early Christian texts and traditions. Those in Part II, on their side, deal with religious communication across cultures and communities in the Empire. The classical paradigm, focusing on the passage from paganism to Christianity, is misleading in a number of ways. In implicitly ignoring other religious systems such as Manichaeism, or Zoroastrianism, as well as Gnostic trends, it misses the crucial importance of dualist theologies. Moreover, its implicit identification of monothe‑ ism with Christianity (not something self-evident) all but erases the monotheism professed by Jews, as well as that professed by some Hellenic philosophers, such as Plotinus. Finally, by subsuming all traditional religions under »paganism,« it distorts to the extreme a highly complex reality.5 It may well be that the passage to monothe‑ ism should not be identified with the rise of Christianity. The presence of a number of different dualistic and monotheistic religious sys‑ tems in the late antique Eastern Mediterranean and Near East points to the core importance of dualism in the religious history of the period. In its various forms, religious dualism expresses a tension within both the heavenly and the earthly world, both of which are perceived, in some way or other, as battlefields. Zoroastrian dual‑ ism, in which the good and the evil gods confront one another throughout cosmic and human history, is essentially ethical.6 In Second Temple Judaism, and then in early Christianity, Satan, who had been a rather pale figure in the Bible, grew in importance, becoming the main opponent to God within the divine world. Gnostic dualism represents a radicalization of this trend, sometimes mixed with Platonic dualism. Manichaeism, on its side, reflects the combination of Judeo-Christian and Zoroastrian dualisms. As the different dualist theologies clearly show, religious 3

  I have sought to interpret the development of Christianity in the first centuries as a clear expression of this revolution in the longue durée; see G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999). 4   On the question of the ethos and the conditions of its transformation, see chapter 12, below. 5   Aspects of the transformation of Hellenic and Jewish traditions in early Christianity are stud‑ ied in chapters 1 to 6, below. 6   See S. Shaked, »The Bundahišn Account of Creation: Myth, Speculation, and Paradox,« Fore‑ word to Domenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope, The Bundahišn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation, a New Translation (Oxford, New York, 2020), XI – XXVI.

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

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structures, even those seemingly as simple and clearly defined as monotheism, are far from stable. Their fluidity, their constant evolution, even their transformation through new arrangements of their elements, may evoke a kaleidoscope. In any case, the growth of dualist trends represents a major trait of late antique religion. One may argue that the confrontation between biblical monotheisms and dualist religions replaced, to a great extent, the previous clash between polytheism and monotheism. In both cases, the core of the conflict seems to lie less in the number of the divinities involved than in the religious status of history, as expressed in the Hebrew Bible, an idea which was accepted by the Fathers of the Church but replaced by mythological ways of thought in Gnosis and in Manichaeism. The scholar of Islamic philosophy Henri Corbin has discussed what he calls »the paradox of monotheism.«7 For him, monotheistic systems are condemned to remain unstable structures, regularly morphing into systems close to polytheism. This hap‑ pens, Corbin says, because the transcendence of the one God is not really sustainable for humans, who need intermediary figures in the divine world, the angels.8 A simi‑ lar remark, it seems to me, could be made about polytheistic systems in late antiquity. They show constant attempts to represent the divine world as hierarchies, on the top of which reigns a supreme god, who alone can rightly claim the name of god. One may therefore say that polytheistic systems, too, suffer from some structural insta‑ bility, and this permits us to speak of the paradox of polytheism, which often tends to morph into some kind of monotheism. Rather than a passage from polytheism to monotheism, the virtual ubiquity of dualist structures of thought seems to represent a typical character of late antique thought patterns. In a sense, dualism represents an equilibrium between simplicity and complexity, retaining both closeness to mono‑ theism and the recognition of complexity in the world of divine powers. The prominence of esoteric trends in most religious (and philosophical) tradi‑ tions in the ancient world is a reflection of the tensions inherent to dualistic percep‑ tions of reality.9 For the esotericists, what is visible to all does not represent the high‑ est level of reality. The testimony of the senses is misleading. True reality remains invisible to human eyes. In that sense, it remains purely spiritual, and can be grasped only through the spiritual senses. Under such conditions, truth is not available to all, but only to an elite within the community. Where most imagine visible forms of the divine, the elect know that God is invisible. As is clear already in Plato’s Second Letter, the idea of esotericism is related to the ambivalent status of writing in the ancient world, a written text being 7

  See H. Corbin, Le paradoxe du monothéisme (Paris, 1981).   Although originally Jewish, and then Christian, there were also pagan angels, as shown by G. W. Bowersock, »Les anges païens de l’antiquité tardive,« Cahiers du Centre G. Glotz 24 (2013), 91 – 104. 9   I have dealt with late antique esotericism in G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Studies in the History of Religions 70; Leiden, 1996; Revised and augmented paperback edition, 2005). See chapters 4 and 5, below. 8

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Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

always susceptible to fall into unworthy hands. The most important truths, which should not be made available to all, must be transmitted only orally. Higher real‑ ity is often revealed in visions. As we know from the prophetic movement, visions always remained the privilege of religious virtuosi. In scriptural religions, moreover, esoteric doctrines often took the form of hermeneutical traditions: different levels of interpretation of the revealed scripture fit different publics. Only the elect, those usually called mystics in scriptural religions, have access to the highest, spiritual level of textual interpretation. It is within the framework of such a fundamental skepticism toward the testi‑ mony of the senses that one must read the development, in the earliest stages of Christianity, of Docetism. According to this heresy, Jesus did not die on the cross, but only seemed to suffer. For the Docetists, then, the true Jesus had escaped, ascending to heaven, while someone else, taking his appearance, was crucified. One of the most radical attitudes to be found among the early Christians, Docetism soon became a generic term for some of the most troubling heresies fought by the Church Fathers. Oddly enough, the puzzling phenomenon of Docetism does not seem to have elicited enough scholarly attention. Moreover, there is no general agreement upon a convincing definition of Docetism, and one is at a loss as to the focal point of the Docetistic world-view. The two main approaches seem to relate either to Christ’s Incarnation or to his Passion. Either Christ was not really incar‑ nated, as the Divine and matter could not have a common ground, and Christ would be totally spiritual in nature; or Christ was indeed incarnated, but did not really suf‑ fer on the cross. These two approaches are not identical. The first approach is broader, and is inclusive of the second. Many scholars seem to support the first approach, and to find the roots of Docetism in Platonic thought, or in what is sometimes called, rather nebulously, »Graeco-Oriental Dualism.«10 For those scholars, Docetism argues that the human nature of Jesus is only a semblance. For those who support the second approach, which focuses on the crucifixion, it is Jesus’s death, rather than his corporeal existence as such, which represented the scandal that the first Docetists sought to avoid. It comes as no surprise that one of the major points of discord among the first Christians lay, precisely, in the question of the suffering, or the lack thereof, of Jesus Christ – a figure at the very intersection between humanity and divinity. The central feature of the salutary mission of Jesus Christ, precisely, focuses on his passion, on his suffering. A man turned God, or a God turned man, in any case this passion was felt to be both powerful and shocking enough by both Jews and Greeks, as noted by Paul, who called him »a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gen‑ tiles« (I  Cor.  1:23 – 24).

10   J. G. Davies, »The Origins of Docetism,« Studia Patristica VI (TU 81; Berlin, 1962), 13 – 35. Similar expression in N. Brox, »Doketismus: Eine Problemanzeige,« ZKG 95 (1984), 301 – 314.

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

5

In the words of Cyril of Alexandria (floruit in the early fifth century): Yet being God by nature, he is considered to be out of reach from suffering (pathous) . . . he accepted birth in the flesh, by a woman; he gave himself, I repeat, a body able to taste death, but also to be raised again, so that, while he remains impassible (hina menōn autos apathēs) one may say that he suffered in his own flesh.11

For Cyril, both Greeks and Jews are unable to recognize that Jesus’s suffering on the cross is neither madness (the Greeks, in their ignorance, did not recognize his human nature) nor a cause for shame (the Jews, in their derangement, could not believe he was the Son of God). The truth is that he at once suffered (in his own flesh) and did not suffer (in the nature of Divinity). It is, indeed, only within the double Jewish and Greek matrix of Christianity that Docetism can be fully understood. 12 Martyrdom, which reflects the agreement, or even the will to suffer in one’s body in order to imitate Jesus, is thus established on the opposite presupposition: the Christian should suffer in his or her body, just as Jesus had suffered. The new reli‑ gious ethos reflected in Christian martyrdom also represented a major transforma‑ tion of emotions and their representation.13 The idea that the truest, highest reality, does not always appear to the senses, but must be deciphered through its traces, was of course fundamental in early Chris‑ tian discourse. But it came from a long tradition, in Greek as well as Hebrew litera‑ ture. Docetism, one of the earliest Christian heresies, eventually disappeared, but not without leaving in Christian thought, as a deep scar, a sense of fundamental hesita‑ tion about sensory reality. The double perception of reality was replicated also at the anthropological level. Here, the double level of perception entails a fundamental distinction between body and soul, as well as one between two kinds of humans, those who are essentially spir‑ itual, able to receive true knowledge of the divinity, and those who remain irreme‑ diably enchained by their body to the world of matter. Direct consequences of such anthropology include esoteric traditions, which are available only to the »spirituals,« while they are denied to simpler, lower believers. Duality, then, represents a major principle of the new religious ethos emerging in our period. At the theological level, one finds it in dualist trends, such as Gnostic Christian groups, and especially in Manichaeism, the opposition between the ultimate Good God of the spiritual world (and of the elite among humans), versus the evil, or at least inept, Demiurge, creator of the material world. Gnosis, or true, secret knowledge, is usually acquired through ecstasy, an altered state of consciousness, so that the person itself is split between a lower, material body, and a spiritual double, which is heavenly.14 11   Cyril of Alexandria, Deux traités christologiques, ed. and trans. by G.‑M. de Durand (SC 97; Paris, 1964), 498 – 499 (773d). 12   Ibid., 775 a‑e. On Docetism, see chapters 7 and 8, below. 13   I deal with aspects of martyrdom in chapters 9 and 10, below. 14   On the interface between Manichaeism and Christianity, see chapters 18 to 20.

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Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

The same dual principle regulates both vision of spiritual reality (whence mysti‑ cism) and the two-tiered organization of religious communities. This principle rules religious society, differentiating these two groups of practitioners, the electi, privy to esoteric knowledge, and the auditores, whose belief is not based on the deep under‑ standing of the former (to use Augustine’s terms for the two classes of Manichae‑ ans). Just like in Buddhism, those »fellow travellers« support the core community, which the Buddhists call the Sangha, without really belonging to it. The God-fearers (yirei-shamaym, or phoboumenoi of Judaism), represent an important category of monotheists without a clear revelation of their own.15 In the world of late antiquity, religious communities, even when established on highly different principles, existed together, learning to live side-by-side, usually in awkward coexistence, more often than not pitted one against the other, in various styles of competition or conflict. Religious history, then, is the history of intertwined religious communities. It makes little sense, for instance, to depict the trajectory of, say, Christianity in its first centuries independently of the religious life of both Jews and pagans in the same period.16 Heresies are a special case of the conflicting atti‑ tude between religious phenomena so characteristic of our period. Within the broad spectrum of the monotheistic (and dualistic) religious pattern, conflicting attitudes were expressed in different ways of hermeneutics, of reading the scriptures. Such a hermeneutical web of communities obviously highlights their polemical competi‑ tions. At the same time, it reflects the uneasy convivencia between them, as well as the religious common language, or koine, in which they all somehow partook. The existence of a religious koinē of sorts underlines the global character of the world of late antiquity. It is within communities that religion is lived in our period. These communities, in their turn, function within webs of communication, where ideas, stories and practices circulate, ceaselessly undergoing transformations, some of which are radical enough to be considered real mutations. In a sense, such a world of communities is a globalized world, in which all religions have become diaspora religions.17 The constant movement of beliefs and rituals within the web of religious com‑ munities, however, resembles in no way to the free and untraceable movement of electrons. There is a clear vector in late antique religious history, towards structural simplification, i. e., a clear diminution of the margins of religious legitimacy, and a drive towards what has been called la pensée unique.18 This vector leads to a simpli‑ 15   On the existence of those »God-fearers« until the seventh century, see P. Crone, »Pagan Arabs as God-Fearers,« in C. Bakhos and M. Cook, eds., Islam and Its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an (Oxford Studies in the Abrahamic religions; Oxford, 2017), 140 – 164. 16   See J. Rüpke, »Early Christianity out of, and in, Context,« Journal of Roman Studies 99 (2009), 182 – 193. 17   On webs of communication of religions, see chapter 16, below. 18   P. Athanassiadi, Vers la pensée unique: La montée de l’intolérance dans l’Antiquité tardive (Paris, 2010). See chapter 15, below.

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

7

fied reality, in which one speaks of religious dissent rather than of hermeneutical richness. In the new world that is emerging in late antiquity, identity becomes essen‑ tially defined by religion rather than by ethnicity or culture. At least for students of religion, then, late antiquity represents a new axial age of sorts. As is well known, the concept of Axial Age, launched (or rather, re-launched) by Karl Jaspers in the aftermath of the Second World War, describes a striking series of (allegedly) similar transformations in thought and religion which occurred in societies as different as those of Greece, Israel, Iran, India, and China, more or less around the middle of the first millennium b.c.e.19 To some extent, late antiquity represents, at least for Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies, a turning point for religion and culture no less significant than that of the Achsenzeit. In two monographs, I have sought to show how two main characteristics of religion in the long late antiquity reflect such a transformation. In The End of Sacrifice, focusing on ritual, I discussed the long-range consequences of the disappearance, or at least the weakening, of sacrificial cults, mainly thanks to the combined efforts of Jews and Christians.20 In The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity, I dealt with the status and roles of books in the world of early Chris‑ tians, as well as with the idea of book religion and its implications, both cultural and religious.21 I approached the question at hand as a historian of religions rather than as a church historian, setting it within the broader perspective of what can be called the scriptural movement of late antiquity. Like Max Müller, I believe that in order to be fully understood, religious phenomena should be studied within a broad historical, cultural and social context. Thus, I emphasized the double paradigm shift, cultural as well as religious, which can be detected in late antiquity. At the core of the religious paradigm shift lies what I have called »the end of sacrifice,« i. e., the broad abandonment of public blood-sacrifice as a core religious ritual, in many religious systems of the Mediterranean and Near East, starting with Judaism, Christianity, and Manichaeism. As my argument there is presented in chapter 11 in this collec‑

19   On the Axial Age, see R. Bellah and H. Joas, eds., The Axial Age and its Consequences (Cam‑ bridge, Mass., and London, 2012); as well as, for Jaspers’ precursors, J. Assmann, Achsenzeit: Eine Archäologie der Moderne (Munich, 2018). 20   G. G. Stroumsa, La  fin du sacrifice: Mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Collège de France; Paris, 2005). English translation by S. Emanuel: The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2009). On contemporary research on sacrifice, see D. Ullucci, »Sac‑ rifice in the Ancient Mediterranean: Recent and Current Research,« Currents in Biblical Research 13 (2015), 388 – 439, as well as C. Hutt, »A Threefold Heresy: Reassessing Jewish, Christian and Islamic Animal Sacrifice in Late Antiquity,« History of Religions 58 (2019), 251 – 276, where the author con‑ vincingly argues for continuing sacrificial practices throughout late antiquity. 21   G. G. Stroumsa, The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., and Lon‑ don, 2017). On the formation of a Christian culture, see chapters 13 and 14, below. The following paragraphs owe much to G. G. Stroumsa, »The Scriptural Movement of Late Antiquity and Inter‑ twined Religious Histories,« postface to E. Grypeou, ed., The Scriptural Universe of Late Antiquity, forthcoming.

8

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

tion, I do not need to discuss it here. I only wish to note, at least, that our period underwent some kind of what we call now »globalization,« in which the clash of the Sasanian and the Roman Empires did not prevent the spread of cultural patterns (in particular, Aramaic as a lingua franca) across political borders. The most striking consequence of such a globalization may be the spread of Manichaeism across Asia, as well as in various provinces of the Western Roman Empire. We should remind ourselves, here, that Manichaeism is the first religion established by its founder as universal, or world religion. I wish instead to reflect briefly on the core of the cultural paradigm shift, which may be identified with the passage from scroll to codex, as the common physical support of books. From the first to the fourth century, these parallel transformations of the status and function of books would be accomplished, highlighting the dia‑ lectical relationship between culture and religion. More precisely, on may speak of intertwined religious and cultural histories. Born within the monotheistic climate of Judaism, Christianity grew up in »a world full of gods,« to use Keith Hopkins’ preg‑ nant expression. This was a world, moreover, in which Greek, Latin, and Aramaic were vying for the transmission of cultural traditions. Cultura christiana, when it eventually appeared, represented the ultimate result of a complex process, and would provide the backbone of European culture throughout the Middle Ages, until the Renaissance at least. As a religion of the book, then, early Christianity reflects a par‑ ticularly intricate mixture of religious and cultural transformation. It is the task of the historian to search for the rules of such transformations, for their grammar.22 A religion of the book, as should by now be clear, is not only a religion estab‑ lished upon a »sacred book,« which is held to be divinely revealed. The very idea of a revealed book entails a cascade of consequences. The community, or the network of communities, carrying this book and revering its origin, must endlessly protect, copy, translate, and interpret it. Those communities, then, live in nothing else than a scriptural universe, and its members, or at least its religiously active members, soon develop an intimacy of sorts with the holy text. In ancient societies, in which liter‑ acy was dramatically more limited than what has become common in the modern world, memory was much more developed than today, and oral traditions played a role that we find difficult to imagine. In many ways, we have now lost the »scriptural intimacy« that was common in pre-modern societies. In a recent book, Karen Armstrong, one of the most persistent and powerful voices in the eminently respectable task of popularizing religious scholarship in the Anglophone world, deals at length with precisely this predicament of ours.23 For the 22   On aspects of the formation of a Christian culture and cultural memory, see chapters 14 and 15, below. 23   K. Armstrong, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts (London, 2019). See my review in The Times Literary Supplement, »Do as you’d be done by: Religious literacy and practical ethics,« TLS 6104 (26 March 2020), 32.

Introduction: A New Religious Ethos

9

explanation of our predicament, Armstrong turns to the cognitive sciences. More precisely, she refers to the two hemispheres of the brain: the right hemisphere, essen‑ tial to imagination, and hence to the creation of poetry, music, and religion; and the left hemisphere, identified with logical reasoning, responsible for science and tech‑ nology. The predominance of science in the modern world, she says, has brought with it an imbalance between the two hemispheres, a hypertrophy of the left and an atrophy of the right. One of the most dramatic consequences of this new human condition is the loss of our former familiarity with the language of religion – in other words, our present religious illiteracy. We no longer know how to read religious texts. We have lost the hermeneutical key, says Armstrong, which is needed to open them. These texts do not simply carry knowledge, but sustain a way of life, and are a means of self-transformation. As such, they must be read according to traditional rules of interpretation. Hermeneutics, in such a scheme, reflects both epistemic contents and behavioral patterns. Some scriptures, however, were composed as oral literature, and meant to be recited, or sung, in ritual. Such scriptures were redacted only later. For the Qur’an, this process seems to have lasted a few decades. The Zoroastrian Gathas, on the other hand, remained oral for more than a millennium. It is amazing that such texts could stay quite stable for so long, even when their language, Avestan, had long ceased to be understood, even by the priests. One should however remember that in religious history, texts do not only evolve from an oral to a written form. In the »scriptural universe« of a religion, there is also room for the reverse movement, for the oral interpretation of written texts. Actually, hermeneutics is infinitely complex: texts are sung, memorized, commented upon, translated, and enacted in ritual. In order to grasp the life of sacred texts in the historical development of a given religion, one has to postulate a meta-textuality of sorts. Armstrong argues that in a globalized world, we should consider ourselves as the heirs of all the various scriptures and religious traditions. Only such an approach, she says, can permit us to move from toleration of the other to a new symbiosis. It is hard to disagree with such a generous vision, although this is a cultural task rather than a religious challenge. Developing a deep understanding of other people’s religious scriptures and of their religious history necessitates, to  use anthropological vocabulary, an etic approach, not an emic one. Hence, it represents primarily a broadening of one’s cul‑ tural memory, rather than a transformation of one’s religious tradition. Translating the religious traditions of others into the terms of one’s own is a very old habit, well known in the ancient world. The most dramatic such attempt is probably that of Mani, who in the third century c.e. designed the first consciously universal religion. Manichaeism sought to integrate into a world system the gods and prophets of all nations – Zarathustra, Jesus, Buddha – all, that is to say, except the god and proph‑ ets of the Jews, whom Mani perceived as evil. This last trait of Manichaean religious mythopoiesis underlines the late antique failure to imagine a genuinely universal reli‑ gion.

Part I

Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus Do myths die? Like religions, and more than religions, myths show a rare capacity to evolve, adapt and transform themselves, even when the social and cultural con‑ text which first nurtured them is long gone. Were we to accept Claude Lévi-Strauss’ famous dictum, according to which a myth is defined by the sum of all its versions, even contemporary interpretations of archaic myths would constitute an integral part of these myths.1 Hence, the nature of a myth would include its own history; this would make it difficult to argue that myths can die at all. Yet, although myths are in a large measure resistant to the erosion of time, they are not quite immune from it. The following pages deal with some avatars of one Greek mythological figure after the emergence of Christianity, thus following the diachronical transformation of a myth by culture. A corollary question of importance, which however will only be alluded to, here, deals with the ways in which the historical consciousness of a human group is marked and modeled over time by its myths. The myth of Prometheus, chosen here to exemplify this complex dialectic, is a very peculiar one. It appears already in two different versions in Hesiod, both in Works and Days and in the Theogony. The myth proposes nothing less than an inter‑ pretation of civilization and its origins, together with an etiology of sacrifice and of the existence of evil in the world.2 Through the gift of fire it is work, civilization and culture that Prometheus offered mankind. This was indeed the main interpretation of the myth in classical Greece, as Plato’s Protagoras makes clear. Prometheus him‑ self, the titan who first opposed his kin then to revolt against Zeus, is a complex and peculiar figure, an unicum in the Greek pantheon.3 Throughout Western history, Prometheus has remained a major figure of refer‑ ence for cultural self-consciousness and self-understanding. Indeed, the history of

1

  C. Lévi-Strauss, »La structure des mythes,« in Anthropologie structurale (Paris, 1968), 227 – 255.  Hesiod, Works and Days, 42 – 105 and Theogony, 507 – 616, in Hesiod, text with trans. by H. G. Evelyn-White (Loeb Classical Library [hereafter LCL]; London, New York, 1920), 4 – 9, 116 –  125. On the second text, see the commentary of M. L. West, Hesiod, Theogony (Oxford, 1966), esp. 305 – 308. 3   For a thorough analysis of Prometheus, according to the main Greek texts, see U. Bianchi, »Prometheus, der titanische Trickster,« in his Selected Essays on Gnosticism; Dualism and Mysteriosophy (Suppl. Numen 38; Leiden, 1978), 126 – 150. One can still consult with great profit K. Bapp’s article in W. H. Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, III, cols.  3032 – 3110. 2

14

Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

Western self-consciousness might be particularly well illustrated by the transfor‑ mations of Prometheus.4 Such a history, or rather meta-history, has been recently attempted by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg.5 Ambiguous, very learned and difficult, Arbeit am Mythos is an impressive achievement. Yet, it seems some‑ how to miss the mark. One of the reasons for the reader’s frustration lies in the fact that Blumenberg does not elucidate well enough how a major chasm in Western history, the advent of Christianity, came to alter radically the conception of culture, and hence to transform, in a drastic way, the status of Prometheus and his myth in cultural self-perception. The first Christian centuries did not only witness the rad‑ ical transformation of Greek culture by an alien Weltanschauung, but also the last full-fledged attempt in antiquity to revive mythological patterns of thought. At the dawn of the Christian era, Gnosticism, this »acute Hellenization of Christianity,« as Harnack called it, offers the most radical rejection of culture and civilization to be found in Western history. It is to a great extent as a reaction to the gnostic challenge that Christian consciousness asserted itself and crystallized. Hence, the bearing of Gnosticism upon perceptions of Prometheus. In Prometheus and Lucifer, R. J. Zwi Werblowsky noticed the »interesting ambivalence« of Prometheus, a figure »capa‑ ble of developing in two directions,« close sometimes to Christ, and sometimes to Satan.6 It is on this ambivalence and on the radically new status of Prometheus in the interpretatio christiana that these pages seek to reflect. The ambiguity from which Prometheus seems never to depart is that of a trickster. Despite recent attacks, the category of the trickster remains of considerable use for analyzing mythical figures who revolt by cunning against higher deities, often to the direct or indirect benefit of humans.7 Tricksters are by definition liminal and inter‑ mediate figures, who seem to be crossing freely the borderline between good and evil. Sometimes they even appear as belonging to the »other« power. They are daring, and they are cunning.8 Cunning intelligence, or mētis, belongs to Prometheus already in Hesiod, who applied to him the epithet ankylomētēs, »crooked of counsel.«9 Mētis

4   For a survey of the place of Prometheus in the history of Western thought, see H. Levin, »Pro‑ metheus,« Dictionary of the History of Ideas, III, col. 235 ff. Levin refers to various studies which I was unable to consult, such as R. Trousson, Le theme de Prométhée dans la littérature européenne (2 vols., Geneve, 1964); J. Duchemin, Prométhée, histoire du mythe, de ses origins orientales à ses incarnations modernes (Paris, 1974); or L. Sechan, Le mythe de Prométhée (Paris, 1951). 5   H. Blumenberg, Arbeit am Mythos (Frankfurt, 1979), now also in a good English translation, Work on Myth (Cambridge, Mass., 1995). 6   R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Lucifer and Prometheus: A Study of Milton’s Satan (London, 1952), 63. 7   See C. Grottanelli, »Tricksters, Scapegoats, Champions, Saviors,« History of Religions 23 (1984), 117 – 139, a remarkable study which could be subtitled »Apology for the Trickster,« on Prometheus, see p. 135. On tricksters see also V. Turner, »Myth and Symbol,« in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 10, 576 – 581. 8  See, for instance, Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale, ch. 11, and Myth and Meaning (Toronto, 1978), ch. 3; cf. Grottanelli, art. cit., 136. 9  Hesiod, Theog. 546.

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus

15

was a major quality in early Greek thought, as Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Ver‑ nant have shown.10 Together with mythical patterns of thought, however, mētis was almost blurred by the success of philosophy – a fact which accounts for its neglect by modem scholars. Characterized by ambivalence, mētis is an integral part of myth‑ ological thinking, which could not be integrated in thought patterns established on the rule tertium non datur. Ambivalence characterizes the Greek Prometheus, as it does any mythical hero. From Hesiod to Lucian of Samosata, Prometheus is described at once as positive and negative, both in bonam and in malam partem. The most original aspect of the Theogony lies in Hesiod’s attempt to introduce moral order into the complex world of myths which he inherits. Hence Zeus’ vic‑ tory, and the justification of his punishment of Prometheus. At the other end of the Greek spectrum, in Lucian’s Dialogue between Prometheus and Zeus, Zeus summa‑ ries the chief points of accusation against the rebellious titan in the following way. He is guilty of having brought evil on three accounts: through his cunning with the parts of sacrifice, through his responsibility for the creation of man and woman, and finally by stealing fire.11 The revolt motif is thus not always viewed quite favorably in Greek texts, although no malice is attributed to Prometheus. The tragedians view Prometheus’ stealing of fire as his main achievement. Soph‑ ocles calls him ho pyrophoros theos titan, while Aeschylus, in his Prometheus Bound, insists on his audacity, his over-daring. He also describes Prometheus giving men »blind hopes,« typhlas elpidas, taking away their foreknowledge in order to make human life bearable.12 From the fourth century b.c.e. on, as a new, pessimistic attitude towards culture becomes pervading, more clearly expressed condemnations of Prometheus appear. For Menander, Prometheus is justly condemned since he molded women, »an abom‑ inable cast, hated of all the gods, methinks. Is some man bent on marrying? on mar‑ rying?«13 Even more radically, Diogenes of Sinope describes Prometheus as the author of men’s corruption. From now on, the formation of human beings is more 10

  M. Detienne and J.‑P. Vernant, Les ruses de l’intelligence: la métis des grecs (Paris, 1974), esp. 62 – 66, 84 – 103. 11  Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods, in Works, VII, ed., trans. M. D. Macleod, (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1961), 259. 12  Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 55; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 148 – 150; see 237 – 238, on Prometheus’ daring. Cf. E. Meron, »Une lecture socratique du Prométhée d’Eschyle ou: Prométhée, fondateur de la religion,« Revue des Etudes Anciennes  85 (1983), 199 – 213, who describes Pro‑ metheus as a »quasi-Christic mediator.« For the »blind hopes« given to mankind, see C. Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 241, and W. C. Greene, Moira: Fate, Good and Evil in Greek Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 120. An analysis of the dia‑ lectical relationship between bodily and inner blindness and vision (cf. Tiresias and Oedipus) in Greek texts would be worthwhile. 13  Menander, The Principal Fragments, text with trans. by F. G. Allinson (LCL; London, New York, 1921), 483.

16

Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

and more attributed to Prometheus.14 Nonnus of Panopolis (fifth century c.e.) is a late witness to the dubious heritage which Prometheus left mankind: Nay – Prometheus himself is the cause of man’s misery – Prometheus who cares for poor mortals! Instead of fire which is the beginning of all evil he ought rather to have stolen sweet nectar, which rejoices the heart of the gods, and given that to men, that he might have scattered the sorrows of the world with your own drink.15

One of the most revealing discussions of Prometheus in the Greek realm is found in Lucian. This skeptical and ferocious writer of Syrian origin (second century c.e.) wrote both a mock-play called Prometheus and the Dialogue already mentioned. In this Dialogue, Prometheus is presented as a trickster: »You’ll deceive me again,« fears Zeus. Prometheus is eventually released from his punishment as a reward for his advice to Zeus not to make love to the Nereid Thetis, since the child born of this union would eventually dethrone his father.16 The Prometheus begins with a dia‑ logue between Hephaestus and Hermes, who are charged with carrying out Zeus’ sentence. Hephaestus tells Hermes: Yes, let’s look about, Hermes: we mustn’t crucify (estaurōsthai) him low and close to the ground for fear that man, his own handiwork, may come to his aid, or yet on the summit either, for he would be out of sight from below . . .17

This text is noticeable on two accounts. First, as far as I know, Lucian is the only author – the Church Fathers included – to describe the punishment inflicted upon Prometheus as a crucifixion (although there does not seem to be any Christian influ‑ ence on him). Secondly, Prometheus appears in this text as a mediator, a mesitēs, of a very special kind: he should remain crucified between heaven and earth, between gods and men, at last perfect instance of his kin the titans, the intermediary race. His crucifixion is not presented as a link between the human and the divine worlds. On the contrary, it is a perpetual reminder of the boundaries that cannot be trespassed with impunity. No picture could express more poignantly Prometheus’ status as a savior himself in need of salvation, a salvator salvandus to use the term coined by Augustine in his anti-Manichaean polemics.18 Lucian’s play presents in a nutshell the legacy of Prometheus for classical antiq‑ uity. In his dialogue with Hermes, Prometheus attempts to justify himself: his acts have done no wrong to the gods, while they have given so much to mankind:

14

  See Blumenberg, Work on Myth, 325 ff.  Nonnus, Dionysiaca 7. 58 – 63; text with trans. by W. H. D. Rouse (LCL; London, Cambridge, Mass., 1962), 249. 16   See note 11, above. The whole dialogue is short: op. cit., 256 – 261. 17  Lucian, Works, second ed., trans. A. M. Harmon (LCL; London, New York, 1916), 242. 18   On the mythological conception of the erlöste Erlöser in gnostic contexts, see C. Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule: Darstellung und Kritik ihres Bildes vom gnostischen Erlösermythus (FRLANT 78: Göttingen, 1961). Colpe does not refer to Prometheus in this study. 15

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus

17

The whole world is no longer barren and unbeautiful, but adorned with cities and tilled lands and cultivated plants, the sea is sailed and the islands are inhabited, and everywhere there are altars and sacrifices, temples and festivals . . .19

Despite this plea for human culture – and for his own sake – Prometheus remains the author of »that reprehensible theft« (elsewhere, Lucian calls him the god of theft, kleptikēs ho theos),20 who deserved his punishment and who owes his eventual release only to his deal with Zeus. The ambivalence of Prometheus, his cunning with the gods and his gift to man‑ kind, is thus particularly striking in the image of the crucified titan, half Christ, half thief. This icon, as it were, illustrates the radical difference between Christianity and the classical world. Yet, this is the penultimate, not the last representation of Prometheus in Greek pagan literature. In his Oration VI to the Uneducated Cynics, Julian the Apostate refers to Prometheus in these terms: The gift of the gods sent down to mankind with the glowing flame of fire from the sun through the agency of Prometheus, along with the blessings that we owe to Hermes, is no other than the bestowal of reason and mind . . .21

What is striking in this text is not so much the total spiritualization of the civilizing mission of Prometheus, as the fact that he is only the gods’ envoy. The revolt motif has totally disappeared and with it the ambiguity which we have seen to be a consti‑ tutive quality of Prometheus throughout Greek culture. We are left with an abstract figure, quite disconnected from any mythical context. In the fourth century c.e., indeed, the times had changed. And even Julian, the last herald of paganism, was influenced by the abhorred Galilean faith of his youth in deeper and more subtle ways than he realized: for him, myth had become metaphor.22 This transformation through which the dying myth reappears is directly connected with the emergence of the new faith, as we shall presently see. The myth of Prometheus has faded out, but the figure of Prometheus himself survives, however univalent. Prometheus now rep‑ resents a clearly defined quality, though he has lost the autonomous life which was his when the myth was still alive. 19

 Lucian, Works, II, 257.  Lucian, Works, VI, text with trans. by K. Kilbum (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1959), 426: »To one who said: ›You’re a Prometheus in words‹.« 21  Julian, Oratio VI, C – D; Works, II, text with trans. by W. C. Wright (LCL; London, New York, 1913), 89. 22   J. Bidez was the first to unveil the deep-reaching Christian influences on Julian, in his La vie de l’Empereur Julien (Paris, 1930). See also G. W. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (Cambridge, Mass., 1978). On the transformation of myth into metaphor with the passage from the mythology of archaic cultures into »cultural languages« of a non-mythological type, see an important paper of two Russian semiologists, J. M. Lotman and B. Uspenskij, which I could read only in Spanish translation, »Mito, nombre, cultura,« in J. M. Lotman, et al., Semiotica de la cultura (Madrid, 1979), 111 – 135, esp. 124 – 125, 133. The authors insist that metaphors cannot occur in mythological texts proper, but only as the con‑ clusion of the »tumultuous processes which accompany the disintegration of mythical consciousness.« 20

18

Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

In Lucian’s Prometheus, men are said to have been created in the gods’ shape, a fact which has fueled some speculation about possible Jewish influences.23 Lucian, however, remains poles apart from the monotheistic conception. For him, it is rather the gods who seem to be made in the image of men and to behave like them, in highly dubious ways. The advent of Christianity implanted in the Greco-Roman world the ethical dualism inherited from Judaism. God was enthroned above, beyond any ethi‑ cal ambiguity, and next to him was his Son, the Savior of mankind. The strong ­ethical bent in early Christian thought was often, although not always, combined with cos‑ mological, anthropological, or even theological dualism (see, already, the Qumrān texts). Among pagan thinkers, this ethical earnestness was widely recognized as one of the more respectable sides of a religion seen as despicable on various other accounts.24 It entailed a radical suppression of those elements of playfulness and ambiguity ubiquitous in Greek mythology. Hence, in a Christian Weltanschauung, the polarity between Satan and Christ as the perfect epitome of the fight between evil and good in its cosmic dimension. In Origen’s words, for instance, Every man who has chosen evil and to live an evil life so that he does everything contrary to virtue is a Satan, that is, an adversary of the Son of God, who is righteousness, truth, and wisdom25

This duality represents a radical departure from mythological thinking.26 It creates, as it were, a split between the two sides of the titan who had both revolted against divine order and offered his salvific help to mankind. Moreover, early Christian sote‑ riology was quite alien to the major trends of Greek thought. Prometheus’ gift per‑ mitted mankind to build and rule the world; Jesus’ sacrifice offered men salvation from »the ruler of this world.« Prometheus’ ambiguity could often express Greek discontent with civilization. For the Christians, things were radically different: civi‑ lization, that is to say a pagan construct, was perceived as negative, at least in ethical and soteriological terms – the only terms which mattered. The drastic paradigmatic change did not wipe out all traces of mythology from the new religion. Around 170 c.e., the pagan thinker Celsus notes that Christian views of the devil are in fact transformations of various Greek myths.27 Celsus 23

  Blumenberg, op. cit., 347.   See among many other instances, towards the end of the third century, the beginning of Alex‑ ander of Lycopolis, Critique of the Doctrines of Manichaeus, trans. P. W. van der Horst and J. Mansfeld (Leiden, 1974). 25  Origen, Contra Celsum VI.44, trans. H. Chadwick (Cambridge, Mass., 1980; third ed.), 361. 26   The new thinking also offered an epistemology fundamentally different from that pro‑ pounded by mythology: »Cet état de choses aurait pu durer mille ans; il s’est modifié parce que le champ du savoir a vu sa carte bouleversée par la formation de nouvelles puissances d’ affirmation qui concurrençaient le mythe et, à la différence du mythe, posaient expressément 1’alternative du vrai et du faux.« P. Veyne, Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes? (Paris, 1984), 35 and note 44. 27   Ibid., IV. 42 ff. (ed. Chadwick, 218 ff.). See J. Pépin, Mythe et allégorie: les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris, 1976; second ed.), 448 – 452; and compare 200 – 201 on Ploti‑ nus’ interpretation of the myth. 24

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus

19

explicitly refers here to the gigantomachy of old, the fight of titans and giants who had revolted against the gods. The persistent awareness of a deep similarity between the two systems, stemming from a common origin, was not exclusive to pagan writ‑ ers. Some of the Church Fathers also refer to genetic links between Christian truth and Greek philosophy or mythology. For them, of course, divine revelation had also chronological primacy, and those elements of truth found in the pagan systems had been stolen. Thus Tertullian: Now whence, I ask you, do the philosophers and poets find things so similar? Whence, indeed, unless it be from our mysteries?28

More precisely, Clement of Alexandria elaborates his famous theory of the theft: Philosophy . . . came to us stolen or given by a thief. Some power, some angel learned a bit of truth, without staying himself faithful to truth, and revealed this knowledge to men, taught them the fruit of his theft.29

Structurally, this story is quite similar to the myth of Prometheus. The implicit refer‑ ence, however, is not to Prometheus but to the Watchers and their fall, that is to say to the Jewish version of the ancient Near Eastern culture hero myth.30According to this myth, transmitted by Enochic literature and the Book of Jubilees, the secrets of civilization were brought from heaven by the angels who revolted against God under their leaders Shemhazzai and Assa’el. In the Jewish pseudepigrapha a clear distinc‑ tion is made between true wisdom received by Enoch and pagan culture deriving from the fallen angels. The trends of these writings represented a manifest process of re-mythologizing inside Judaism. Paradoxically, it developed in Palestine among Hassidim and Essenes, i. e., groups who stood for the purity of Jewish culture against Hellenistic influences. The myth of the fallen angels and the myth of Prometheus both represent different but parallel developments from the original Near Eastern mythical pattern.31 The mythical conception of the origins of culture developed in Jewish pseude‑ pigraphical literature had a very significant Fortleben in early Christianity, where it formed the basis of esoteric teaching, or doctrina arcani, as it was later called.32 It is therefore not surprising to find it also at the root of gnostic mythology, a baroque development of these esoteric traditions. Since the Nag Hammadi discovery, more‑ 28  Tertullian, Apologeticus 47.14; text with trans. by T. R. Glover (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., Lon‑ don, 1977; fourth ed.), 211. 29  Clement, Strom. I 17.81.4, in O. Stählin. ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, Werke, II (GCS 15: Leipzig, 1906), 53. Cf. Strom. V. 89 ff., where Clement dwells on the Greek borrowings from Scripture. 30   See now R. Bauckham, »The Fall of the Angels as the Source of Philosophy in Hermias and Clement of Alexandria,« Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985), 313 – 330. 31   On the influence of West Asian myths on the formation of Greek mythology, see for instance G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth, 1974), ch. 11. 32   See my »Paradosis: doctrines ésotériques dans le christianisme des premiers siècles,« in P. Geoltrain, J.‑C. Picard, and A. Desreumaux, eds., La fable apocryphe (Turnhout, 1990), 133 – 153.

20

Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

over, research has been focusing upon re-mythologizing trends in Second Common‑ wealth Judaism as the direct source of some of the core gnostic myths.33 The leader of the fallen angels (Nephilim), for instance, was transformed through a major muta‑ tion into the figure of the evil demiurge.34 On the other hand, despite some random speculation and a few parallels, common elements between gnostic and Greek myths seem to remain very scarce. A better insight, perhaps, into the similarities and dis‑ similarities of both mythologies might be gained by comparing structures. Expelled from philosophy, mētis returned to the fore with Gnosis, the last fullblown attempt in the ancient world to revive mythical patterns of thought. Karl Kérényi has referred to the Gnostic Anthropos, the divine Primal Man of gnostic myth, as the only figure comparable in many ways to Prometheus (although he also alluded in the same sentence to »important differences« between the two figures).35 What primarily seems to have struck Kérényi in this context is the strong bond with mankind of a divine trickster. In gnostic context, however, it is not primarily the Anthropos, but rather the demiurge, and to a certain extent the Savior, who partake in some of the trickster’s qualities. A recent study devoted to the gnostic demiurge insists on his ability to cross boundaries and on his »lack of determination« as basic features qualifying him as a particular instance of a trickster.36 Yet the gnostic demiurge, whether he is called Yaldabaoth (i. e., creator of chaos), Saklas (the fool), or Samael (the blind one), in no way partakes in the ambivalence inherent to the trickster. He does not have any redeeming features and can only be considered as anti-god, either threatening and dangerous or foolish and ridiculous. Actually, only a few features are common to Prometheus and Samael: both appear in myths of creation, of the origin of evil, and of salvation. Like Prometheus, Saklas is a bringer of civilization, but this civiliza‑ tion is regarded as wholly evil. Similarly, fire is always described in strongly negative terms in gnostic texts, where work plays no role whatsoever.37 Prometheus brought blind hopes; Samael’s very name reflects his innate blindness. The son of Iapetus had saved his son, Deucalion, from the flood by advising him to build an arch; in the 33

  For a bibliography, see my Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Nag Hammadi Stud‑ ies 24; Leiden, 1984), 10, note 40. 34   See for instance M. Scopello, »Le mythe de la ›chute‹ des anges dans l’Apocryphon de Jean (II.I) de Nag Hammadi,« Revue des Sciences Religieuses 54 (1980), 220 – 230; and B. Barc, ed. and trans., L’Hypostase des archontes: traité gnostique sur l’origine de l’homme, du monde et des archontes (Bibl. Copte de Nag Hammadi, Textes 4; Quebec, Louvain, 1980), esp. 32 ff. See also F. T. Fallon, The Enthronement of Sabaoth: Jewish Elements in Gnostic Creation Myths (Nag Hammadi Studies 10; Leiden, 1978), 28 – 33. 35   K. Kérényi, in P. Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York, 1956), 180 – 181; cf. K.  Kérényi, Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence (Bollingen Series 65.1; New York, 1963), 3, 53 – 55. 36   I. S. Gilhus, »The Gnostic Demiurge – An Agnostic Trickster,« Religion 14 (1984), 301 – 311. 37   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Ascèse et Gnose: aux origines de la spiritualité monastique,« Revue Thomiste 81 (1981), 557 – 573.

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus

21

same manner, the demiurge saves Noah, his faithful servant.38 Both Prometheus and Samael fight against the neos theos, the upstart who rules the world, in order to come to man’s help; boēthos, helper, is an important epithet in some of the gnostic texts. Rather similarly to the bringer of fire, the gnostic savior is called the phōstēr, the illuminator. Finally, even more than Prometheus, the gnostic savior is the classical instance of the erlöste Erlöser.39 In other words, although Samael and Christ can each boast of certain Promet‑ hean traits, neither of them seems to fully integrate the fundamental quality through which Prometheus was what he was. In order to help men, Prometheus used cunning against Zeus, the higher god. But it is against men that Samael’s cunning is oriented, while Christ’s mētis is oriented towards the demiurge, a false god, essentially lower than himself. Thus the functions which were filled in the Greek myth by Prometheus seem to be divided in Gnosticism between the two major protagonists. Ambiguity was an essential feature of Prometheus in the Greek myth. The change of paradigms initiated by the emergence of Christianity and of Gnosticism, through the splitting of mythical functions and the establishment of a system in which good and evil are radical polarities, has suppressed his ambiguity. From the meeting of early Christianity and the classical world a two-tiered cul‑ ture emerged. The Greek legacy, even through a radical interpretatio christiana, could not hope for more than an honorable second place as a culture of reference. The first rank was reserved to Christian mysteries, historia sacra, theology. Moreover, the Greek legacy of early Christianity was not equally composed of all fields of Greek culture. Philosophy was high-ranking in the eyes of the Church Fathers, or at least of some of the more intellectually minded among them, while they could find no pos‑ itive value whatsoever in pagan religion. Mythology hung somewhere in-between, closer to religion than to philosophy. It was usually referred to as exemplifying the errors and the nonsense of paganism. The theologians, who succeeded rather quickly in integrating whole chapters of Greek philosophy into Christian thought, proved much more recalcitrant with mythology. His radical rejection of Zeus permitted at least a partial rehabilitation of Pro‑ metheus. For Tertullian, for instance, God the creator is the true Prometheus: verus Prometheus Deus omnipotens.40 Lactantius offers a criticism of the myth of Pro‑ metheus in his Divine Institutions.41 Both Origen and Augustine know the myth and 38

  For instance in the Apocalypse of Adam, 69 – 72, where Noah is explicitly identified with Deu‑ calion. English text in J. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library (New York, 1977; second ed.), 258. 39   See note 18, above. 40  Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem I.1; ed. and trans. E. Evans (Oxford, 1972), 4 – 5. The phrase comes immediately after the mention of the Caucasus. See also Apologeticus XVIII.2 (LCL), 88 – 89: ». . . He alone is God, who made the universe, who fashioned man of mud – for He is the true Pro‑ metheus.« 41  See especially Lactantius, Divine Institutions II.11, in Migne’s Patrologia Latina (PL)  6, cols. 311 – 316, esp. 313B: »Apparet ergo falsum esse quod de opificio Promethei narrant.«

22

Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

refer to it, albeit in a rather perfunctory way. As expected, the Church Fathers follow the trend initiated among pagan writers: for them Prometheus was not so much the creator of man as the creator of the world. It is an intriguing fact that Prometheus does not appear to have been described as a prototype of Christ before the time of Percy Shelley, whose Prometheus Unbound (1820) is a paean to human freedom, in which Christ revolts against Jehovah’s tyr‑ anny. Giordano Bruno, on his side, was the first thinker to identify Prometheus and man, both defined for him by their felix culpa.42 Even though this final Entmythologisierung of Prometheus was enacted only with the Renaissance, it had been prepared by the establishment of Christian dogma in the first centuries c.e. When Augustine coined the expression felix culpa, he endowed Adam with the core Pro‑ methean quality, that of the trickster. Just as human culture could not have been established without the theft of fire, so only the eating of the apple rendered human salvation possible. According to the Augustinian pattern it is man, not a god, who is described as a basically ambiguous figure. In Christianity, and hence in Western culture, it is of men, not of gods, that myths are told. With the progressive loosening of Christian grip over thought, Prometheus will regain importance. The fascinating modern history of Prometheus cannot be dealt with here. It goes from Goethe’s »Prometheus« (1789), which Nietzsche called an »Hymnus der Unfrömmigkeit,«43 to the »neo-gnostic« Ernst Bloch, for whom Prometheus is »the god who expressed disbelief in God.«44 A figure of positive antinomianism, Prometheus remains on moral terms a one-sided metaphor rather than a mythical trickster. The post-Christian frame of cultural ref‑ erence retains the dualistic ethical pattern of Christianity. As a metaphor, the former titan now stands for the civilizing and creative urge of man. He is seen in opposition either to Christ, when civilization is perceived as negative or evil, or to Satan, when this urge is deemed to be basically good and coming as a surrogate for Christian salvation. In any case, he is seen in reference and in opposition to other figures. Pro‑ metheus as a metaphoric hero has lost both the autonomy and the ambiguity inher‑ ent to the Greek myth. He is now riveted to a single sense. He is no longer a trickster. 42   G. Bruno, Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo I; Opere italiane, ed. P. de Lagarde (Göttingen, 1888), 582, cited by Blumenberg, op. cit., 361, note 12. On Prometheus and Christ see P. de St. Victor, Les deux masques, I (Paris, 1880), 335 – 337. 43   F. Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, 9, in his Sämtliche Werke, I (Munich, Berlin, 1980), 64 – 71. In this paragraph, Nietzsche opposes the myth of Prometheus, as a major document of Aryan (and male) mythology to the myth of the fall (of Adam), as representing the Semitic (and female) mind. He sees the »titanische Drang« as the common ground between the Promethean and the Dionysian. 44   Reference to Bloch’s Das Prinzip Hoffnung, III, 1428, 1430 – 1432, is made by J. Bentley, »Pro‑ metheus versus Christ in the Christian-Marxist Dialogue,« Journal of Theological Studies (NS) 29 (1978), 483 – 494, esp. 486 – 487. On p. 486, Bloch is referred to as claiming that, »For some Gnostics (in what Bloch regards a crazy reversal of the truth) Prometheus came to signify the devil.« I am unaware of such gnostic traditions.

1. Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus

23

Prometheus’ Fortleben in the two-tiered cultural tradition of the West expresses the same change of status that befell other important Greek myths. The cultural chasm which imposed new paradigms of civilization and self-understanding was bound to transform in radical fashion a myth about the origins of civilization.45 The question remains, of course, whether through a subtle dialectical process the new metaphoric figure did not, its its turn, impose its mark on Western culture. In any case, the remembrance of myths past does not quite revive them. Like the hero for Victor Hugo, Prometheus can now only be »un mythe à face humaine.«

45   Among the most important new parameters of civilization is the early Christian discovery of the self. See my »Caro salutis cardo: Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought,« History of Religions 30 (1990), 25 – 50. On the direct bearing of this new perception on myth, see H. Jonas, »Myth and Mysticism: A Study of Objectification and Interiorization in Religious Thought,« Journal of Religion 49 (1969), 315 – 327.

2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered As is well known, the first literary reference to ΙΧΘΥΣ, the famous acronym iden‑ tifying Christ with a fish, is found at the beginning of Tertullian’s treatise On Baptism. Tertullian refers to the Christians as »little fish«, since they are the followers of Christ, »our ΙΧΘΥΣ«, which is interpreted as an acronym for Ίησοῦς χριστὸς θεοῦ υἱὸς σωτήρ, »Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.«1 The earliest non-literary reference to the five-letter symbol, used in antiquity as an ideogram for Christ, is found in Aber‑ cius’ epitaph, now in the Lateran museum, a document which has been studied in depth by Johannes Quasten. The allusive character of the text points to the fact that the association of Christ with »fish« was already common at the time. The acronym appears again in a more developed fashion in the Sibylline Oracles, a text explained and translated by Augustine in his De civitate dei, XVIII.23.2 Although the ΙΧΘΥΣ symbol has given birth to a rich literature, its origins remain mysterious, a fact recognized by the many scholars who have contributed to the study of the problem.3 In the following remarks I intend to propose a fresh solution to this crux. Franz Dölger, more than anyone else, addressed this question, in a series of research papers published between 1910 and 1928 under the title »ΙΧΘΥΣ.« To sum‑ marize very briefly a complex and well-documented argument, Dölger claims that the metaphorical conception of Jesus as a fish must have its origins in his baptism, and cannot be the result of the acronym.4 The acronym’s dependence upon the ear‑ lier reference to Christ as a fish stands to reason, and seems to have been accepted by

1  Tertullian, De baptismo 1.3: »Sed nos pisciculi secundum ΙΧΘΥΣ nostrum Iesum Christum in aqua nascimur nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus.« See E. Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism (London, 1964), commentary on p. 64. 2  Augustine, De civitate dei. Libri  XI – XXII, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb (CCSL 48; Turnhout, 1955), 613 – 614. For the text of the Sibylline Oracles, see J. Geffcken’s edition (GCS 8; Leipzig, 1902), VIII, 217 – 250, 153 – 157. 3   See, for instance, the wording of F. Refoulé and M. Rouzy, Tertullien, Traité du baptème (SC 35; Paris, 1952), 65, note 2: »L’origine de cet acrostiche reste encore mystérieuse.« On various cultural and religious contexts, from Greece to India, in which the fish appears as a central figure in myth, see H. Schmidt, Jona: eine Untersuchung zur vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte (FRLANT 9; Göttingen, 1907). On the fish symbol in the early church, see pp. 144 – 155. In his study, Schmidt does not use Jewish material in any significant way. 4   F. Dölger’s studies have appeared in various publications. See in particular Römische Quartalschrift, 23, 1 ff.; ΙΧΘΥΣ (Münster, 1910); Der heilige Fisch in den antiken Religionen und im Christentum (= ΙΧΘΥΣ, II; Münster, 1922); Das Fisch-Symbol in frühchristlicher Zeit (Münster, 1928).

2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered

25

most scholars. The acronym itself, which according to Dölger appeared around the end of the second century, should be understood as corresponding to Christ’s titles in the early church. Much of the evidence collected by Dölger, as well as his major conclusions, have been picked up in various encyclopedia articles.5 Franz Cumont’s study of the question was published as the entry »ΙΧΘΥΣ« in the Pauly-Wissowa Encyklopädie der klassischen Welt.6 On the relationship between the fish symbol and the acronym, Cumont agrees with Dölger that the play on letters is the consequence, not the source of the imagery.7 On the origin of the symbol itself, however, his conclusions are rather different from Dölger’s. He rejects the idea of a Christian origin, and sees the symbol as reflecting a clearly Eastern religious influ‑ ence on early Christianity. Cumont devotes much attention to Syrian parallels, taken in particular from Lucian’s writings, which tend to show the importance of the fish as a symbol of divinity in various religious contexts, and especially in Phoenician and Punic religion. Basing himself upon Ovid’s testimony, he points out that fish was taboo among the Syrians: Inde nefas ducunt genus hoc imponere mensis nec volant timidi piscibus era Syri.8

He concludes, in a rather sweeping fashion, that the Syrians’ avoidance of fish in their diet was similar in its radicalism to the Jews’ avoidance of pork.9 Altogether, Cumont believes that the early Christian fish symbol has its origins in a pagan »taboo.« Isidor Scheftelowitz’s study of the fish symbol seems to have been prompted by Dölger’s first research papers.10 Like Cumont after him, Scheftelowitz rejects Dölg‑ er’s »rein christlich« origin for the fish symbol. But instead of searching for pagan parallels, he seeks the roots of the symbol in Christianity’s Jewish background: »Das christliche ΙΧΘΥΣ-Symbol ist nur durch die natürliche Entwicklung des mes‑ sianischen Fisches aus dem Judentum verständlich.« He has no trouble producing enough evidence to show the importance of the fish as a symbol of both messianic times and heavenly pleasures in early Jewish literature. Many of the references in rabbinic literature to a connection between the fish and the messianic era are listed in Strack and Billerbeck’s Kommentar, particularly the eating of the Leviathan’s flesh at the messianic meal.11 It is a pity that Cumont, who was aware of Scheftelowitz’s conclusions, ignored them for all practical purposes.

 5

 For instance, Dom H. Leclercq, »ΙΧΘΥΣ«, D.A.C.L., VII.2, 1991 – 2086; or C. Andresen, »Fisch«, R.G.G., II, 967 – 968.  6   Encyklopädie der klassischen Welt IX.1, 844 – 850.  7   Ibid., 850.  8   Fast.  II.473 – 474.  9   Encyklopädie der klassischen Welt IX.2, 846. 10   I. Scheftelowitz, »Das Fisch-Symbol im Judentum und Christentum«, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 14 (1911), 1 – 54; 321 – 392. 11   See esp. IV.2, 1147, 1157 – 1159.

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

The messianic connections of the fish are particularly clear in the case of the prophet Jonah. According to certain Jewish traditions, Jonah, who was swallowed by the Levia‑ than, is related to the messiah. This fact was known, and reinterpreted, by some Chris‑ tian commentators, including Jerome, for whom Jonah is a figura of Christ12. In addi‑ tion, various Jewish legends and midrashim mention that the Leviathan will be eaten at the messianic meal. Scholars such as J. Engenmann13 and C. Andresen14 seem to accept the possibility that the early Christian fish symbol stemmed, at least in part, from the transformation of a Jewish conception, including that of a cena pura. They do not, however, adduce any new arguments in order to support their views. The fish symbol has a place of honor in Erwin Goodenough’s pan-mystical inter‑ pretation of Jewish symbols15. According to him, Dölger and Cumont were mistaken in rejecting Scheftelowitz’s contention that there was a major Jewish influence on the birth of the Christian fish symbol.16 He also entertains the possibility that the orig‑ inal connection between the fish and the messianic meal came into Judaism from »pagan mystic« and »eschatological« fish meals, such as those in the cult of Sabazius, though he willingly grants that this cannot be proven. A less idiosyncratic, and more trustworthy review of the evidence is presented by Cyrille Vogel in his study on the sacred fish meal among the early Christians.17 Vogel’s conclusions underline the importance of the Jewish influence on Christian fish symbolism. A final word in this brief review should be devoted to Robert Eisler, a scholar notorious for his far-fetched hypotheses. Most of Eisler’s discussions in his various books are useless, but from time to time one also finds in them an interesting intu‑ ition. Eisler’s reputation has usually prevented these intuitions from becoming famil‑ iar to scholars. In his book Orpheus the Fisher, Eisler discusses, for the first time, the worship of a divine fisher, rather than the cult of the sacred fish itself. In a few foot‑ notes, he proposes »a new very simple explanation« of the ΙΧΘΥΣ symbol18. Accord‑ ing to Eisler, the word »fish« was an obvious reference to Joshua ben Nun, i. e. Joshua the Fish, since the Aramaic nun means fish, and ben nun refers to a fish just as bar nasha refers to a man. »The Messiah ben Nun (= Ichthys)«, he concludes, »may there‑ fore well have been conceived also as a reincarnation of this mythic hero, who had suffered for the deliverance of his oppressed nation.« In support of his views, Eisler also refers to various rabbinic texts, which I was unable to locate. His strange, associa‑ 12   For a discussion and some references, see my review of Jerome’s Commentaire sur Jonas, ed. with trans. by Y.‑M. Duval (SC 323; Paris, 1985), in Revue Biblique 95 (1988), 104 – 106. 13   J. Engenmann, »Fisch«, R.A.C. VII, 959 – 1097, esp. 1019. 14   Art. cit., note 5, supra. 15   E. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, IV and V, passim. For a summary of his views, see in particular XII (conclusions), 96 – 101. 16   Ibid., V. 32. 17   C. Vogel, »Le repas sacré au poisson chez les chrétiens«, Revue des Sciences Religieuses 40 (1966), 1 – 26. For a bibliography of the fish symbolism, see p. 1, n. 1. 18   R. Eisler, Orpheus the Fisher: Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Cult Symbolism (London, 1921). See in particular p. 171, n. 1 and p. 253, n. 1.

2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered

27

tive mind also indulges in some mystical number-speculations (gematriot), includ‑ ing the following: the numerical value of the Hebrew letters composing Joshua ben Nun, 555, makes it possible to identify it with »the name above all names« (Phil. 2:9). There is no way to assess the soundness of Eisler’s ideas. They are presented in terms which defy any attempt at logical argumentation. Yet the connection between Joshua ben Nun and his namesake from Nazareth is not in itself far-fetched. The argument presented below was developed before I had the opportunity to read Eisler’s book. The early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was prefigured by Joshua ben Nun. The connection is obvious, since Joshua is called Ίησοῦς in the Septuagint. Probably the clearest testimony to the immediate connection between the two figures – one is the figura of the other – is offered by Origen’s beautiful Homilies on Joshua, which open with an encomium to »the name above all names« (Phil. 2:9). Origen states right at the beginning: »Sed Iesu nomen primo invenio in Exodo et volo intueri quando primum nomen Iesu cognominatur.«19 The same hermeneutical identification is accepted by the Latin Fathers. In his Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian devotes a chapter (III.16) to the identity of these names. According to him, Joshua was first called Oshea, and his name was changed when he was marked as Moses’ successor. (Tertullian notes here that the Jews are hoping for Christ – i. e. the messiah – but not for Jesus, and that they would rather believe Elijah than Jesus to be the Christ.) In the same way, just as Joshua brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, so will the second Joshua, Jesus, bring the second people into the new land of promise, i. e. the inheritance of eternal life.20 The same approach reappears in the fourth century, in Hilary of Poitiers’ Tractatus Mysteriorum, II.6. The parallelism between the two figures is underlined by their common name: »Hiesum, qui Auses antea uocitabatur, cognominauit ducem populo ad ter‑ ram repromissionis per genti futurum.«21 This tradition was preserved much beyond 19   I quote from A. Jaubert’s edition (SC 71; Paris, 1960), 94 – 96. On Origen’s treatment of Joshua and parallels in rabbinic literature, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Old Wine and New Bottles: On Patristic Soteriology and Rabbinic Judaism«, in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt (Albany, New York, 1986), 252 – 260 and notes, esp. 258 – 260. Another testimony worth recording is a strange Gnostic tradition preserved by Irenaeus. In his Adversus Haereses I. 30. 5, he describes the creation of the archons according to the »other« Gnos‑ tics. The first of these archons is Yaldabaoth. The text describes the production of an offspring from »the dregs of matter that lay below«. »Hence, they say, an offspring was born. This offspring is the letter nun, which is twisted in the form of a snake.« I am quoting Bentley Layton’s translation, from his The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, New York, 1987), 175. The Latin text has: »Unde natum ­filium dicunt, hunt autem ipsum esse nun, in figura serpentis contortum . . .« See Contre les hérésies, ed. and trans. by A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau (SC 264; Paris, 1979), 370. The editors take nun to be the accusative of the Greek nous, and translate »intellect«. It seems to me, however, that the easiest way to understand this puzzling tradition is to admit that the nun here reflects a gnosticization of an earlier, Christian tradition about Nun as the son of God. 20   I quote from E. Evans’s edition (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford, 1972), I, 216 – 221. 21   Hilary of Poitiers, Traité des mystères, ed. and trans. by J. P. Brisson (SC  19; Paris, 1967), 148 – 151.

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

the Patristic times. In the eleventh century, Hildebert of Lavardin, Bishop of Tours, writes in the same vein in his Sermones de Diversis, 23: »Haec est figura pugnae ­nostrae, fratres charissimi, Josue est Christus, quia et ipse Josue vocatur Iesus . . .«22 There seem to be few allusions in Jewish literature relating Joshua ben Nun’s name to fish. One passage in Genesis Rabba 48.16 is, however, quite explicit. It points out that the Rabbis were quite aware of the plain meaning of Aramaic nun, including as Joshua’s patronymic: »mi she-shemo keshem ha‑dag beno makhnisan la-arets: Nun, beno Yehoshua beno.« The meaning of the sentence is quite clear: It is the son of the man called »fish« who leads the children of Israel into the Holy Land.23 Another midrashic tradition is preserved in Rav Pealim 2, a late text quoted by Louis Ginzberg in his Legends of the Jews.24 According to this text, as a child Joshua had been eaten by a big fish. A king caught the fish and freed the child. Hence Joshua was later called »ben Nun«, because he had come out of a fish and did not remember his father. This text also points to the existence of legends connecting Joshua with fish. An echo of similar legends seems to be at the root of a well-known story in the Qur’an whose meaning has remained rather obscure. This story bears directly upon our argument. In the Sura of the Cave (Surah al‑Kahf 18:60 ff., esp. 60 – 64), we read the following.25 And when Moses said to his page (li‑fatāhu) »I will not give up until I reach the meeting of the two seas, though I go on for many years.« Then, when they reached their meeting, they forgot their fish (ḥūahumā), and it took its way into the sea, burrowing.

Most commentators identify the Moses in this passage with Moses son of ´Imran, and his page with Joshua ben Nun. Both Joshua and Moses are called sāḥib al‑nūn in the Tafsir. It is remarkable that the Aramaic word is used here, rather than the good Arabic word ḥūt from the Qur’an. Moses and his page’s search for a fish would seem to reflect pre-Muslim Jewish or perhaps Syriac Christian midrashim on Joshua’s patronymic. But the story does not end here. Moses and his page then retrace their steps in order to search for the fish, who has gone into the sea in a marvelous manner. The text goes on: 22

  Text in PL171, col. 843 A – B. I  owe this reference to E. Auerbach, »Figura«, n. 19, quoted from the English translation reprinted in Auerbach’s Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Gloucester, Mass., 1973), 232. 23   Text in Theodor and Albeck’s edition, 1247. The editors refer in their apparatus to a slightly different wording in Midrash ha‑gaddol. The text may be corrupt here: the last words are somewhat puzzling, and there seems to be an unnecessary repetition of the word beno. 24   I quote from the Hebrew edition, n. 2 to part 12, p. 119. 25   I quote A. J. Arberry’s translation. My thanks to Sarah Stroumsa for her help with the Arabic sources.

2. The Early Christian Fish Symbol Reconsidered

29

Then they found one of Our servants unto whom We had given mercy from Us, and We had taught him knowledge proceeding from Us.

Here again, the commentators identify this anonymous servant of God with the pro‑ phetic and eschatological figure al‑Khadir, himself identical to the prophet Elijah. (The messianic connotations of Elijah in the Jewish tradition are well known. As we have seen, they were known as early as Tertullian’s time). Prima facie, this last story would seem to be independent of the former one, and reflect different traditions. Yet it has been shown that this last adventure of Moses and his »youth«, i. e. Joshua, is clearly echoing a midrash on Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the prophet Elijah, printed in Jellinek’s Bet Ha‑Midrash (V.  133 – 135).26 Whatever the Vorgeschichte of the Qur’an, this connection reinforces the plausibility of a Qur’anic conflation of var‑ ious midrashic traditions stressing the relationship between Joshua, fish and mes‑ sianic times. Another figure worth mentioning in this context is the eighth century Sufi master Abū al‑Faid Thawban b. Ibrahim al‑Misri, known as Dhu ’I‑Nūn.27 Some of the various legends about him circulating in the Middle Ages played upon his surname, emphasizing his connections with both fish and the prophet Jonah. Sufi traditions, similarly, played upon the mystical significance of the letter nun.28 On the basis of the evidence produced above, we may reach the following con‑ clusions: 1. The first Christians, who were Palestinian Jews, could hardly ignore the fact that Jesus bore the name of the biblical Joshua. This fact must have been highly sig‑ nificant for them. 2. As Aramaic speakers, moreover, they could not avoid noticing the plain mean‑ ing of Joshua’s patronymic. 3. The fact that various events in Jesus’ life were related to fish in different ways probably strengthened the connections between Jesus’ name and the eschatological fish. It would hence seem highly probable that the identification of Jesus with fish first occurred in the earliest, Aramaic-speaking, community. 4. Although this does not follow from the above, a final point may be noted about the appearance of the symbol on inscriptions. Once Jesus had been identified with fish, the fish could easily be turned into a convenient esoteric symbol, even among those Christians who no longer knew its original meaning. In a foreign and hostile environment, where the very existence of the sect, legally classified as religio illicita, had to be kept secret, it became a secret means of identification. 26   See A. J. Wensinck, »al‑Khadir«, Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. II.2 (1927), 861 – 865; M.‑J. Stiassny, »Le prophète Elie dans le Judaïsme«, Élie le prophète: Études Carmélitaines (1956), vol. II, 215 – 233; H. Corbin, »Au pays de l’Imam caché«, Eranos Jahrbuch, 1963 (Zürich, 1964), 49 – 116. 27   On Dhu ’I‑Nūn, see for instance the Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, 77. 28   See for instance the examples collected by A. M. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1975), 416.

3. The Jewish and Christian Afterlives of Orphism The very existence of ›Orphic‹ communities has been questioned in the last genera‑ tions, and some scholars now prefer to speak only of Orphic texts.1 This was the view, for instance, of Martin West.2 For some, Orphism, with or without quotation marks, is an illegitimate brainchild, born from the assumption that the existence of texts under the name of Orpheus must have entailed that of communities of devotees. As if, for instance, the Enochic pseudepigraphical books were claimed to prove the existence of Enochic communities. This negationist trend seems to have lost some steam in recent years.3 And yet, even if Orphism were, in the words of Albert Hen‑ richs, »hardly more than a scholar’s dream,« one must acknowledge this dream to have been a very potent one, a dream which has for more than a century – since the word’s first appearance, in 1884 and Erwin Rohde’s Psyche, published in 1893, succeeded in lifting spirits and encouraging hypotheses about its nature, origins and influence. Among the many scholars who fell under the spell of Orphism (I  will make no attempt of my own to define this term), no one, it seems, went as far as Salo‑ mon Reinach, who chose to call his general introduction to the religious history 1   This epistemic skepticism starts, at the latest, with U. von Wilamowitz Moellendorff ’s Der Glaube der Hellenen (Berlin, 1931 – 1932). For a crisp summary of the various points questioned, see E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951), 147 – 149. This chapter is based on my keynote lecture at a conference of the Orphic gold tablets, held in Columbus at Ohio State University on April 28 – 30, 2006. I should like to thank Fritz Graf for having invited me to open the conference (an invitation that only an overdose of professorial hubris led me to accept). Thanks are due to Arieh Finkelberg and David Jordan for various suggestions during the preparation of this article, to the late Walter Burkert for his oral comments at the conference, and to Robert Parker for his judicious and incisive remarks on its penultimate version. The texts of the lamellae are now conveniently pub‑ lished, translated and discussed in F. Graf and S. Iles Johnson, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (London, New York, 2007). See also R. G. Edmonds, III, ed., The ›Orphic‹ Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further along the Path (Cambridge, New York, 2011). 2   M. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford, 1983), 2. 3   For A. Bernabé and A. I. Jiménez San Cristobal, Instrucciones para el más allá: Las laminillas órficas de oro (Madrid, 2001), 15, there is no remaining doubt that we can now speak of Orphic groups and initiates, followers of the Orphic religious movement which produced Orphic litera‑ ture, between the sixth and the fourth centuries b.c.e. For these authors, the gold lamellae, too can rightly be called Orphic (pp. 231 – 232). See also A. Bernabé, »La toile de Pénélope: a‑t‑il existé un mythe orphique sur Dionysos et les titans?« in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 219 (2002), 401 – 433, esp. 422: it is only the Orphic myth which gives a coherent meaning to the gold lamellae. The whole issue, edited by Ph. Borgeaud, C. Calame, and A. Hurst, is devoted to »L’orphisme et ses écritures, nouvelles recherches.«

3. The Jewish and Christian Afterlives of Orphism

31

of humankind, published in 1909, simply, Orpheus. According to his »Pan-Orphic« conception, »Orphism did not have common points only with Judaism and Christi‑ anity, but also with more distant religions, such as Buddhism, and even with the quite primitive beliefs of contemporary savages. When one looks close, one finds a bit of Orphism in all religions . . .«4 In times of Orphic fashion, and even of Orphic fever, the main dissenting voice was probably that of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, for whom Orphism had only been a marginal movement whose shadow remained unable to cover much of the great Hellenic light. Wilamowitz’s attitude is telling: what was so seductive in Orphism was precisely its marginality within the Hellenic mainstream, and the radical character of its beliefs and ethos, which predated by half a millennium the Christian kerygma. Some could, then, conceive Orphism to have been a praeparatio evangelica, announcing biblical monotheism, while others saw in Orphism a respectable Hellenic counterpart to Christianity. The seductive power of the Greek mysteries in general, and of Orphism in partic‑ ular, appears to have somewhat subsided after the Second World War. The contempo‑ rary distrust of the sweeping generalizations of earlier times, which were often based upon (either explicitly or implicitly) teleological – and sometimes theological-views of religious history, has encouraged a suspicion of cross-cultural influences and a preference for analogy over genealogy.5 Christianity has now lost both much of its appeal and of the antagonism that it generated in previous generations. The fight for or against the distinctive role of Christianity in contemporary Western European societies or its unique status in the history of religious phenomena now belongs to the past. A new generation of schol‑ ars has given up interest in Christian parallels to Orphic doctrines, in order to focus upon the Orphic texts themselves, studied in their cultural and historical context. This trend ad fontes, and away from the Nachleben of Orphism, has been strongly supported by a succession of important discoveries from quite different places, such as some new gold tablets, bone inscriptions, and, last but not least, the Derveni papy‑ rus.6 Despite the highly limited character of the evidence, these new finds have per‑ mitted us to sharpen significantly our perception of things. The closeness of some Orphic, Bacchic and Pythagorean rituals, had already been noted by Herodotus (II.81). Other testimonies suggest various types of connections between Pythago‑ reans and the Orphic writings. Ion of Chios, for instance, suggests that Pythagoras 4   S. Reinach, Orpheus, histoire générale des religions (Paris, 1933), VIII. The first edition was pub‑ lished in 1909. Reinach’s studies on Orphic themes (as well as on many other topics of the history of religions) are conveniently reprinted in S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes et religions (Paris, 2000). 5   J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, 1990), 112 – 113. 6   On the relationship between the Derveni papyrus and the gold plates, see in particular G. Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation (Cambridge, 2004), 325 –  348.

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

ascribed some of his own poetry to Orpheus.7 Such ancient claims have been basi‑ cally accepted and their significance broadened by modern scholarship. Jan Brem‑ mer, for instance, can define Orphism as the product of Pythagorean influence on the Bacchic mysteries, during the first quarter of the fifth century. Robert Parker, for his part, notes the similarly »Puritan« attitudes of both Pythagoreans and Orphics, adding that while the former developed a coenobitic life, the latter remained wan‑ derers (Walter Burkert has called them »itinerant charismatics«).8 In any case, there seems to be wide agreement on the fact that the Orphic beliefs reflected a radical movement of opposition to the civic values of Greek life in the polis. The fourth element in Herodotus’s famous equation, Egyptian religious tradi‑ tions, which he identified with Orphic, Pythagorean and Bacchic attitudes, is now recognized by some as providing a possible origin to some of the major themes in the so-called Orphic gold tablets. Günther Zuntz had already noted, together with various parallels from the ancient Near East (such as the refrigerium, for the souls of the dead, to be found also in Mesopotamia, or the similarities between Persephone and Ereshkigal), some Egyptian analogies.9 Reinhold Merkelbach was recently able to point to striking similarities between the Orphic gold leaves and spells from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.10 Both the figure of Orpheus and the traditions in his name appear to have been at the heart of a connection between barbarian and Greek systems of wisdom, to quote the editors of a recent collection of essays.11 I shall not deal here, however, with a shamanism à la Zalmoxis or with a possible Asiatic or Near Eastern background of Orphism.12 Looking downstream, rather than upstream, I shall seek to follow the afterlife of Orphism beyond the Hellenic mainstream, and to search for later traces of the revolutionary attitude to religion identified with the early Orphic texts, in

 7

  See for instance J. N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (London, New York, 2002), 15; C. Riedweg, Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence (Ithaca, London, 2005), 18.  8   R. Parker, »Early Orphism,« in A. Powell, ed., The Greek World (London, 1995); W. Burkert, »Bacchic Teletai in the Hellenistic Age,« in T. Carpenter and C. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, New York, 1993), 259 – 275; see further W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, Mass., London, 1992), 125 – 127.  9   G. Zuntz, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia (Oxford, 1971), 370 ff. On the refrigerium, the best work is still A. Parrot, Le ›refrigerium‹ dans l’au delà (Paris, 1937), originally published in RHR 103 (1936). 10   R. Merkelbach, »Die goldenen Totenpässe: Ägyptisch, Orphisch, Bakchisch. I. Ägyptisches und Griechisches Totengericht,« ZPE 128 (1999), 1 – 13; see also R. Kotansky, »Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed Greek Amulets,« in C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink, eds., Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York, Oxford, 1991), 107 – 137, esp. 130, n. 49: the motif in the tablets may be Egyptian, as the so-called Coffin texts deal with a similar protection in the afterlife. 11   P. Borgeaud, C. Calame, and A. Hurst, »L’orphisme et ses écritures. Nouvelles recherches. Présentation,« RHR 219 (2002), 379 – 383. 12   See for instance L. Brisson, Orphée et l’Orphisme dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine (Aldershot, 1995), 1 – 3.

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33

the interpretatio judaica, the interpretatio gnostica and the interpretatio christiana of Orpheus and Pythagoras. In The End of Sacrifice, I identified four major »mutations« of ancient religion in the longue durée of the Roman Empire.13 These mutations were respectively: a new care of the self, the development of the religions of the book, the end of blood sac‑ rifices, and the passage from civic to communitarian religion. My claim was that the religious changes which we can observe in this period represent more than the passage from polytheism to monotheism, or from paganism to Christianity. These changes reflect, rather, the radical transformation of the very idea of religion as it was conceived in the ancient world. Among ancient religions, I include here, of course, the religion of Israel, which was based until the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 c.e. upon daily blood sacrifices. In the book, I observed successively the deep transformations of the psyche (and the emphasis on its survival after the decomposi‑ tion of the body), the new importance of hermeneutics and of holy or revealed writ‑ ings, up to the birth of Islam (not only the canonizations of the Jewish and Christian Bible), the progressive abandonment of blood sacrifices until their imperial prohi‑ bition toward the end of the fourth century, and finally the new importance of reli‑ gious communities in the construction of identity. In the course of the work, I came to the conclusion (which I had not anticipated) that Judaism had been, in a sense, a precursor of each of the religious transformations studied in the Roman Empire, and that these transformations could not be understood without reference to Juda‑ ism. The Jews had long learned to call attention to the religious self, an attention reflected, already, in the Psalms. They had known for a long time, more than others, to cultivate their holy writings. They had learned, willy-nilly, to reform their reli‑ gious life and reinvent a cult without daily sacrifices.14 Finally, they succeeded, even before the destruction of the Temple, in emphasizing the communal, rather than the national aspects of their identity. Though I duly made reference to the Orphic sacred books in The End of Sacrifice, I did not give much attention to what strikes me now as obvious: in various ways, Orphic writings, Pythagorean communities, and Bacchic rituals, predated by centu‑ ries the phenomena I was trying to describe. Let us review briefly these four points. First, the Orphic conception of personal eschatology, i. e., the belief in the immor‑ tality of the soul and the afterlife promised to the pure ones, reflects a radical trans‑ formation of archaic Greek attitudes toward the fate of the soul after death. Walter Burkert has even spoken of a »discovery of the individual« in Orphic and Pythago‑

13   G. G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations of Late Antiquity, trans. S. Emanuel (Chicago, 2009), first published as La fin du sacrifice: les mutations religieuses de l’anti­ quité tardive (Paris, 2005). 14   Polemics both against the Jerusalem Temple and against sacrifices tout court can be found at Qumrān and in early Christian writings. A significant polemical passage against blood sacrifices is also found in the newly published Gospel of Judas.

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

rean circles.15 In other words, Orphic doctrines, stressing the idea of salvation of the individual, usher in a new period in the history of religious ideas, much before the »new care of the self« under the Roman Empire. Secondly, Orphic doctrines are embedded in holy writings (hieroi logoi), or more precisely in a series of books, or texts. Such a central role attributed to books is in striking contradistinction to traditional religious praxis in Greece. We have no ear‑ lier evidence of sacred books in ancient Greece.16 Franz Cumont could thus define Orphism as »a religion of salvation based upon books.«17 Thirdly, the well-known objections on the part of Orphic traditions to blood sac‑ rifices (whatever may be their mythological or theological grounds), underlined by vegetarianism, reflect a strong opposition to major aspects of the civic cult of the polis. Finally, the central importance of the community of the faithful for the Pythago‑ reans also testifies to a move from civic to communitarian religion, much before the same phenomenon can be observed among the Jews. All in all, Martin Nilsson’s conclusion that early Orphic teachings reflect a com‑ plete break with Homeric traditions remains valid, even if we disagree today with his views on the nature of Orphism itself. One may note that this multiple and radical break with archaic patterns of religion seems to have occurred around the middle of the first millenium b.c.e., at the time identified by Karl Jaspers, two generations ago, as the Achsenzeit, the axial age, which showed, according to him, similar shifts away from archaic patterns of thought and behavior in various cultural contexts. Together with the Greek Presocratics, Jaspers mentioned the Hebrew prophets, Zarathustra (although any dating remains here highly controversial), the Buddha, and Confucius.18 Closer to us, Jonathan Z. Smith is using a different vocabulary to describe much the same distinction between two models of religious practice. Among ancient religions, Smith opposes those which he calls »locative« to those he identifies as »utopian.«19 While the first are essentially civil, or collective, religions of the polis, strengthening the demands of society, the second offer an escape from the oppressive order of hic et nunc, and insist on personal eschatology and soteriol‑ ogy. Such religions reject the values of the city, the central norms of Greek society. They usually find their natural expression among marginal groups in society, such as

15   W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution, 300. In Lux perpetua (Paris, 1949), F. Cumont had already defined to Orphics as the first authors of a metamorphosis of eschatological ideas. 16   On this topic, much has been written recently; on the role of books in Greek religion, see R. Parker, On Greek Religion (Ithaca, New York, 2011), 16 – 20. 17  Cumont, Lux perpetua, 244. 18   For a new enquiry on Jaspers’s concept of Achenzeit, see S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (Albany, New York, 1986). 19   J. Z. Smith, »Hellenistic Religions,« Encyclopedia Britannica (1974 ed.), VIII, 750. See also his »Here, There, and Anywhere,« in J. Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chi‑ cago, London, 2004), 323 – 339.

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35

women, and tend to emphasize or even cultivate this marginality. It is in this sense that Marcel Detienne can refer to Orphism as one of the main »chemins de la dévi‑ ance« in ancient Greece.20

I. Orpheus Judaeus The very marginality of Orphic traditions in the world of the Greek polis may have helped render them, and especially the figure of Orpheus, more attractive or palat‑ able to Jews in the Hellenistic world.21 Indeed, the teachings of Orpheus immediately appeared to have little to do with the official religion of the polis, which the Jews attacked so fiercely, and its public sacrifices. Pythagorean and Orphic doctrines were known and appreciated by Alexandrian Jews at the beginning of the second century. Aristobulus, the first Jewish philosopher we know of, who lived in Alexandria in the mid-second century b.c.e., stemmed from a high-priestly family. According to him, both Pythagoras and Orpheus had been taught by the Law of Moses. Aristobulus claimed that the father of Hellenic song, like Pythagoras (and Socrates), had actually been converted to the cause of the one God by Moses.22 What we know of Aristobu‑ lus, to be sure, is only what is quoted from his work in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica. There is no reason, however, to deny a significant impact upon Jewish thinkers in Alexandria of intellectual and religious trends which are clearly differentiated from the polytheistic milieu of Hellenistic Egypt. Other ancient testimonies, in particular that of Josephus, present the Essenes as Jewish Pythagoreans of sorts.23 20

  See M. Detienne, Dionysos mis à mort (Paris, 1977).   One should note, yet, that Orpheus came to be seen, already by the fourth century b.c.e., as the founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries – an unusual, but not marginal form of polis religion; see [Euripides], Rhesus 943, 966. Cf. F. Graf, Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit (Berlin, New York, 1974). Mysteries of all types came to be ascribed to him; see I. M. Linforth, The Arts of Orpheus (New York, 1973; reprint of a 1941 edition). For Robert Parker (personal communication), the Jews preferred some of the Orphic writings to the figure of Orpheus himself, and wrote pseudo-Orphica since this was one of the few moulds available in which to write in Greek about theology. For a discussion of traces of a Jewish Hellenistic hieros logos, as reflected in Pseudo-Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos, see G. Sfameni-Gasparro, »Orfeo ›Giudaico‹: il Testamento di Orfeo tra cosmosofia e monoteismo,« in her Dio unico, pluralitá e monarchia divina: Esperienze religiose e teologie nel mondo tardo-antico (Brescia, 2011), 79 – 103. 22   See E. S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1998), 248 – 250. See for instance M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (Philadelphia, 1974), I, 263: »The mono‑ theizing tendency and the strict way of live practices by Orphic conventicles with their esoteric, didactic house-worship devoid of sacrifice early aroused the interest of Jewish circles in Egypt who, as Aristobulus and Artapanus show, made Orpheus a witness to the truth of the Mosaic law.« See further Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, I, 245, comparing I, 165 ff. 23  Josephus, Ant. Jud. 15.371; Bel. Jud. 2.137; on Essenes and Therapeutes, cf. Philo, De vita contemplativa 1 – 2. Cf. W. Burkert, »Craft versus Sect: The Problem of Orphics and Pythagoreans,« in B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders, eds., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, III (Philadelphia, 1982), 21

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

The Jewish historian Artapanus, who also wrote in the second century b.c.e., alters the tradition, transmitted by Hecataeus of Abdera, of the Egyptian wisdom transmitted to the Greeks by Orpheus. Instead, Artapanus claims that Musaios, whom he identifies with Moses (Numenius will later make the same identification), was Orpheus’s teacher. In Greek literature, Musaios was also ordinarily associated with Orpheus, but usually as either his son or his disciple.24 As a héros civilisateur, Moses-Musaios bestowed many gifts to humanity, including philosophy. Hence, Greek philosophy, or wisdom, has a Jewish origin. Moses, adds Artapanus, was also called Hermes, »because of his ability to interpret the sacred writings.«25 The strong interest in the figure of Orpheus, as expressed by Aristobulus and Artapanus, is also reflected in the existence of Hellenistic Jewish pseudepigraphical texts attributed to Orpheus. These texts, which have a rather complex literary history, present an Orpheus having accepted a monotheistic world-view.26 In Pseudo-Justin’s Cohortatio ad Graecos, for instance, Orpheus, who had been the first »teacher of polytheism« of the Greeks, addresses his son Musaios (and other legitimate auditors) »concerning the one and only God (peri henos kai monou theou)«.27 The master of the universe is described in the following terms: »He is one, self-generated; all things have been brought forth as the offspring of this one . . .« The same Pseudo-Justin describes the Master of the universe, who sits On a golden throne, and He stands with the earth at His feet. And He stretches out His right hand all the way To the ocean’s edge.28

As noted by Erich Gruen, »certain striking verses in the Orphic hymn illuminate the core of this mental world. The poet asserts that God appears in a cloud that obscures him from mortal vision.«29 What we may glean from this is that the vision of God, a central topic for Jewish intellectuals, is directly related to Orpheus. There is no reason to accept at its face value Erwin Goodenough’s theory about syncretistic Jewish mysteries in Hellenistic Egypt and the existence of an »Orphic 1 – 22, esp. 21. M.  Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, I, 245 – 247, explains away the direct dependence of Essenes upon Pythagoreans, rejecting it as highly improbable. For him, the Therapeutae »are best explained as an imitation of the Essenes in the Egyptian Diaspora,« rather than the other way around. 24   C. Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, Vol. I: Historians (Chico, Cal., 1983), 232, n. 45. 25   Praep. Evang. 9.27.1 – 6. 26   On the literary relations between the various fragments, see N. Zeegers-Vander Vorst, »Les versions juives et chrétiennes du fr. 245 – 7 d’Orphée,« L’antiquité classique 39 (1970), 475 – 506. 27  Pseudo-Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos, ch. 15; C. R. Holladay, Fragments form Jewish Authors, IV, Orphica (Atlanta, 1996), 104 – 105. 28   Ibid. 106 – 107, l34 – 36; cf. 152 – 153 for another version. Consult, too, the commentary on pp. 43 – 44. Further details in N. Walter, »Pseudo-Orpheus,« in Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-­ römischer Zeit, IV (Gütersloh, 1983), 217 – 243. 29  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 249.

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Judaism.«30 The Orphic impact on Hellenistic Judaism, however, goes beyond the figure of an Orpheus who would have joined the camp of Moses.31 Orphic mythol‑ ogy was intriguing enough to leave clear traces in the Jewish substratum of the Pseu‑ do-Clementine writings, a Christian novel from the fourth century. This substratum, probably a lost Jewish apologetic writing, must have dated from the second cen‑ tury c.e. Both versions of the Pseudo-Clementine novel, the Greek Homilies and the Latin Recognitiones, retain long and quite detailed presentations of Orphic cosmog‑ ony. Orpheus is presented as the most educated among the pagans, and thus reflects a form of »cultivated Orphism.«32 Various literary sources point to the existence of contacts between Dionysiac milieus, within which the Orphic texts were read, and the Jews in Hellenistic Egypt. Noah Hacham has recently argued at some length that III Maccabees retains clear traces of a violent polemic against Alexandrian Jews who were offering some kind of cult to Dionysus.33 Ptolemaeus IV Philopator (221 – 205 b.c.e.), as is well known, was an ardent devotee of Dionysus who engaged in serious efforts to promote the cult.34 Under such conditions, it is easy to imagine attempts, on the side of Alexandrian Jews, to highlight similarities between Dionysus and their own God. Such attempts may not have remained one-sided. After all, we know, from the testimonies of both Plutarch and Tacitus, that the Jewish God could be identified with Bacchus (or Liber). Tacitus refers to the chant, music instruments, and garlands of ivy of the Israelite priests as a basis for the identification of the Jewish god and Liber – an identification he finds baseless.35 Plutarch, on the other hand, goes at some length into similarities between the character of the Jewish god and Dionysus. In his Quaestiones Convivales, the participants in a symposium held at Aidepsos in Euboea discuss the identity of the Jewish God and a possible link between Dionysiac and Jewish cults. The ritual of the feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), in particular, is compared to a »Thyrsus Proces‑ sion.« For Plutarch »it is probable that the rite is a Bacchic revelry, for in fact they use little trumpets to invoke their god as do the Argives at their Dionysia.« Plutarch adds that »even the feast of the Sabbath is not completely unrelated to Dionysus.«36 30   See E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven, 1935), 278 ff.; in particular, see 296. 31  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 248 – 250. See Hom. VI.3.4 – 8, and Recogn.  10.17.1 – 20.1 and 30 – 34. 32   See P. Geoltrain and J.‑D. Kaestli, eds., Ecrits apocryphes chrétiens, II (Paris, 2005), 1965 n., 1974 n. 33   N. Hacham, »3 Maccabees: An Anti-Dionysian Polemic,« in J.‑A. Brant, Ch. W. Hedrick, and Ch. Shea, eds., Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (Atlanta, 2005), 167 – 183. 34  Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 229 – 230. The cult of Dionysus had also been introduced to Jerusalem in 167 b.c.e., during the religious persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes; see II Mac. 6:7. Cf. M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, I (Jerusalem, 1974), 560. 35  Tacitus, Hist., 5.1; Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, II (Jerusalem, 1980), 19. 36   Quaestio 6, Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, I, 560, who notes that the equation of the God of the Jews with Dionysus was due primarily to Dionysus’s identification with Sabazius.

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

The knowledge of the Orphic cosmogonic myth and of the various traditions among the Jews does not seem to have been confined to Hellenistic, or Greek-writ‑ ing Jews. In La légende de Pythagore de Grèce en Palestine, a book published in 1927, Isidore Lévy argued that various Jewish traditions describing Moses’s descent into Hell should be understood as modeled upon Pythagoras’ katabasis to Hades.37 For him, Artapanus, Philo, and Josephus retained only partial echoes of a lost Jewish Alexandrian novel of Moses, which imitated the legends of Pythagoras. According to Lévy, moreover, this deep Pythagorean influence was not limited to Hellenistic Jew‑ ish literature. He sought to show that similar traces of the story of Pythagoras’ katabasis could also be found in rabbinic literature. Lévy was referring here in particular to a late antique Hebrew text called the »Revelation of Joshua ben Levi.« The remaining disjecta membra of this Jewish katabasis, argues Lévy, preserve the trace of the deep influence of religious Pythagoreism upon the Jews. For him, both Therapeutae and Essenes strove to get as close as possible to the Pythagorean ideal. The correspondences between the teachings of Moses and those of Pythagoras were noted by Jewish Hellenistic authors, from Aristobulus to Josephus, who con‑ sidered the Therapeutae and the Essenes as an interesting case of a Jewish Pythago‑ rean sect.38 As seen above, some modern authors have been cautious about such an identification. And yet, Lévy’s insight is supported by the recent monograph of Justin Taylor, which offers a careful and detailed comparative analysis of rituals and pat‑ terns of behavior among Pythagoreans and Essenes.39 Taylor’s results show that both communities retained an intense interest in protecting the exclusivity of the group. For Taylor, this interest went in both cases much beyond what was common among Greco-Roman voluntary associations, and was the result of a permanent problem of purity. Taylor concludes with the strong plausibility of Pythagorean influence upon the Essenes, via the Therapeutae in Alexandria.40 Reference must be made here to Albrecht Dieterich’s Nekyia, published in 1893.41 As is well-known, Dieterich sought in this highly influential work to show that the Apocalypse of Peter (of which a Greek version had been discovered among the Akhmim papyri in 1887), was a Christianized version of an Orphic-Pythago‑ rean nekyia going back to archaic Greece. The parallels between the Apocalypse of Peter and I Enoch, according to Dieterich, were explained by the intermediary of the Essenes, who combined Judaism and Orphic Pythagoreanism. Dieterich’s sweep‑ ing references to a hypostasized Orphism have been duly criticized.42 Isidore Lévy, 37

  I. Lévy, La légende de Pythagore de Grèce en Palestine (Paris, 1927), III, 137 ff.  Josephus, Ant. Jud. 15.371: the Essenes follow the way of life taught to the Greeks by Pythagoras. 39   J. Taylor, S. M., Pythagoreans and Essenes: Structural Parallels (Turnhout, 2004). 40  Taylor, Pythagoreans and Essenes, 106 – 107. 41   A. Dieterich, Nekyia: Beiträge zur Erklärung der neuentdeckten Petrusapokalypse (Second, posthumus ed.; Leipzig, Berlin, 1913); cf. M. Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia, 1983), 41 – 45. 42   In particular, see Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell, 43 – 45. 38

3. The Jewish and Christian Afterlives of Orphism

39

already, had proposed to revise Dieterich’s theory, and viewed the Apocalypse of Peter (as well as the Second Sybilline Oracle), as derived from a Jewish Apocalypse related to the Pythagorean katabasis.43 Our picture of the evolution of Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic literature is now much sharper than it was in the late nineteenth cen‑ tury. And yet, the idea of a mediation of the Essenes (or, rather, the Therapeutae) for the passage of Orphic or Pythagorean conceptions to Jews (and then Christians) remains today a legitimate working hypothesis. The Hekhalot or »(heavenly) palaces« literature, a series of Hebrew texts which are extremely difficult to date, represents the first stage, under the Roman Empire and in late antiquity, of Jewish mystical literature. In Hekhalot literature, mention is made of the mystic’s vision of the (heavenly) chariot originally described in Ezekiel. The terminus technicus used in these texts for the mystical vision experience is yarad la-merkavah, literally, »he went down to the Chariot.« Now, rather than yarad, »he went down,« one would have expected ‘alah, »he went up.« Many years ago, I proposed to see in the concept of yerida, »descent,« as used in this context, a linguistic calque of katabasis, a term originally referring to the descent into the Underworld, but which had become in the early centuries of the Christian era a common metaphor for the mystical voyage ending in the vision of the divine world and its palaces, or even of the divinity itself, usually seated upon its throne of glory.44 My claim was then limited to the linguistic influence of the Umwelt upon Jewish conceptions. Today, I would be more audacious, and argue that the root yrd points to earlier literary descriptions of the »mystical« voyage, in particular in pseudepigraphical literature, which took place in the Underworld. I have presented here a brief account of the repercussions of the figure of Orpheus in Jewish Hellenistic literature and of possible Orphic or Pythagorean influences upon Jewish conceptions. One piece of evidence, however, seems to imply that the contacts between Jews and Orphics also went in the other direction. In Orphic mythology, Erikepaios is one of the names of the god Protogonos, or Phanes. Side by side with Erikepaios, the Rhapsodies mention Metis, Eros and Bro‑ mios.45 The evidence (there are eleven occurrences of Erikepaios in Kern’s Orphicorum Fragmenta) comes mainly from the Orphica of the Neoplatonists, but the name also appears (under the form Irikepaigos) in an important papyrus found at Gurob, in the Fayyum, and dated from about 300 b.c.e.46 The very fragmentary text 43

 Lévy, La légende de Pythagore, 103.   »Mystical Descents,« in G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Second ed. Leiden, Boston, 2005), 169 – 183, esp. 179 – 180. 45  West, The Orphic Poems, 203. 46   For the evidence, see O. Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta (Dublin, Zurich, 1972; reprint of 1922 ed.), where the Gurob papyrus is fragment 31. The ten other occurrences all stem from Neo‑ platonic and other late antique texts, from Alexander of Aphrodisias through Proclus to Damascius and Syrianus; see fragments 60, 65, 80, 81, 102, 107, 107b, 108, 167, 170. The Gurob papyrus was published by J. G. Smyly, Greek Papyri from Gurob (Dublin, 1921). See now J. Hordern, »Notes on the 44

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

describes a sacrifice. Erikepaios appears there as a god of salvation, and is invoked in a prayer: »Erikepaios, save me!« which culminates in the sentence: »There is one Dionysus [heis Dionysos].«

This last expression seems to echo the Diathekai of the Pseudo-Justin: One Zeus, one Hades, one Sun, one Dionysus, One god in all things. Why separate what one proclaims?

The name Erikepaios remains puzzling. Obviously, its etymology is not Greek. John Malalas states in his Chronography that it means zōodotēr, »life-giver,« but it is unclear on what he established his claim. Among modern scholars, Robert Eisler, the fanciful author of Orpheus the Fisher, stated in his Weltmantel und Himmelzelt, pub‑ lished in 1910, that Erikepaios stemmed from arikh anpin, the Aramaic for Hebrew erekh apaim, a biblical epithet of God (Exod. 34:6 et al.) which became a divine ema‑ nation in medieval Kabbala.47 Very soon after Eisler, Karl Beth argued in an article »Über die Herkunft des orphischen Erikepaios,« for what he calls a »Vedic-Vedan‑ tic« origin. For him, Erikapaios would come from Hiranyagarbha, a vegetation divin‑ ity and the »golden germ« of the »world egg« referred to in the Upanishads.48 Between the two World Wars, W. K. C. Guthrie wrote on the Gurob papyrus that »there is an Orphic flavor about the whole fragment, with its mentions of One Dio‑ nysus . . .«49 Erikepaios is described as »a non-Greek name for which no certain inter‑ pretation has been found.«50 In a note, Guthrie mentions various suggestions made about the origin of the word, adding that according to Eisler, »the name is Aramaic and means ›long face.‹«51 In this shortened form, it is very hard indeed to make any sense of such a proposal. André-Jean Festugière proposed to see in Erikepaios a Lydian god assimilated to Dionysus.52 In his book on the Orphic poems, Martin West devoted some efforts to Erikepaios. For him, it is »beyond doubt a non-Greek name.« He adds that »the name Orphic Papyrus from Gurôb (P. Gurôb 1; Pack2 2464),« in ZPE 129 (2000), 131 – 140, see esp. 138. See further A. Henrichs, »Hieroi logoi and hierai biblioi: The (Un)written Margins of the Sacred in Ancient Greece,« in HSCP 101 (2003), 207 – 266, esp. 233, n. 88. 47   R. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelzelt: religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des antiken Weltbildes (Munich, 1910), 470 – 475. 48   See for instance Chandogya Upanishad 19; K. Beth, »Über die Herkunft des orphischen Erike‑ paios,« Wiener Studien 34 (1912), 288 – 300. 49   W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (Princeton, 1993; first ed. 1952), 98. 50  Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 97. 51  Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 145, n. 18. The reference is to R. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 47. Eisler’s long-standing interest in Orpheus and Orphism also produced Orpheus the Fisher: Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Symbolism (London, 1921) and Orphisch-Dionysische Mysteriengedanke in der christlichen Antike (Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg; Hamburg, 1922 – 1923; reprint Hildesheim, 1966). 52   A.‑J. Festugière, »Les mystères de Dionysos,« in his Etudes de religion grecque et hellénistique (Paris, 1972), 32, 41.

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Erikepaios too seems to derive from an Asiatic form of Dionysus-cult.«53 West men‑ tions that »an altar found at Hierocaesarea in Lydia bears a dedicatory inscription of the second century a.d. ›to Dionysus Erikepaios‹.« For him, that »suggests that Erikepaios may have been, like Sabazios, a local deity of Asia Minor who came to be identified with Dionysus.«54 In a footnote, West rightly rejects Eisler’s »far-fetched« suggestion, based as it is on the assumption that medieval Kabbalistic doctrines had circulated orally for more than a millennium before being consigned to writing.55 Yehuda Liebes published in 1988 an article entitled »The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus.« The article was published in Hebrew, but an English translation appeared in 1993.56 Liebes picks up Eisler’s suggestion, and argues that Orphics in Hellenistic Egypt were influenced by aspects of Jewish mythology, including by the divine figure of Arikh Anpin, which was to receive a literary expression only much later, but was then already circulating orally: I claim that Orphic believers, who had adhered from ancestral times to a myth resembling the Jewish one, adopted certain facets of the Jewish myth following their acquaintance with Alex‑ andrian Jews in the last centuries of the pre-Christian era.57

Between West’s radical rejection of Eisler’s suggestion and Liebes’s total acceptance of it, there is, however, a third option. Arikh anpin, as we have seen, is the Aramaic for erekh apaim (lit. »long of nostrils,« hence »long-suffering«), one of the main attri‑ butes of YHWH in the theophany of Exodus 34:6. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, »The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.«

Now the few verses of this theophany soon became a capital text, and their echo would be heard throughout the history of Judaism. From an early date, as far as we know, they were integrated in a central place in liturgy, a place underlined by its importance in late antique piyyut, or liturgical poetry. Moreover, the »thirteen divine attributes« in this biblical text became »canonized«, as  it were, in Jewish medieval theology and philosophy. Hence the hypostatic divine character of Erekh Apaim / Arich Anpin in the Sefer ha‑Zohar, or Book of Splendor, the most important Kabbalistic text, redacted by Moses of Leon in thirteenth-century Castile. 53

 West, The Orphic Poems, 171.  West, The Orphic Poems, 205. 55  West, The Orphic Poems, 205, n. 91. West’s reference to Schelling’s 1815 tractate Über die Gott­ heiten von Samothrace is mistaken. Nowhere in this work does Schelling refer to Erikepaios. Schel­ ling only argues that various elements from Greek mysteries reflected Hebrew esoteric traditions. 56   See Y. Liebes, »The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus,« in Y. Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany, 1993), 65 – 92. Originally published in Hebrew in Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume, I (Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 7; Jerusalem, 1988), 425 – 459. 57  Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism, 73. Eisler’s suggestion had been rejected, with little argumentation, by Y. Guttmann, Jewish Hellenistic Literature (Jerusalem, 1963), I, 153 (in Hebrew). 54

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Part I. Christ’s Laughter: Visions, Docetism, Martyrdom

In a sense, Liebes’s view of things is a mirror reflection of Goodenough’s argu‑ ment about Greek mystical traditions among Jews in the Hellenistic period.58 I wish to argue here that the presence of a Jewish divine epithet (erekh apaim) in an Orphic context shows that in their contacts with Orphic and Pythagorean beliefs and liter‑ ary documents, the Jews did not remain on the receiving end. Some Jewish influence on these non-Jewish beliefs and texts must be recognized, although we do not know through which proximate channels this influence was transmitted. In the texts found at Qumrān, there are about a score of occurrences to erekh apaim.59 Together with the Hebrew text of Ben Sira, these texts are the oldest Hebrew texts extant outside the Bible. From our perspective, the presence of erekh apaim is quite interesting, as it points to an early use of the term among the Jews, as a way of addressing God. One may then postulate that Erekh Apaim became at some point »Hellenized« into Erikepaios, although it remains however impossible to argue for a specific time and place.60 While no occurrence of Erikepaios appears outside the Orphic traditions, we can‑ not be sure that it is within the milieu in which the Orphic writings were read that this Hellenizing occurred. The various references, however, to contacts between Jews and followers of Dionysus provide circumstantial evidence for such a milieu.61 The Hellenization of erekh apaim as a divine entity in Orphic context, then, may reflect contacts between Jews and Dionysus devotees. Such contacts might have taken place in Hellenistic Egypt, if we accept Hacham’s argument about Jewish followers of Dio‑ nysus in Alexandria.

II. Orpheus Gnosticus Orphic and Gnostic cosmogonies show some striking similarities. Moreover, the two movements appear to have been rather parallel phenomena, in their nature as well as in their origins. Both flourished on the margins of society, as their Weltanschauung 58

  For Goodenough’s views on Orpheus, see for instance E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, IX (New York, 1964), 89 – 104. For a powerful criticism of Goodenough’s method and achievements, see M. Smith, »Goodenough’s Jewish Symbols in Retrospect,« Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967), 53 – 68. 59   See for instance 4 Q Mysteries, 9:5; 4 Q 364 18:3; 4 Q 382 104:9. 60   Although, of course, the Gurob papyrus gives a terminus ad quem around 300 b.c.e. In an oral objection to my proposal, Walter Burkert referred to the word andrikepai, in a gold band found in Pherai, and now in the Museum of Volos, dated 350 – 300 b.c.e. (Bernabé, OF 493 = L 13). For him, andrikepai might be explained as a pun upon Erikepaios. If true, this etymology would cast doubt upon a possible Hebrew origin of Erikepaios, due to its early date. 61   Zeev Weiss, the archaeologist who was in charge of the Dionysus Mosaic in Sepphoris, has argued that the house might well have belonged to a Jew, and perhaps even to Rabbi Judah the Prince, the editor of the Mishna. See Z. Weiss, »Between Paganism and Judaism: On the dwellers of the Dionysus house in Roman Sepphoris,« Cathedra 26 – 27 (2001), 7 – 26 (in Hebrew).

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was in some fundamental ways reticent toward, or even opposed to that of contem‑ porary mainstream religious attitudes. Both offered salvation to their followers, at the exclusion of non-initiates. This salvation was that of the soul, its escape from body and this lowly, material world.62 Writing between the two World Wars, Hans Leisegang had called attention to deep parallelisms between various doctrines of second-century c.e. Gnostic think‑ ers and Orphic conceptions.63 Leisegang argued that the doctrine of reincarnation in the theologies of Basilides and Carpocrates seemed to come from the Orphics, and he also discerned in the thought of Valentinus traces of ultimately Orphic influence. While Leisegang did not deny the presence of various »oriental« elements in Gnos‑ ticism, what he called the Gnostic »mode of thought« and the »spiritual structure« of the different Gnostic systems, remained for him essentially Greek. The similari‑ ties between the Gnostic and the Orphic texts, he argued, showed that Gnosticism offered a return to ancient Greek cosmogonies. Such a return he explained by the »reawakening« of Orphism and Pythagoreanism under the early Empire.64 Leisegang’s position is characteristic of a »Pan-Hellenic« attitude, which strives to minimize or even deny the impact of »oriental« sources on intellectual and religious trends in the Hellenistic world. The search for the intellectual and religious roots of both Orphism and Gnosticism has traditionally oscillated between Greece and Near Eastern religious cultures – Egypt, Israel, or Iran. The »either – or« approach, however, is mistaken, as the origins of both movements need not be exclusive of one another. As we have seen, some Jewish themes may well be present in Orphic texts, side by side with clearly Greek and Egyptian elements. A similar approach should be developed about Gnostic origins: Jewish (mainly apocalyptic) sources, whose pres‑ ence appears to be quite certain, need in no way exclude Greek roots for some of the central elements in Gnosticism. In both cases, recognizing the presence of ›foreign‹ elements while seeking to preserve the genuine ›Greek‹ character of the movement reflects a rather essentialist attitude, too rigid for describing adequately syncretistic phenomena. Finally, recent research has made it clear that the texts traditionally labeled »Orphic« and »Gnostic« do not necessarily stem from clearly defined movements 62   The present article was redacted long before I could read E. Thomassen, »Gnostics and Orphics,« in J. Dijkstra, J. Kroesen, and Y. Kuiper, eds., Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer (Numen Book Series 127; Leiden, Boston, 2010), 463 – 473. Thomassen concludes, as I do, but on different grounds, that »it is highly probable that Orphic-Bacchic mysteries were an important model and inspiration for Gnostics« (p. 473). 63   H. Leisegang, Die Gnosis (Leipzig, 1924). I use the fourth edition of Leisegang’s work (Stutt‑ gart, 1955). See in particular various remarks in ch. 4 (on  the Ophites), ch. 6 (Basilides), ch. 7 (Carpocrates), and ch. 9 (Valentinus). Cf. H.‑C. Puech, En quête de la gnose, I. La gnose et le temps (Paris, 1978), 155, n. 1. 64   On the possible absorption of Orphism by Neopythagoreism, see E. Bickerman, »The Orphic Blessing,« reprinted in his Religions and Politics in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, E. Gabba and M. Smith, eds. (Como, 1985), 233 – 239, esp. 238, n. 8.

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bearing the same names. The well-known arguments about Orphism have been alluded to above. The move from the existence of texts labeled »Gnostic« – even assuming an adequate definition of this term is available – to that of »Gnostic« com‑ munities, in Egypt or elsewhere, is highly problematic. Like Orphism, Gnosticism appears not to have ever offered one single religious identity, and the latest scholarly fashion seeks to offer a radical deconstruction of what was once considered a reli‑ gion present throughout the oecumene.65 Contemporary research, based upon the Nag Hammadi Coptic texts, has laid to rest Hans Jonas’s conception of Gnosis as more or less identical to the Geist of the Spätantike. On various occasions, Walter Burkert has called attention to various similarities between Orphic and Gnostic texts, speaking about »intriguing possibilities.« For him, the Orphic combination of the Dionysus myth with the doctrine of transmi‑ gration of the soul, and the radical asceticism that it entails, »could have been the basis for a religion of salvation; but it seems that these potentialities were not fully exploited before the advent of Gnosticism.«66 Plato’s writings might have provided a channel through which Orphic traditions could have reached the Gnostics. Indeed, besides the clear Platonic influences on various Gnostic texts and conceptions, the discovery of a passage from Plato’s Republic among the works found at Nag Ham‑ madi underlines the presence of Plato in communities in which the Gnostic texts circulated.67 More precisely, the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus while looking into a mirror – which finally results in anthropogony – strikes Burkert as having possibly »stimulated the Gnostic images of how something divine, by a mirroring process, fell into the traps of matter and was dispersed there.«68 In this context, attention has been called independently by both Henri-Charles Puech and Hans Dieter Betz to a passage of a Gospel of Philip quoted by the fourth-century heresiologist Epiphanius in his chapter on the gnostikoi.69 In this text, reference is made to the ›passwords‹ that the soul must utter while climbing from heaven to heaven:

65

  See in particular M. A. Williams, Rethinking Gnosticism: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, 1996). See also K. L. King, What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2003). 66   Burkert, »Craft Versus Sect,« 9. 67   The passage is Plato, Republic 588B-589B (Cairensis Gnosticus [CG] VI, 5). I thank Walter Burkert for having reminded me of this obvious fact. 68   W. Burkert, Orphism and Bacchic Mysteries: New Evidence and Old Problems of Interpretation, ed. W. Wuellner (Protocol of the 28th Colloquy of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies; Berkeley, 1977), 8. On the mirror metaphor, see H.‑C. Puech, En quête de la gnose, II. Sur l’Evangile selon Thomas (Paris, 1978), 108 – 127. 69   H.‑C. Puech, in Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Ve Section 70 (1962 – 1963), 84 – 87; 71 (1963 – 1964), 90 – 91; 72 (1964 – 1965), 101 – 104; Betz, »›Der Erde Kind bin ich und des gestirnten Himmels‹: Zur Lehre vom Menschen in den orphischen Goldplättchen,« in F. Graf, ed., Ansichten griechischer Rituale (Stuttgart, Leipzig, 1998), 399 – 419, esp. 418 – 419.

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»The Lord has shown me that my soul must say on its ascent to heaven, and how it must answer each of the powers on high. I have recognized myself, it says, and gathered myself from every quarter, and have sown no children for the archon. But I have pulled up his roots, and gathered my scattered members, and I know who you are. For I, it saith, am of those on high.« And so, they say, it is set free.70

A similar reference to the gathering of the disseminated members of the divine fig‑ ure is found in the only extant passage of the Gospel according to Eve, also quoted by Epiphanius in the same chapter: I stood upon a high mountain and saw a tall man, and another of short stature, and heard as it were a sound of thunder and went nearer in order to hear. Then he spoke to me and said: I am thou and thou art I, and where thou art there am I, and I am sown in all things; and whence thou wilt, thou gatherest me, but when thou gatherest me, then gatherest thou thyself.71

Another highly interesting Gnostic text was inserted at an early date into the apocry‑ phal Acts of John (chapters 87 – 105). This text purports to reveal the esoteric under‑ standing of the mystery of the cross. In this context, reference is made to the fact that »the members of him who came down have yet to be gathered together.« Only the proper understanding of the secret myth will permit the identification of the believer with the savior, i. e., his divinization.72 Puech proposes to read these texts in the light of a passage of Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella: You should train yourself to ascend into yourself [he prompts his wife], gathering all the mem‑ bers of your body which have been scattered and cut into many pieces from their former unity which had strength due to its size.73

The images of dispersion and reassembling of bodily members in this text, notes Puech, seem to be rooted in a myth (and perhaps a ritual act) relating the cutting into pieces, and then the recollection, of a divine body. While for Reitzenstein (and others) such images seemed to refer to the myth of Osiris, for Puech, it is the myth of Dionysus Zagreus which formed the kernel of Porphyry’s metaphor. Puech follows here Pierre Boyancé, for whom Porphyry and the Neoplatonists had been offering a

70  Epiphanius, Panarion 26.13.2. Note the expression »pull up the roots.« Cf. kitsets ba‑netiyot in the description of the four who entered Paradise (Mishna Ḥagiga 14, b). 71  Epiphanius, Panarion 26.3.1. I quote the translation in W. Schneemelcher, R. McL. Wilson, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, I (Cambridge, 1991), 358 – 360. See also F. Bovon, P. Geoltrain, eds., Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, I (Paris, 1997), 479 – 482, where some further parallels are noted. 72   W. Schneemelcher and E. McL. Wilson, eds., New Testament Apocrypha (Cambridge, Louis‑ ville, KY, 1991), II, 185; F. Bovon and P. Geoltrain, eds., Écrits apocryphes chrétiens (La Pléiade; Paris, 1997), I, 1007. 73   Sullegousa apo tou sōmatos panta to diaskedasthenta sou melē kai eis plēthos katakermastisthenta . . . I quote according to Porphyry the Philosopher, To Marcella, ed. with trans. by K. O’Brien Wicker (Texts and Translations, Graeco-Roman Series; Atlanta, 1987), ch. 10, 54 – 55.

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symbolic interpretation of the Orphic myth of Dionysus Zagreus.74 Like Puech, the Italian historian of ancient religions Ugo Bianchi was intrigued by the phenomeno‑ logical parallels between Orphic and Gnostic texts, and stated that »les orphiques ont fait du gnosticisme avant la lettre.«75 Both movements struck him as being structur‑ ally similar in their dualism and soteriology. On various occasions, Bianchi sought to identify the nature of the continuity between Orphism and Gnosticism. He insisted upon what he called Orphic »mysteriosophy«, which he saw as announcing Gnostic theosophy and anthroposophy: the wandering of the soul in this world, in the cycle of births, and aspiring to final liberation.76 Without denying the presence of Jew‑ ish or Iranian themes in Gnostic mythology, Bianchi, in the footsteps of Leisegang, argued for the preeminence of the Greek structural element. He also recognized, however, that Gnosticism could have taken root only in a monotheistic milieu which permitted the focus on the lower demiurge as being responsible for material cre‑ ation. Bianchi noted, moreover, the similar fate of Orphism and Gnosticism in the history of scholarship. In both cases, this fate oscillates between two diametrically opposed positions: either both movements are seen as full-fledged religions, or their existence is rejected altogether. Bianchi argued for the middle way, seeing them both as complex religious movements, plural but »essentially coherent,« established upon what he calls a »sophic« interpretation of the contemporary religious scene.77 One must admit that Bianchi’s language is lacking in clarity. If I understand him correctly, however, he calls attention to the structural similarities between two move‑ ments which both expressed deep unease with contemporary mainstream religion. He also postulates a genetic link between them, although the nature of this link is not specified. Bianchi refers to the Ophite diagram mentioned by Origen and to the var‑ ious »passwords« to be pronounced by the soul at the seven »checkpoints« manned by the archons, on its way to salvation.78 For him, these passwords play a role parallel to that of the Orphic gold leaves: in both cases, the soul recognizes its divine origin.79 What should be emphasized, however, is the deep structural difference between the two systems: for one, the voyage of the soul takes place in the underworld, for the other, throughout the heavens. This dramatic change does not seem to have been studied carefully enough. Future studies should emphasize the Jewish apocalyptical

74   Puech in Annuaire de l’EPHE 72 (1964 – 1965), 103 – 104. This interpretation might go back to Xenocrates. Boyancé establishes his argument upon Olympiodorus’ Commentary on the Phaedo. 75   U. Bianchi, »L’orphisme a existé,« 187 – 195, esp. 194, in his Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriosophy (Studies in the History of Religions 38; Leiden, 1978). 76   Bianchi, »Le problème des origines du gnosticisme et l’histoire des religions,« in his Selected Essays, 219 – 235, esp. 228. 77   Ibid., 223. 78  Origen, Contra Celsum VI. 30 – 31 (transl. Chadwick, 345 – 348). 79   Bianchi, »Psyche and Destiny,« in his Selected Essays, 55. Similar passwords are of course wellknown from the Orphic gold lamellae; see C. Riedweg, »Poésie orphique et rituel initiatique. Élé‑ ments d’un ›discours sacré‹ dans les lamelles d’or,« in RHR 219 (2002), 459 – 481.

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heritage of the heavenly visions in early Christian and Gnostic literature, and seek to determine whether and how this heritage lies at the core of the passage of the soul’s journey from the Underworld to the Heavenly realm. One final note: while Jewish Hellenistic literature was mainly impressed by the figure of Orpheus, the Gnostic texts ignore this figure, and mainly offer structural parallels to Orphic mythology, soteriology, and purity rituals.

III. Orpheus Christianus After having proved so attractive to the Jews, the figure of Orpheus puzzled the Christians in the Roman Empire. For them, Orpheus was at once attractive and dangerous. For, Christianity and Orphism share, strikingly, the fundamental idea of a suffering god. In the last pages of his monographic study of Orphism, Guthrie reviews the various scholarly attempts to find points of similarity between the two movements, and reproduces the famous Berlin amulet showing a crucified figure, with the inscription Orpheos bakkikos.80 As we have seen, the figure of Orpheus had undergone in the Hellenistic Jewish literature a conversion, of sorts, to monotheism. He remained a popular figure, a singer similar to King David, in early Christian art, at least until the fourth century.81 To be sure, Orpheus did not only elicit com‑ plimentary remarks. Clement of Alexandria speaks of him in malam partem, as an impostor, who had with his art lured humanity into idolatry.82 For Clement, it is pre‑ cisely Orpheus’ peculiar style of paganism which was particularly threatening, since it could appear as dangerously close to the Christian kerygma. Martin Nilsson has spoken of a hostile relationship between the early Orphics and the adepts of Bacchic rituals, comparing it to the rivalry between early Chris‑ tians and Jews, whom the Christians despised and accused of misunderstanding 80

 Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 265.   On the avatars of Orpheus in Christian art and literature, see J. B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1970). For the early centuries, see, in particular, ch. 2. See further C. Markschies, »Odysseus und Orpheus – christlich gelesen,« in R. von Haeling, ed., Griechische Mythologie und frühes Christentum (Darmstadt, 2005), 227 – 253. For more detailed studies of artistic representations, see I. J. Jesnick, The Image of Orpheus in Roman Mosaic (BAR International Series 671; Oxford, 1997). For the impact of Orpheus’ figure on late antique Jewish art, see M. Barasch, »The David Mosaic of Gaza,« in N. Kenaan, ed., Assaph: Studies in Art History I (Tel Aviv, 1980), 1 – 41. I wish to thank Rina Talgam for calling my attention to these two last items. 82   Protrepticus I.3.1 (SC 55; Paris, 1949; second ed.). Cf. J.‑M. Roessli, »Convergence et diver‑ gence dans l’interprétation du mythe d’Orphée. De Clément d’Alexandrie à Eusèbe de Césarée,« in RHR 219 (2002), 503 – 513. See also E. Irwin, »The Songs of Orpheus and the New Song of Christ,« in J. Warden, ed., Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth (Toronto, London, 1982), 51 – 62. Two fun‑ damental studies of Orphism and early Christianity were published after these pages were final‑ ized: M. Herrero de Jáuregui, Tradición órfica y cristianismo antiguo (Madrid, 2007); and F. Jourdan, Orphée et les chrétiens: la réception du mythe d’Orphée dans la littérature chrétienne grecque des cinq premiers siècles, I. Orphée, du repoussoir au préfigurateur du Christ (Paris, 2010). 81

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their own scriptures.83 Nilsson was here following in the footsteps of Jane Harrison, who saw in Orpheus a prophet of reform of the primitive Dionysiac religion. As a reform of former cult, Orphism was thus compared to the Christian reform of Juda‑ ism – and, inevitably, the traditional perception of Christian »spirit« versus Jewish »flesh« spilled over, as it were, onto the perception of the tensions between Orphism and traditional Greek religion. The discussion of the relationship between Orphism and Christianity is part and parcel of the broad theme of Hellenistic mysteries versus Christian sacraments. At the start of his celebrated essay on the topic, dating from 1952, a.d. Nock points out that it has been so much discussed that it is hard to believe that one may come up with any new conclusions.84 In his Drudgery Divine, Jonathan Z. Smith argued at length that among Protestant scholars, mystery religions were often treated as essen‑ tially Catholic in their essence, as it were. Such scholars often considered Judaism as a cordon sanitaire around early Christianity, which prevented its »pollution« by the looming »Hellenistic mysteries.«85 Smith was no doubt able to identify a clear desire, mainly within Protestant milieus, to »protect« early Christianity from the surround‑ ing cults and myths in the Roman Empire. To a great extent, indeed, these cults and myths were deemed in these milieus to be too close to those of the Catholic Church. There is much truth in this approach, but it is far from representing the whole gamut of attitudes.86 One has suggested to relate the strong interest in Orphism at the end of the nine‑ teenth century to the Kulturkampf in Bismarkian Germany. The identification of preludes and parallels to early Christianity in the Greek world led to its historiciz‑ ing, thus supporting the demand for a »privatization« of religion, for its »dis-estab‑ lishment.« Similar attitudes, however, would soon be reflected in Catholic milieus; the most striking example, here, is probably that of Alfred Loisy, a Catholic priest who was eventually excommunicated for the boldness of his scholarly views, and who ended at the Collège de France a career begun at the Institut Catholique. Loisy described what he thought was the Orphic cult referred to in the gold lamellae: »L’ascétisme ici vient en aide au mysticisme pour organiser la rédemption.«87 In Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien, a book written before the First World War, but only published in 1919, Loisy insisted on the »spiritual affinities« between pagan mysteries and Christianity. Both represented in the ancient world the transforma‑ tion of former »national religions« (or »cults«), such as the religion of the Greek 83  M. Nilsson, »Early Orphism and Kindred Religious Movements,« Harvard Theological Review 28 (1935), 181 – 230, esp. 204. 84   A. D. Nock, »Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments,« in his Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, ed. Z. Stewart (Oxford, 1972), II, 791 – 820. 85  Smith, Drudgery Divine, 79 – 81. 86  Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 52 – 54, argues against Smith for interaction between the religions of late antiquity. 87   A. Loisy, Essai historique sur le sacrifice (Paris, 1920), 411.

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polis and that of Israel, which were unable to offer promises of personal immortality and eternal happiness.88 For Loisy, the great divide was that between state religions and those of the individual. For him, only the latter were established upon personal choice: »On naît dans sa religion nationale, on entre dans le mystère librement et par choix.«89 In a sense, then, Loisy’s analysis reflects the acceptance by a French Cath‑ olic intellectual of the new attitudes to religion entailed by the 1905 Law of Separa‑ tion of Church and State. Religion – true, spiritual religion – is the business of the individual. One imagines easily how such an approach could strike more traditional Catholic scholars as tainted with either free-thinking, or, worse, a Protestant color. Indeed, Loisy’s conception of Orphism would be the main target of Marie-Joseph Lagrange, the daring Dominican who had in the late nineteenth century established the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem, in order to show urbi et orbi that Catholic scholars were able to study the Bible with the tools of historical philology and modern archaeology – just like the Protestants, but of course better. Orphism was so central for Lagrange that he devoted to it the fourth volume of his Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, published in 1930. From the start, Lagrange states clearly the stakes involved: he intends to debunk the commonly held view that Christianity represents the union of messianic beliefs with the cult of a saving god, or that it is, before all else, a mystery religion which succeeded more than others.90 The various chapters of the book deal, in rather scholastic fashion, with the current state of research on Orphic literature, the figure of Orpheus, Orphic myths, Orphism as a salvation religion, and its impact of Orphism in Greece. A very short and insignificant chapter deals with Orphism and Judaism. It is only in the twelfth and final, long chapter, »L’orphisme et le christianisme,« that Lagrange tackles the book’s real goal: to refute Loisy’s claim that Orphism, as a Dionysiac mystery cult established around the myth of the death and resurrection of Dionysus Zagreus, was »le type le plus rapproché du christianisme paulinien.«91 The union to the suffering and dying god is the first theme analyzed by Lagrange, who concludes that Orphism, like the other mysteries, lacked the notion of spirit which would have rendered such a union possible. As to the union to the resurrected god, the fundamental difference between Christians and Orphics is the status of the body: the Christian strives for the resurrection of the body, while the deepest desire

88   A. Loisy, Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien (Paris, 1930; first ed. 1919), 15. Cf. S. Guettel Cole, »Voices beyond the Grave: Dionysus and the Dead,« in T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, London, 1993), 277 – 285, speaks of Dionysus as of a god whose myths about the double birth, death and rebirth, and journey to the Underworld, made him a figure attrac‑ tive to those who wished to escape anxieties of death (p. 279). 89  Loisy, Les mystères païens, 17. 90   M.‑J. Lagrange, Les mystères: l’orphisme (Introduction à l’étude du Nouveau Testament, IV: Critique historique; Paris, 1937), 2 – 3. Cf. F. Laplanche, La crise de l’origine: La science catholique des Evangiles et l’histoire au XXe siècle (Paris, 2005). 91  Lagrange, Les mystères: l’orphisme, 191.

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of the Orphic is his liberation from the burden of the body. In the Orphic myth, one cannot really speak of original sin, as the evil nature of the Titans is the origin, rather than the consequence, of their sin. On sacrifice and omophagy, the deep divide between Orphism and Christianity is obvious; it is for vetus, rather than verus Israel, that blood sacrifices are considered a pleasing offering to God. On purifications after death and the prayer for the dead (retained in the Catholic refrigerium), Lagrange accepts the argument of the »German Protestant« scholars, for whom purgatory is a rather late conception, unknown to the earliest Church. Yet Lagrange’s discussion of a possible influence of Orphism on early Christianity ends with a categorical dis‑ claimer: »il ne peut être question de l’influence de l’opinion orphique (encore moins des mystères) sur la religion chrétienne.«92 The book ends with a reference to a fourth or fifth-century mosaic found, with Lagrange’s help, in Jerusalem in 1901, a picture of which appears on the title page. Orpheus plays a lyre for the beasts, in what seems to be an originally pagan iconog‑ raphy, later Christianized, as shown by the images of Georgia and Theodora.93

IV. Conclusion In his influential L’idéal religieux des grecs et l’Évangile, first published in 1932, Fes‑ tugière, a Dominican classicist writing in the spirit of Lagrange,94 sought to iden‑ tify what was missing in Greek thought, that permitted the Gospel to take hold of the ancient world. Marshalling both Greek philosophy and literature, he reached the conclusion that while the Greeks did reflect on human suffering, and did at times recognize that it could teach and ennoble men, they were unable to perceive its saving value. It is only divine sacrifice that can bring to man’s delivery. Festugière’s vision, so eloquently presented, remained rather schematic – and utterly ignored the Jewish character of earliest Christianity. In these pages, I have argued for the need to study together the various echoes of Orpheus and Orphism in the Hellenistic and Roman world, if we want to understand more precisely the continuities and discon‑ tinuities between Orphic, Jewish, Gnostic and Christian texts. The argument between Loisy and Lagrange has been presented here at some length as it exemplifies the stakes of the history of religions in the ancient world as a burning issue which shaped religious identities in the twentieth century. To us, such arguments may sound as though they come from afar, and their echo is blurred. Today, a scholar would be very daring to claim that her or his identity is challenged 92

 Lagrange, Les mystères: l’orphisme, 217.   On this mosaic, which is now in Istanbul, see A. Ovadiah and S. Muchnik, »The Jerusalem Orpheus: A Pagan or a Christian Figure?« in A. Oppenheimer, U. Rappaport, and M. Stern, eds., Chapters in the History of Jerusalem during the Second Commonwealth (Jerusalem, 1981), 415 – 433 (in Hebrew). 94   He had studied at the École Biblique for a year. 93

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by perceptions of ancient Orphism and of its historical impact. Oddly enough, in an age in which claiming inter-disciplinary interests is de bon ton, we seem to have given up on ancient, still unsolved problems. The comparative study of suffering gods, at least, remains very much a scholarly desideratum. I have intentionally not dealt, here, with Radcliffe Edmonds III’s argument according to which the Zagreus myth is a fabrication of modern scholarship depen‑ dent upon Christian models.95 Such a discussion is best left to philologists. Edmonds is certainly right in calling attention to the cultural and religious context in which the modern study of Orphism was born and developed. But he, too, like all of us, is also the heir of this context: it is still hard for us to recognize the existence, centuries before the birth of Christianity, of some of its fundamental concepts. At the start of this essay, I referred to the religious mutations of late antiquity: the transformation of the person, the use of books in religion, the end of blood sacri‑ fices, and the passage from civil to communitarian religion. The Orphic traditions offer important insights on all these mutations, and on how they became possible. The early Orphic texts highlight one early instance of the transformation of religious beliefs in the Achsenzeit, at least within small, marginal groups. Orphic traditions were carried around in various garbs during the Hellenistic world, in particular by the Jews. It is only under the Roman Empire that the implicit and explicit concep‑ tions underlining it would become widespread and permit the transformation of the very idea of religion.

95  R. G. Edmonds III, »Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A  Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin,« Classical Antiquity 18 (1999), 35 – 73.

4. To See or Not to See: On the Early History of the Visio Beatifica »Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.« (Matt. 5:8). The sixth Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount set the agenda for two millennia of Christian mysti‑ cism.1 In Christian territory, the vision of God is possible, but under certain condi‑ tions, having to do with both purity and interiority. This Beatitude also points to the origin of the Christian ideal of seeing God: the Jewish background of the Sermon on the Mount. While Christianity and Judaism do not have the same age, rabbinic Judaism was born, like Christianity, in the first century c.e. It would stand to reason, therefore, to study the early development of mysticism in the two religions together, in a comparative perspective. It thus comes as a painful surprise to discover how little such an exercise is practiced, and that religious historians remain too often prisoners of theological ideas and religious polemics of old, or of their education.2 It is in this perspective that the following pages will seek to follow some trajectories in early Christian mystical traditions. In the first chapter of his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem argued that the phenomenon called mysticism may appear only in certain specific stages of religious evolution, not at any time, or under any circumstances.3 Scholem’s remark may not have been particularly original, but it was no doubt correct: mys‑ ticism reflects attempts to reach some kind of concrete contact with the Deity, and is by definition a phenomenon of the individual, entailing, more often than not, his (or her) transformation in the process – ecstasy or divinization. 1   See for instance H. D. Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Minneapolis, 1995), 134 – 137, esp. 136. Betz notes the contrast between the rarity of visions of heaven and of God Himself in both the Old and the New Testaments and their frequency in apocalyptic and rabbinic Judaism, as well as in Jewish and Christian mystical literature and in Gnostic texts. For a classical analysis of some semi‑ nal texts in the history of Latin mystical literature, see Dom C. Butler, Western Mysticism (London, 1926). For a metaphorical use of vision, see K. E. Kirk, The Vision of God: The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum (London, Toronto, 1931). The mystical visio divina in the Eastern tradition has been masterfully studied by V. Lossky, The Vision of God (Wing Road, Bedfordshire, 1963). A. Guil‑ laumont has pointed out that the deep ambivalence toward visions in Eastern monastic literature is due precisely to the insistence on a pure heart in the Sixth Beatitude: »Les visions mystiques dans le monachisme oriental chrétien,« in his Aux origines du monachisme chrétien (Spiritualité orientale 30; Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1979), 136 – 147. 2   See for instance A. H. Armstrong, »Gottesschau (Visio beatifica)«, RAC 12 (1983), 1 – 19. In his treatment of early Christianity, Armstrong seems to ignore the existence of its Jewish substratum. The same attitude can be observed in Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, I (Paris, 1959), ch. 3: »La vision de Dieu«, 44 – 66. 3   G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1944),

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In that sense, the first Christian centuries, in the Near East and around the Medi‑ terranean, which saw the birth and early growth of Jewish as of Christian mysticism, are a particularly interesting period, as it also saw some radical mutations in the very concept of religion.4 To a great extent, it is the new conception of the person emerging then which rendered such mutations possible, or even imperative. I am referring to complex processes of internalization. Michel Foucault has well perceived the radical transformations involved in the new »care of the self« (le souci de soi), although he did not really analyze its implications for a new conception of religion.5 In late antiq‑ uity, religion was not any more perceived, first and foremost, as something happening essentially in the public space – which had been usually the case in ancient societies. The Roman Empire sealed the fate of the polis as an ideal of civilization, while Chris‑ tianity brought an end to the centrality of political thought. More and more, the locus of religion was identified as the human heart – although the collective dimensions of religion never disappeared, but were drastically reinterpreted in early Christian‑ ity. According to such a new perception of things, the final aim of religion entailed a transformation of the self, its merging with (or in) the Divine. In that sense, mysticism became, in late antiquity, the ultimate goal of religious life, at least for »over-achievers,« those whom Max Weber called religious virtuosi. A topical example, which reminds us that the mystical ideal was far from being reserved to Jews and Christians, is provided by Plotinus’s descriptions of how the interior eye can eventually enable man to behold God.6 Plotinus argues that no eye has ever seen the sun without becoming sun-like. Hence, »You must become first all god-like and all beautiful if you intend to see God and beauty.« For Plotinus, the mystical, spiritual vision of God is not quite unattain‑ able though it is only rarely achieved (Porphyry tells us that his teacher reached that stage only four times during his life).7 In any case, it is not simply a passive vision, but a real transformation of the self, which can be achieved only after having been actively and persistently sought for through »spiritual exercises« over a long time. Carlo Ginzburg has pointed out that the transformation of Christianity from an aniconic religion to an iconic religion, in the fourth century, remains to this day fundamentally unexplained, despite the many studies devoted to the appearance of images, and their passage to the fore with the Constantinian revolution and its sequels.8 This intriguing phenomenon would eventually have dramatic conse‑ 4   I have studied these mutations in La fin du sacrifice: Mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005). The transformation of the very idea of religion in late antiquity is no less significant than that of the Achsenzeit identified by Karl Jaspers in the middle of the first millennium b.c.e. 5   See in particular M. Foucault, L’herméneutique du sujet (Paris, 2001). 6  Plotinus, Enneads I.6.9; with A. H. Armstrong’s translation (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., and Lon‑ don, 1978), vol. I, 258 – 263. 7   Vita Plotini, 16. 8   C. Ginzburg, »Idols and Likenesses: Origen, Homilies on Exodus VIII.3 and Its Reception,« in J. Onians, ed., Sight and Insight: Essays on Art and Culture in Honour of E. H. Gombrich at 85 (Lon‑ don, 1994), 55 – 72.

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quences for the development of European culture. In our present context, it should be noticed that simultaneously with this transformation of Christianity into a reli‑ gion of images, Christian mysticism underwent a radical shift. In its earliest stages, Christian mystical texts sometimes speak about very concrete visions, including of the divine world and God Himself, who is sometimes described as having a shape, or a body. Later on, the language of mystical experience changes, the bodily, physical descriptions disappear, and the mystical vision is usually described in terms of light, in the kataphatic trends – or sometimes of darkness, when apophatic language is used.9 In other words, the concrete language of vision all but disappears precisely at the time when images of the Divine burst out in public and ubiquitous display. The intellectual background of the new language of Christian mysticism is of course Pla‑ tonism, which Christian thinkers adopted, as they thought, wrongly, that it provided a perfect intellectual frame for their theology (only in the twelfth century, with the discovery of Aristotle, would they eventually try, with limited success, to free them‑ selves from this burdensome heritage).10 In order to better understand how the almost total disappearance of the concrete, physical vision of God in Christian mysticism happened, we need not only connect it to the growing importance of Platonic influence, but must also perceive it in con‑ nection with the aniconic character of Judaism (a character perhaps less clear than the rabbis would want us to believe), which by no means prevented visions. Perhaps, on the contrary, it may be argued that the lack of any concrete representation of the Jewish God (in strong opposition to the ubiquitous statues of the gods in cities throughout the Mediterranean) could only encourage mental representations of God and imagining His form(s). The various visions in Apocryphal literature, from the times of the Second Temple, are a potent testimony to Jewish imaginative powers. As is well known, such visions, which did not disappear with the destruction of the Temple, formed the basis of both rabbinic and early Christian speculations. As the eschatological dimension of early Jewish thought became more and more blurred (among both Jews and Christians), these traditions of visions turned into what we usually call mystical experience. Without attempting, once more, to offer a definition of mysticism, I can at least suggest that it involves a personal attempt at a direct con‑ tact with the Divinity; this contact is bound to effect a transformation of the person, and is usually prepared by a series of what Pierre Hadot has identified as »spiritual exercises,« a shibboleth of intellectual and spiritual life in the ancient world.11

 9   On apophatic and kataphatic language, see for instance Y. de Andia, »Négative (théologie),« in J. Y. Lacoste, ed., Dictionnaire de Théologie (Paris, 1998), 791 – 795. 10   See E. von Ivanka, Plato Christianus: La réception critique du Platonisme chez les Pères de l’Église (Paris, 1990). See further J. Rist, »Plotinus and Christian Philosophy,« in L. P. Gerson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge, 1996), 386 – 413. 11   P. Hadot, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (Paris, 1995), passim.

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Recent studies, by both Howard Jackson and Rachel Elior, make a strong case for the development of Jewish mysticism precisely after the destruction of the Temple.12 The lack of a Temple encouraged the invention and development of new visions of the spiritual Temple, or God’s Palace, and new speculations about the body of God. To a great extent, the earliest Christians partook with Jews the main frameworks of their religious imagination. The main difference, obviously, was the fact that for Christians, the figure of Jesus-Christ offered a natural focus for the individual in search of a personal relationship with the Divine world. In our context, Ginzburg’s comment on the still poorly understood transformation of Christianity from an ani‑ conic to an iconic religion may suggest a working hypothesis: it may not be com‑ pletely due to chance that the development of ritual images, and the theological jus‑ tification of such a step, among Christians, coincides with a drastic transformation of Christian mysticism, and the spiritualization (or internalization) of its visions of God, and also with a change of emphasis from seeing God to becoming God, from theōria to theiosis. Could it be that the blossoming of icons was made possible, at least in part, by the growing reluctance to conceive the mystical visio Dei as a con‑ crete vision of His physical body? Obviously, I cannot answer such a question here. I can only express my surprise at the fact that it does not seem to have been seriously asked. I wish to at least offer here some remarks on the early stages of Christian mys‑ ticism that might put us on the right track to tackle the question. While the Jewish matrix of early Christian mysticism still needs to be fully rec‑ ognized, scholarship is also plagued by another, related, problem. Again, looking at texts in an anachronistic way, from the perspective of later, theological positions, students of early Christian mysticism have by and large been unable to deal seriously with trends others than the Platonic tradition of spiritual theōria which represent the orthodox mainstream during the Patristic period. This is true, mainly, for those texts and trends reflecting anthropomorphic con‑ ceptions of God, for instance, but not only, among the Egyptian monks. The so-called anthropomorphist monks of fourth-century Egypt, who were at the epicenter of the first Origenist controversy, and were eventually denounced in 399 by Theophilos, the Patriarch of Alexandria, were not simple peasants, unable to conceive of the Divine nature, as is usually thought, but heirs to the oldest tradition of Christian mysti‑ cism.13 According to Cassian, a certain Photinus, from Cappadocia, told the Egyp‑ tian monks that the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26) is to be understood in a 12   H. Jackson, »The Origins and Development of Shi’ur Qomah Revelation in Jewish Mysticism,« Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 31 (2000), 373 – 416; R. Elior, Temple and Chariot, Priests and Angels, Sanctuary and Heavenly Sanctuaries in Early Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem, 2002; in Hebrew). 13   On the Origenist controversy, see E. A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992). On anthropomorphic conceptions among the early monks, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Origen on God’s Incorporeality: Context and Implications«, Religion 13 (1983), 345 – 358.

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spiritual rather than in a literal, anthropomorphist way. Hearing that, Abba Serapion cried out: »Ah, misfortune! They have taken my God away from me. I have no one to adore, and I don’t know whom to adore or address!«, reflecting the waning of the old mystical tradition of the visio Dei.14 Another group which retained the idea that God had a body were the Audians, a fourth-century Mesopotamian heretical group who seem to have retained archaic Judaeo-Christian traditions.15 In an impressive recent article, which would deserve a broad diffusion, Agoston Schmelowszky has dealt with this conflict within a broad perspective.16 Schme­ lowszky was able to analyze quite correctly the two main different kinds of early Christian mysticism (body mysticism versus light mysticism), as well as the strong similarities between the »anthropomorphic,« non-Platonizing trend and some of the primary texts of early Jewish mysticism. Such similarities, needless to say, can hardly be due to chance. The later transformation of Christian mysticism, which was mainly due to Christian immersion in the intellectual world of the Roman Empire, is not paralleled among the Jews, who retained for many more centuries archaic patterns of thought (it is hard, for instance, to find a serious disengagement from anthropo‑ morphic conceptions of God among Jews before Maimonides!). Another transformation of Christian mysticism in late antiquity, which does not find a parallel in Jewish traditions, is the total disappearance, as far as we know, of esoteric trends. Esotericism characterized in the ancient world intellectual as well as religious traditions. In Greece, in Iran, and in Israel, we can detect two levels of religious (or philosophical thought), the higher one, dealing with the true nature of the divine, being reserved to the elites. Obviously, early mystical traditions were thus characterized by such esotericism. For various and serious reasons, these esoteric patterns of thought disappeared among the Christians in the first centuries.17 What remained was the language of mysteries, in which later Christian mystical texts are clad. Briefly, the main reasons for this disappearance of Christian esoteric traditions have to do with Gnosis (where such traditions thrived) and the very nature of Chris‑ tianity, its ecumenism, which offered salvation, equally, for all and sundry, and thus could not easily accommodate secret doctrines. 14   John Cassian, Conferences, trans. by C. Luibheid (Classics of Western Spirituality; New York, 1985), Conference 10, on prayer, pp. 125 ff. Cf. B. Studer, »Anthropomorphism,« Encyclopedia of the Early Church (Oxford, 1992), I, 46. 15   See G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Wisenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 112; Tübingen, 1999), 250 – 267 (»Jewish and Gnostic Traditions among the Audians«). 16   A. Schmelowszky, »À la recherche d’un discours perdu: les antécédents du débat sur Origène,« Kabbalah  6 (2001), 11 – 44. See also his doctoral dissertation: »From my body I behold God« (Job 19:26): A Contribution to the Revaluation of the Theoretical Background of the Origenist Controversy (Central European University, Budapest, 2004). 17   I have sought to analyze these reasons in my Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Studies in the History of Religions LXX; Leiden, New York, Cologne, 1996; revised paperback ed. 2005).

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The historical situation is more complex, however, than the replacement of an old school of thought (the concrete visio Dei) by a more sophisticated one, established on a Platonic basis and hence permitting the idea of a spiritual vision. There seems to have been, also among Jews, a dialectical tension between two opposite traditions. The Jews did not usually think that God could not be seen, but rather, that seeing God was so dangerous for man that it could be attempted, if at all, carefully, under various conditions and with strict limitations. In other words, an imageless worship of God by no means prevented the creation and even the cultivation, at least among religious virtuosi, of mental images of God. But if God can be seen, this is only at the end of a lengthy process and preparation, an askēsis. In that sense, Max Weber’s cate‑ gories, which oppose asceticism and mysticism, do not seem to represent accurately the historical evidence. Some Jews, however, argued that God could not be seen, under any conditions, or that such an attempt, even if possible, should be most strongly condemned, as it reflected a heretical attitude. Obviously, these two opposite perceptions could be also found among Christians in the first centuries. Thanks to Platonism, however, Chris‑ tians theologians – but not Jewish thinkers after Philo – could also offer a third alternative to these two opposite attitudes: they could claim the vision of God to be a spiritual vision, which had nothing to do with the vision of the corporal eyes. For Philo, however, while God is by nature absolutely invisible, His powers, or dynameis, can reveal Him. This idea, which cannot be found among Platonic philosophers, had a dramatic influence on fourth-century mysticism, from Gregory of Nyssa to the Pseudo-Dionysus and Maximus Confessor.18 In the first stages of Jewish mysticism, which Scholem mistakenly referred as to »Jewish Gnosticism,« one can identify three main visual trajectories: 1.  the vision of God’s body, usually referred to as Shi‘ur Qoma 2.  the vision of God’s palace (or palaces: Hekhalot literature) 3.  the vision of God’s chariot, or Merkavah (referring to Ezekiel, chapter 1). In the remaining pages, I want to call attention to parallels to various Patristic texts that can be identified as belonging to each of these approaches.19 18

  See for instance Philo, Spec. Leg. 1.41.50. On the Pseudo-Dionysus and the Origenist tradition, István Perczel has written a series of seminal articles. See in particular I. Perczel, »Le Pseudo-Denys, lecteur d’Origène,« in W. A. Beinert and V. Kühneweg, eds., Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhundertes (Leuven, 1999), 673 – 710. 19   Scholem expressed his views mainly in his Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1960; second ed. 1965). Cf. the review by D. Flusser in JJS 11 (1960), 59 – 68. See also, for instance, G. Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York, 1991 = Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, Zurich, 1962), 15 – 55, on Shi’ur Qoma. Scholarship on Jewish mysticism has grown so fast since Scholem’s book appeared that it would be meaningless to multiply references. For our theme, see however P. Schaefer, The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany, New York, 1992). See further M. Lieb, The Visionary Mode: Biblical Prophecy, Hermeneutics, and Cultural Change (Ithaca, London, 1991), which focuses on the differences between Jewish and Christian modes of vision. For a general study of the theme of vision in Christian mysticism, see further E. Benz, »Vision und Führung in der christlichen Mystik,« Eranos Jahrbuch 31 (1962), 117 – 169.

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I. The Vision of God’s Body One of the fragments attributed to Valentinus is a commentary on Matt. 5:8: it refers to the heart, which, only when pure, will be able to see God: »But when the Father, who alone is good, visits the heart, he makes it holy and fills it with light. And so a person who has such a heart is called blessed, for that person will see God.«20 Valentinus wrote this in early second-century Alexandria, and his thought reflects strong Platonic influ‑ ences. It is thus probable that the visio Dei he refers to is a spiritual one, leaving nothing to the concrete body of God. But other Gnostic texts emphasized the vision of God’s body. Such are, for instance, the traditions attributed to Marcus Gnosticus, one of Val‑ entinus’s followers. The similarities of his elucubrations on the Body of Truth (sōma tēs alētheias), as reported by Irenaeus, to the late ancient traditions on the dimensions of God’s body (Shi’ur Qomah) are well known to all students of Jewish mysticism. It was Moses Gaster who first called attention to them, before the end of the nineteenth cen‑ tury. Gershom Scholem, after him, dwelled on these similarities, which showed, for him, the deep links between Gnosis and the earliest stages of Kabbalah.21 Scholem’s slanted perceptions of historical relationships stemmed from his conception of Gnosis, which remained rooted in German scholarship between the two World Wars, before the Nag Hammadi discovery, and under the spell of Mark Lidzbarsky’s editions and translations of some central Mandaean texts (a similar misperception of things stands at the basis of Rudolph Bultmann’s understanding of the Gospel of John, for instance). We now know the situation to have been much more complex. A number of stud‑ ies have emphasized the relationships between early Christian mystical texts and tra‑ ditions stemming from Jewish apocalyptic literature.22 I am thinking here, in par‑ ticular, of the work of Alexander Golitzin, who, in a remarkable series of articles, has been able to show clear trajectories leading from Jewish perceptions of the late Second Temple period to late ancient and Byzantine mystical traditions.23 There is 20   For the text in English translation, see B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, New York, 1987), 245. Cf. G. Casadio, »Patterns of Vision in Some Gnostic Tractates from Nag Ham‑ madi,« M. Rassart-Debergh and J. Ries, eds., Actes du IVè congrès copte, II (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1992), 395 – 401. See further A.  DeConick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Suppl. to Vigiliae Christianae 33; Leiden, 1996). 21   See for instance Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 36 – 42. 22   See for instance D. Frankfurter, »The Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses in Early Christianity: Regional Trajectories,« in J. C. VanderKam and W. Adler, eds., The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (Assen, Minneapolis, 1996), 129 – 200. 23   See for instance A. Golitzin, »›Earthly Angels and Heavenly Men‹: The Old Testament Pseud­ epigrapha, Nicetas Stethatos, and the Tradition of ›Interiorized Apocalyptic‹ in Eastern Christian and Mystical Literature,« Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001), 125 – 153; »The Demons Suggest an Illusion of God’s Glory in a Form: Controversy over the Divine Body and Vision of Glory in Some Fourth- and Fifth-Century Monastic Literature,« Studia Monastica 44 (2002), 13 – 43; »The Form of God and Vision of the Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphic Controversy of a.d. 399,« in A. Louth and J. Behr, eds., Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia (Crestwood, New York, 2003), 273 – 297.

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no doubt that the »orthodox« Christians (and not only the Gnostics) could seek, like the Jews, to see God. Moreover, the main difference between »Judaism« and »Chris‑ tianity« (however these abstract entities are conceived), the figure and role of JesusChrist, both human and divine, permitted to Christians to overcome in a natural way the obstacle of God’s transcendence. Seeing God’s Son in a vision was more eas‑ ily conceivable than seeing the Father Himself. On the one hand, the Apostle had already spoken about his mystical vision of Christ: »Have I not seen Jesus the Lord?« (I Cor. 9:1). On the road to Damascus, nevertheless, Paul’s mystical experience is one of hearing, not of seeing; on the contrary, the power of the hierophany blinds him for a while (Acts 9:3). The existence of an archangel at God’s side, sitting next to His throne, was not a Christian prerogative. In Jewish texts, the figure of Metatron played to a great extent a role similar to that of Christ in early Christian texts. Such a concep‑ tion offered, first of all, a solution to the inescapable problem of anthropomorphism. But it also permitted more easily the visio Dei, transforming it into a visio Angeli. In a series of studies written twenty or so years ago, I have sought to study this structural and functional similarity in some detail.24 I shall obviously not come back to it here, and shall only refer to the description of the two huge angels, one male and one female, in the Book of Elchasai. This text, already known in the early second cen‑ tury, like Mark the Gnostic’s »Body of Truth«, points to a Jewish-Christian origin of such conceptions. There were, however, different traditions, which described a direct vision of God the Father. The Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by the Apostle Bartholomew, was writ‑ ten in Egypt for liturgical purposes in the fifth or sixth century, perhaps in Coptic (the language in which it has survived).25 The writer describes there how he saw »the Father of Greatness,« seated on the throne of pearl of light.26 »I saw also the Savior sitting at the right of His Father. Thousands of Archangels, Cherubs, Seraphs, Powers, Authorities, the twelve virtues of the Holy Ghost, etc. . . . inclined themselves in front of the Son of God, saying, ›Holy, holy, holy is the King, Son of God, and his good Father, and the Holy Ghost . . .‹« This passage is immediately followed by a hymn (with the repetitive: »Glory to you . . . Amen«) which is strongly reminiscent, in its structure and rhythm, of both Jewish and Manichaean hymns. The tenor of these hymns, which have not yet been studied, strongly suggests that of rabbinic hymns from late antiquity and perhaps, more precisely, that of Hekhalot texts. I have quoted this little-known text precisely because its late date and its apparently liturgical func‑ tion testify to the fact that such visions were rather common in late ancient Egyptian Christianity, at least, and were not limited to marginal or heretical circles.27 24

  These studies constitute the first three chapters of my Savoir et salut (Paris, 1992).   For an authoritative recent translation, see J. D. Kaestli and P. Cherix, L’évangile de Barthélemy (Turnhout, 1993). 26   On the Divine throne, see already Rev. 4. 27   On the context of such literature in late antique Egypt, see D. Frankfurter, »Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses,« 174 – 185. 25

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In his Peri Archōn, written in Alexandria around the turn of the third century, Origen, seeking to understand better the nature of Christ’s Sonship, writes: Let us suppose, for example, that there existed a statue of so great a size as to fill the whole world, but which on account of its immensity, was imperceptible to anyone, and that another statue was made similar to it in every detail, in shape of limbs and outline of features, in form and material, but not in its immense size, so that those who were unable to perceive and behold the immense one could yet be confident that they had seen it when they saw the small one, because this preserved every line of limbs and features and the very form and material with an absolutely indistinguishable similarity. It is by some such likeness as this that the Son, in emptying himself of his equality with the Father, and showing to us a way by which we may know him, becomes an »express image« of God’s substance, so that, through this fact of his becoming to us the brightness, we who were not able to look at the glory of pure light while it remained in the greatness of his godhead, may find a way of beholding the divine light through looking at the brightness . . .«28

To be sure, Origen does not intend to argue for a concrete, physical vision of God. For him, such a vision is purely spiritual: »Videre Deum, id est intellegere per puri‑ tatem cordis.«29 But, as Schmelowszky has demonstrated, this passage shows how Origen retains the language of a conception of the visio Dei that he no longer accepts. The model of spiritual vision of God embraced by Origen is based upon the Pla‑ tonic spiritual theōria and the inward turn, was already that of Clement of Alexan‑ dria, for whom the man who knows himself is both topos and thronos.30 The spiritu‑ alizing turn would remain a central asset of Origenist thinkers. Evagrius, for instance, »the philosopher in the desert«, could speak about »seeing the topos of God« in one‑ self, and identified the visio Dei to the visio seipsi.31 Such spiritualizing trends, while they were inserted in theories of the mystical experience, or at least implicit reflec‑ tions about its conditions and goals, reflect the difficulty of conceiving the visio Dei among Christian thinkers. Hence, the trend (also Platonizing), of the apophatic theo‑ logians with a mystical leaning, in particular Gregory of Nyssa and the Pseudo-Di‑ onysius. In his De Vita Moysis, for instance, Gregory of Nyssa states at length that even Moses, that prince of mystics, remained unable to see God. There is no need to insist here on the Nachleben of this attitude and its central place in the history of theology, mysticism, and thought, both East and West. The relative ease with which 28   Peri Archōn, I.2.8; H. Goergemanns and H. Karpp, eds., Origenes vier Bücher von den Prinzi­ pien (Darmstadt, 1976), 138 – 140. I quote the translation of G. W. Butterworth: Origen, On First Principles (New York, 1966), 21 – 22. 29   Peri Archōn, II.11.7 (ed. Goergemanns and Karpp, 456 – 457). 30  Clement, Strom. (ed. Staehlin III, 217, 25). For Clement’s description of the gnostic’s intellec‑ tual vision, cf., for instance, Strom. II. 47. 2 and VII. 68. 4. 31   To be sure, he follows in this Plotinus’ conception of the interior eye as effecting the trans‑ formation of the self and its divinization, which is the spiritual visio Dei (Plotinus, Enneads I.6.9). The same Plotinian influence can be detected in Augustine’s conception of the visio beatifica; see, for instance, De civitate Dei XXII. 29, and his Epistles 92, 147, 148, discussed by P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1967), 354. For Evagrius see, for instance, Gnostikos, 49 – 50; Evagrius of Pontus, Le gnostique, ed. with trans. by A. and C. Guillaumont (SC 356; Paris, 1989), 190 – 193.

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the visio Christi is available reflects, as I have argued, the very difficulty inherent in a visio Dei, or its impossibility. In the second century, already, the Epistle to Diognetus states categorically that nobody could know God before Christ’s coming, while at the turn of the third century, Tertullian argues about whether God is visible or invisible.32

II. Divine Palaces While the Divine Palaces have given their name to the major genre of early Jewish mystical literature, their place in the Christian mystical tradition does not seem to have been noticed enough.33 Indeed, there is no Christian equivalent to the Hekhalot literature. But this does not mean that the idea of visions of the heavenly palace of God is not to be found in early Christian literature.34 The Palace of God is of course, first of all, his dwelling place, the Temple. References to visions of the Heavenly Tem‑ ple appear in early apocryphal texts, strongly influenced by Jewish apocalyptic litera‑ ture, such as the Proto-Gospel of James or the Questions of Bartholomew, where Mary, when she was living in the Temple of God, received various angelic visions. The most interesting text in this respect, perhaps, does not seem to have received all the attention it deserves. I refer to an anonymous text, probably from the fourth century, the Vision of Dorotheos.35 This short text, of originally some 360 hexameters in epic style, is written by a certain Dorotheos, son of Quintus the poet. The manu‑ script forms part of a codex which also includes the Shepherd of Hermas, but cannot be said to have any real parallel in early Christian literature. The narrator begins by announcing that while staying in a palace (megaron), in the middle of the day, he was suddenly the recipient of a vision of God, brought to him during an induced sleep, and is afraid of reporting it.36 The vision itself brings him to the celestial and lumi‑ 32

  Ep. Diognetus 8 – 9; Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 14 – 15.   For references to the Divine palace in visions, see for instance J. N. Bremmer, »The Vision of Saturus in the Passio Perpetuae,« in F. Garcia Martinez and G. Luttikhuizen, eds., Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome (Suppl. to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 82; Leiden, 2003), 55 – 73. 34   Attempts to argue for a Jewish (Kabbalistic) source for Las Moradas (or Interior Castle) by Teresa of Avila remain largely unconvincing. See for instance C. Swietlicki, Spanish Christian Cabala in the Works of Luis de Leon, Santa Teresa de Jesus, and San Juan de la Cruz (Columbia, Missouri, 1968). 35  The editio princeps was published by A. Hurst, O. Reverdin and J. Rudhardt, Papyrus Bodmer XXIX: Vision de Dorotheos (Cologny, Geneva, 1984). For a better edition see A. H. M. Kessels and P. W. Van der Horst, »The Vision of Dorotheus (Pap. Bodmer 29), Edited, with Introduction and Notes,« Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987), 313 – 359. See further the remarks of E. Livrea on the editio princeps in Gnomon 58 (1986), 687 – 711. For divine palace in Vision, see J. Bremmer, »The Vision of Saturus. In the Passio Perpetuae«, in F. García Martínez and G. Luttikhuizen, eds., Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome. Studies in Ancient Cultural Interactions in Honour of Ton Hilhorst (Leiden, 2003), 55 – 73. 36   In early Christian literature, there is no clear distinction between dream and vision. See G. G. Stroumsa, »Dreams and Visions in Early Christian Discourse,« in D. Shulman and G. G.  Stroumsa, eds., Dream Cultures: Explorations in the Comparative History of Dreaming (New York, Oxford, 1999), 189 – 212. 33

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nous palace of God. Christ, Gabriel, and various angels appear to him; he undergoes various punishments (whipping) by the officials of the palace; and eventually he is brought in front of God, who sits in judgment of his sins. God forgives his sins; he is baptized (under the name of Andrew); and at the end of the text he stands in front of the palace, clad in new garments, obviously those befitting his new official function in the palace. Such a summary might seem to offer eerie echoes of Kafka’s Castle, but of course, Kafka could not possibly have heard about Dorotheos and his dream. While the text itself cannot retain our attention here, I want to stress its Sitz im Leben, or rather, one should say, its Sitz im Traum. The word megaron appears already in Homer, where it refers at once to a whole home and to a single room. In our text, the word (sometimes in the plural, megara) refers to both the earthly palace where the dream-vision takes place, and to the heavenly palace where Dorotheos is transported, and which is a transfiguration of the earthly palace (dōmon, and plural, dōma, are also used to refer to the divine palace). God’s palace, then, appears to be a heavenly reproduction (in the narrator’s mind, a model, of course) of the imperial palace. Like the latter, the former is full of Roman dignitaries, with the names of their official functions. Establishing themselves on this vocabulary, the editors of the editio princeps think that the author lived in the imperial palace at Nicomedia, built in 270 (rather than in Constantinople, which would point to a later period). My sole purpose in presenting this text is two-fold. Although I do not know of Christian Hekhalot literature beyond the Vision of Dorotheos, the existence of this text strongly suggests that an effort should be made by students of both Christian and Jewish early mystical literature to look over their shoulder at possible parallels which might shed a bit of light upon phenomena that remain pretty much in the dark.

III. God’s Chariot It is from Origen, and more precisely from the introduction to his Commentary on the Song of Songs, that we first hear of the central significance of Ezekiel 1 (ma’asseh merkavah) for the early stages of rabbinic esoteric doctrines, together with the last chapter of Ezekiel, the first chapters of Genesis, and the whole Song of Songs. But the book of Ezekiel also received much attention on the part of Christian theologians, throughout the generations.37 Among patristic authors, Origen seems to have been the first to devote a full-fledged commentary to this prophetic book, but his work is unfortunately lost. Much of it, however, seems to have passed into Jerome’s own commentary in Eze‑ 37   On Ezekiel in Christian hermeneutics, see J. Harvery, »Ezéchiel,« Dictionnaire de Spiritua­ lité 2, cols. 2204 – 2220, esp. cols. 2217 – 2220; E. Dassmann, »Hesekiel,« RAC 14, cols.  1132 – 1191, esp. cols.  1156 – 1164. W.  Neuss, Das Buch Ezechiel in Theologie und Kunst bis zum Ende des XII. Jahrhunderts (Muenster, 1912), is still worthwhile, but does not deal in detail with the early period. See fur‑ ther C. Rowland, The Influence of the First Chapter of Ezekiel on Jewish and Early Christian Literature, PhD dissertation, Cambridge, 1974 (non vidi).

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kiel.38 Cyril of Jerusalem, Theodoret of Cyrus, Gregory the Great, all referred at length to Ezekiel, either in proper commentaries (in the case of Theodoret), or in homilies. The most interesting text from our perspective, however, is by far the first Spiritual Homily of the Pseudo-Macarius. The unknown author of these Homilies, a work of the fourth century, which would have a powerful influence on spiritual authors, East and West, throughout the centuries, seems to have been a Messalian, and reflects the strong influence of Gregory of Nyssa, as shown by Werner Jaeger.39 The first Homily proposes from the start an allegorical interpretation of the vision of the Merkavah, which the prophet saw in a trance. For the author, »the prophet was viewing the mystery of the human soul that would receive its Lord and would become his throne of glory. For the soul that is deemed to be judged worthy to participate in the light of the Holy Spirit by becoming his throne and habitation, and is covered with the beauty of ineffable glory of the Spirit, becomes all light, all face, all eye.«40 The soul of the mystic, then, has become the living-place of God, his thronos and shekhina, that is to say, it has been transformed into the spiritual Temple: ». . . the Lord came to . . . reclaim man as his very own house and temple.«41 What we have here is a spiritualization of the merkavah, which has become the vehicle of the soul’s ascent to heaven, or, in a sense, of God’s descent into the soul. The merkavah, therefore, is the instrument of man’s divinization, or theiosis. Such a conception is strikingly different from that of the Hebrew texts on the »Descent into the Chariot« (yerida la-merkavah; where yerida is possibly a linguistic calque of kataphasis).42 Yet, it stands to reason to assume, prima facie, some kind of genetic contact between the two attitudes. In his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Scholem called attention to this deliberate internalization of Ezekiel’s throne vision, calling it »a mystical reinterpretation of the merkavah tradition.« Alexander Golitzin, it would seem, is the only scholar to have followed this lead, looking for connections between Jewish and Christian mystical traditions in late antiquity.43 Last but not least, a very powerful description of the divine Merkavah is found in a long poetic text by the Syriac writer Jacob of Sarug (floruit around the turn of the sixth century in Osrhoene).44 This text includes an apostrophe to Jews: arguing 38

  J.‑P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina 25, cols.  15 – 491.   For the text, see H. Doerries, E. Klostermann and M. Kroeger, eds., Die 50 Geistlichen Homi­ lien des Makarios (Patristische Texte und Studien 6; Berlin, 1964). For an English translation, and a good introduction, see Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, trans. G. A. Maloney, S. J. (New York, 1992). 40   Hom. I. 2 (ed. Doerries, Klostermann, and Kroeger, 1 – 2; trans. Maloney, 37). 41   Hom. I. 7 (ed. Doerries, Klostermann, and Kroeger, 9; trans. Maloney, 41). 42   See Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom, 169 – 183. 43   Golitzin, »Earthly Angels and Heavenly Men,« see esp. 147, n. 81 44   See A. Golitzin, »The Image and Glory of God in Jacob of Serug’s Homily: ›On the Chariot that Ezekiel the Prophet Saw‹,« St. Vladimir Theological Quarterly 47 (2003), 323 – 364. Gilles Quispel had called attention to the relationships between Gnostic and Jewish exegesis of Ezekiel; see G. Quis‑ pel, »Ezekiel 1:26 in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosis,« Vigiliae Christianae 34 (1980), 1 – 13. 39

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that, in opposition to what they say, the form of the chariot is not the Father (for that would be mere anthropomorphism and literalism). Rather, the throne is a type of the Virgin. This polemic testifies to the fact that the author was aware of the Jewish (contemporary) descriptions of the Divine Chariot in mystical contexts, i. e., in the context of the visio Dei.

IV. Divine Glory One of the most common ways of describing the vision of God in Jewish texts with‑ out falling into anthropomorphism is to speak about the vision of the divine glory (kavod) rather than that of God Himself. The origins of the kavod go back to the halo surrounding the king in the ancient Near East.45 The divine glory appears both in Qumrān (shirat ‘olot ha‑shabbat) and in Philo (doxa).46 As is well known, the »cre‑ ated glory« (kavod nivra) of Sa’adya Gaon serves him in order to avoid anthropo‑ morphic references to God. Alexander Altmann has shown a long time ago that the kavod belongs to the tradition of Merkavah mysticism.47 It should then be of some significance that various Christian texts also refer to the vision of God’s Glory. In the Apophtegmata Patrum for instance, we are told how Abba Arsenios, in ecstasy, went to heaven, where he saw God’s Glory.48 Diadochus of Photike, a spiri‑ tual author who lived in the second half of the fifth century, is weary of visions and dreams »No one, he says, should hope that the Glory of God (tēn doxan tou Theou) could appear to him visibly.«49 As the context reveals clearly, this Glory represents for the author the visible presence of God, which is unattainable for men on earth. Theodore bar Koni, a Nestorian teacher of the late eighth century, discusses in his Liber Scholiorum the verse of Exodus 33:18, where Moses asks God to show him his glory, arguing that it reflects the invisibility of God himself – hence, only his glory can be seen.50 This preliminary investigation is meant to offer some suggestions for future research, rather than presenting a sustained argument. Nevertheless, I hope to have brought enough circumstantial evidence to show the plausibility of contacts between Jew‑

45   See M. Weinfeld, »Kabod,« in Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament IV (Stuttgart, 1984), 23 – 40. 46   See for instance Philo, De Spec. Leg. I.  45 (LCL VII, 124 – 125). 47   A. Altmann, »Saadya’s Theory of Revelation: Its Origins and Background,« in his Studies in Philosophy and Mysticism (Ithaca, New York, 1969), 140 – 160. 48   Apophtegmata Patrum (PG 65), cols. 27, 96B – C. 49   Ch. XXXVI, in Diadochus of Photike, Oeuvres spirituelles, ed. with trans. by E. des Places (SC 5; Paris, 1966), 105. 50   Mimra III, 24, in Theodore bar Koni, Livre des Scholies (Recension de Séert), trans. by T. Hespel and R. Draguet (CSCO 431 – 432, Scriptores Syri 187 – 188; Louvain, 1981 – 1982), I, 159.

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ish and Christian mystical traditions in late antiquity. Only a systematic study of sources will enable us to detect the extent to which the patristic references reflect knowledge of rabbinic sources or traditions. A final caveat: similarities and parallels between Jewish and Christian texts from late antiquity do not necessarily point to direct influences, as we deal with two traditions which are both rooted in biblical exegesis. Moreover, the sustained research will have to deal with the Sitz im Leben of mystical traditions among Jews and Christians in late antiquity. Texts without con‑ text are meaningless. The truly significant questions relate to the function of these texts in religious praxis, and what we should seek to understand better, ultimately, is how they highlight a puzzling new chapter in the history of religious dynamics between Jews and Christians.

5. Mystère juif et mystère chrétien: le mot et la chose Depuis les études pionnières d’Isaac Casaubon au XVIIe siècle, et surtout depuis la naissance, dans les années quatre-vingt du dix-neuvième siècle, du concept de Mysterienreligionen, les «mystères» de l’antiquité grecque, puis gréco-romaine, ont fait l’objet d’innombrables recherches, qui n’ont pourtant réussi qu’à soulever légèrement le voile recouvrant à la fois rites et mythes.1 Se proposer de traiter de «nouvelles perspectives» sur les mystères, ainsi que nous y convient audacieusement les orga‑ nisateurs de ce colloque, suppose soit que nous puissions ajouter au dossier somme toute limité (les anciens ayant respecté de façon remarquable l’exigence de secret des cultes à mystères) de nouveaux documents, littéraires ou archéologiques, jusqu’ici inconnus, soit que nous soyons en mesure de proposer des méthodes nouvelles per‑ mettant de formuler les grandes questions sous un angle original. N’étant en mesure ni de révéler des textes inédits, ni de présenter une méthodolo‑ gie nouvelle, je me propose de réfléchir ici à la fois sur une série de textes, et sur cer‑ taines approches, auxquels on pourrait faire appel de façon plus systématique qu’on ne le fait d’habitude. Les quelques réflexions qui suivent sur les liens entre «mystère» juif et «mystère» chrétien, ainsi que sur les Livres de mystères permettront ainsi, peutêtre, de renouveler le débat à la fois sur l’origine du «mystère» chrétien et sur le sens qu’il faut donner à ce concept. La réflexion méthodologique, quant à elle, portera sur l’idée de comparaison dans l’histoire des religions antiques. Que comparons nous? Avec quels instruments? Et dans quel but? Ou encore: Quels sont les présupposés, à la fois explicites et implicites, de la comparaison? Quand le même phénomène (par exemple, un «livre secret») apparaît dans deux systèmes culturels ou religieux différents, il faut être autant attentif aux différences de fonction qu’aux parallélismes structuraux. On a beaucoup écrit (et sans doute trop) sur la question des «mystères païens» (au pluriel) et du «mystère chrétien» (au singulier). Le mot mysterion (latin mysterium) apparaissant dans les écrits paléochrétiens, à partir du Nouveau Testament, les chercheurs ont tenté de démontrer qu’il s’agit là d’une influence du langage des «reli‑ 1   Cet essai est dédié à la mémoire de Walter Burkert. Voir l’excellent ouvrage synthétique (avec une très riche bibliographie) de Jan N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Münchner Vorlesungen zu antiken Welten 1; Berlin, Boston, 2014). La monographie classique sur les mystères demeure W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass., et Londres, 1987). Faisons au moins référence à deux excellents articles de synthèse: H. Cancik, «Mysterien / Mystik,» Handbuch der religionsgeschichtlichen Grundbegriffe IV (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 1998), 174 – 178, et D. Zeller, «Mysterien / Mysterienreligionen,» Theologische Realenzyklopädie 23 (Berlin, 1994), 504 – 526.

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gions à mystères» (que nous avons maintenant appris à identifier, depuis les travaux magistraux de Walter Burkert, plutôt comme des cultes que comme des religions au sens propre du terme).2 En France, c’est sans nul doute Alfred Loisy qui a eu l’in‑ fluence la plus importante, comparable à celle en Allemagne de Richard Reitzenstein.3 L’idée d’un lien génétique entre les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien provient du fait que la terminologie des cultes a mystères (ou certains de ses termes princi‑ paux) devint courante dans l’antiquité pour définir la liturgie et la pratique rituelle des sectateurs de Jésus: mysteria ou teletai représentent ainsi l’ensemble des rites ou des doctrines des chrétiens, mais aussi certaines formes de culte plus spécifiques, tels le baptême ou l’eucharistie. Ce qu’on oublie trop souvent de noter, c’est que cette ter‑ minologie ‹mystérique› n’apparaît que rarement dans la littérature chrétienne avant le quatrième siècle, alors que le mot mysterion lui-même se trouve déjà dans le Nou‑ veau Testament. Une telle conception, insistant sur la similitude de vocabulaire entre textes païens et textes chrétiens, est fondée sur une doxa tout autant évidente qu’elle reste sou‑ vent implicite: le milieu religieux dans lequel nait et évolue le paléo-christianisme est avant tout le paganisme gréco-romain.4 Plus largement, de Guillaume Budé a Michel Foucault, la tradition scientifique a considéré le christianisme ancien comme ayant offert une réinterprétation de la culture antique. Or cette conception est depuis longtemps caduque.5 Dans une étude classique publiée en 1952, A. D. Nock, le grand spécialiste de la religion dans les mondes grec et latin, a bien montré la grande fra‑ gilité de l’idée selon laquelle les sacrements chrétiens auraient trouvé leur origine dans les mystères païens.6 Nock insiste sur le fait que Paul n’utilise jamais teletē ou 2   Comme le remarque Burkert, les anciens cultes à mystères nous apparaissent comme à la fois plus fragiles et moins humains que le christianisme (Ancient Mystery Cults, 28 – 29). Burkert note ainsi qu’à l’encontre de ce dernier et du judaïsme, aucun de ces mystères païens n’a survécu. 3   A. Loisy, Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien (Paris, 1919); R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen: Ihre Grundgedanken und Wirkungen (Leipzig, Berlin, 1910). Sur le milieu intellectuel et religieux dans lequel évoluent les idées de Loisy, voir E. Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Paris, 1962). Sur Reitzenstein et la comparaison entre paléo‑ christianisme et cultes à mystères, voir J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, 1990). Smith accorde tout son intérêt à la question chez les chercheurs protestants, mais ignore en grande partie le monde catholique. Sur la question de l’influence possible des mystères païens sur le christianisme, voir Bremmer, Initiation, ch. VI, 142 – 165. 4   Un autre direction de la recherche, sur laquelle je ne peux pas m’étendre ici, est celle de Franz Cumont, pour lequel les mystères venaient d’Orient. Je renvoie à ce sujet à l’introduction historio‑ graphique de Corinne Bonnet et de Françoise van Haerperen dans leur nouvelle édition du grand classique de Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain (Turin, 2006), XI – LXXIV. Notons encore qu’Annelies Lennoy et Danny Praet préparent la publication de la correspondance bilatérale entre Alfred Loisy et Franz Cumont. 5   Pour une critique de cette approche, voir G. G. Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice: mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005), ch. 1. 6   A. D. Nock, «Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments», repris dans ses Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, Zeph Stewart, ed. (Oxford, New York, 1986), II, 791 – 820.

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ses corrélatifs, et n’emploie muein qu’une seule fois. En conclusion, Nock s’étonne que les mystères aient eu si peu d’impact sur le christianisme.7 La conclusion néga‑ tive de Nock vient d’être reprise par Jan Bremmer, dans son admirable Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World.8 Une telle conclusion est plus que convaincante, inéluctable. Ce qui pose problème, c’est autre chose: le fait que Nock ne propose pas d’explication alternative sur l’origine du mystère chrétien. Malgré son grand savoir et sa largeur d’esprit, Nock, qui ne savait pas l’hébreu, n’avait pas développé de véri‑ table intérêt pour le judaïsme, et n’était pas en mesure de concevoir l’origine juive des conceptions paléochrétiennes.9 C’est la question de la genèse qui s’impose ici, mais ce n’est certainement pas la seule approche possible en histoire des religions, où la fonction n’est aucunement moins capitale que l’origine. Ce serait le but d’une autre étude que d’analyser les conceptions et rôles différents du mystère dans le judaïsme et le christianisme. Je me propose donc de poser ici la question de l’origine du mysterion chrétien de façon différente, en regardant du côté du judaïsme. En fin de compte, c’est en milieu juif, et non païen, qu’est né le christianisme. Cette idée n’est certes pas nouvelle, mais on doit constater que jusqu’à présent, de façon surprenante, les savants ont rarement pensé à étudier systématiquement les rapports possibles entre mystère juif et mystère chrétien. Commençons par citer quelques passages fondamentaux: Marc 4:10 – 12: «C’est à vous que le mystère du royaume de Dieu a été donné.» (À propos de ce texte, les philologues parlent d’habitude du «Messiasgeheimnis.») Voir par ailleurs I Cor 2:7: «Mais nous parlons de la sagesse cachée de Dieu cachée dans les mystères.» Quand nous parlons de ‹mystère›, il faut se souvenir qu’il peut s’agir à la fois du mot et de la chose, des legomena et des dromena. De l’existence du terme, on ne peut en bonne logique conclure nécessairement à l’existence de rituels. Dans une monographie sur l’ésotérisme ancien et les origines de la mystique chré‑ tienne, publiée en 1996, j’avais émis l’hypothèse que de mysterion païen à mysterium chrétien, les connotations ésotériques avaient disparu du terme.10 Ceci parce que la gnose avait absorbé la capacité d’ésotérisme du paléo-christianisme, et que la tra‑ dition patristique avait conservé les termes, tout en transformant leur sémantique traditionnelle. Ce vocabulaire est ainsi à la racine de la mystique chrétienne. J’avais aussi remarqué que le vocabulaire ‹mystérique› (mystagogia) ne devenait marquant dans la littérature patristique qu’au quatrième siècle, c’est-à-dire à partir du moment ou le paganisme en ses divers aspects ne représente plus de véritable danger pour le christianisme. Il est alors plus facile de reprendre en partie le vocabulaire des cultes  7   «The surprise is that the pagan mysteries had so little influence on Christianity»: Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, 819.  8   Voir n. 1 supra.  9   Voir S. Price, «The Road to Conversion: The Life and Work of A. D. Nock,» Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 105 (2010), 317 – 229. 10   Voir G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Leyde, 1996, 2eme éd. 2005). Voir en particulier pp. 160 – 168.

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défunts ou moribonds, en tous cas ceux des concepts ayant gardé une forte réson‑ nance positive, et maintenant ‹désincarnés›, pour ainsi dire, de leur milieu d’ori‑ gine.11 Ce vocabulaire deviendra, en partie, celui de la mystique chrétienne.12 Ce que je voudrais préciser ici, c’est, dans un premier temps, le contexte juif du mystère chrétien primitif. Je tenterai ensuite de mettre l’accent sur le phénomène courant, mais paradoxal, des livres de mystère(s), ou de secrets, ces écrits ésotériques, qui prétendent révéler aux initiés les secrets du cosmos. On se demandera le statut et la fonction particuliers que de tels livres peuvent avoir eu en milieu monothéiste, à l’intérieur d’une religion révélée (en principe) à tous et à toutes, précisément, par certains textes, appelés Écritures. Il s’agit aussi d’un problème de méthode: même si l’on accepte que c’est dans le judaïsme qu’il faut trouver l’origine directe du mystère chrétien, on peut concevoir ce fait de diverses façons. Soit le mystère grec (le mot seulement, ou la chose elle-même) passe d’abord au judaïsme, et de là au christianisme, soit l’ésotérisme imprègne les différents courants religieux du monde ancien, hellénisme, judaïsme, mazdéisme, et plus tard christianisme. Notons que si la gnose est la tradition ésotérique dans le paléo-christianisme, le rejet de la gnose par les pères de l’Eglise représente ipso facto un rejet de la tradition ésotérique, donc du mystère, dans le christianisme ancien. Le paradigme du mystère païen comme source centrale du mystère chrétien est abandonné aujourd’hui. Ce paradigme, cependant, s’il inclut bien le judaïsme hellé‑ nistique, ignore le judaïsme palestinien. L’opposition radicale entre le judaïsme hel‑ lénistique (et hellénophone), un judaïsme ouvert aux catégories intellectuelles de la philosophie grecque, et le judaïsme palestinien, araméophone (et fonctionnant selon les modes de pensée hébraïque), est une vieille tradition de la théologie protestante, surtout allemande. Ainsi, Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792 – 1860), le maître hégélien de Tübingen, parlait‑il de l’Abgeschlossenheit du judaïsme palestinien, ce qui lui per‑ mettait de le circonvenir pour comprendre les premiers développements du christia‑ nisme. La distinction radicale entre deux judaïsmes, pratiquement imperméables l’un à l’autre, simplifiait leur tâche aux théologiens qui avaient besoin à la fois d’un ‹bon› judaïsme annonciateur du christianisme et d’un ‹mauvais› judaïsme figé et caduc, ne tient pas vraiment la route. On ne peut comprendre le judaïsme du premier siècle, par exemple, sans utiliser de concert, et de façon synoptique, les sources grecques et hébraïques. Il s’agit là d’une évidence méthodologique de bon sens, et pourtant loin d’être toujours appliquée. Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, les savants se sont penchés sur l’idée de mystères chez les juifs. Frederick C. Conybeare (1856 – 1924), en 1895, considérait les Thé‑ rapeutes de Philon comme des initiés à certains mystères. Pour Richard August 11   L’usage du verbe mystagogein apparaît au troisième siècle chez Origène, plus tard chez le Pseu‑ do-Denis l’Aréopagite, ou encore, en latin, chez Grégoire le Grand. Pour une vue d’ensemble sur la tradition néotestamentaire et patristique, voir A. Solignac, «Mystère», Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 12, 1861 – 1874. 12   Voir Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom, en particulier ch. IX, 147 – 168.

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Reitzenstein (1861 – 1951), le «Sermon naassène» conservé par Hippolyte provenait d’une communauté juive phrygienne de la Grande Mère. Le philosophe Hans Leise‑ gang (1890 – 1931), enfin, voyait dans le mysticisme philonien une transformation des croyances juives par les «religions á mystères». Dans un travail publié en 1924, qui semble bien oublié aujourd’hui, Lucien Cer‑ faux a étudié l’impact des mystères sur le judaïsme alexandrin.13 Prenant le contre‑ pied de toute une tradition identifiant le judaïsme alexandrin à son dernier et plus célèbre représentant, Philon d’Alexandrie, Cerfaux avait voulu montrer, en s’appuyant sur les rares traces que nous livrent les fragments de la littérature judéo-alexandrine arrivés jusqu’à nous, tels la Lettre d’Aristée, le Pseudo-Hécatée, Artapan ou Ezéchiel le Tragique, que déjà deux siècles avant Philon, le judaïsme s’était présenté devant le monde païen comme un mysterion. Pour Cerfaux, Abraham d’abord, Moïse ensuite, avaient été initiés à la doctrine divine secrète, ne la révélant qu’à ceux qui en étaient dignes. Le  Nom secret de Dieu, le  Tétragramme, qu’on ne pouvait livrer qu’aux mystes, la résumait. Cerfaux insistait sur le fait qu’il ne s’agissait pas là de méta‑ phores littéraires. Ce n’est qu’avec Philon que ces idées seraient dévaluées, pour ainsi dire, en devenant de simples recettes littéraires. Pour terminer, Cerfaux notait que la transcendance divine permettait à ce judaïsme ‹mystérique› de s’exprimer «sans qu’aucune profanation atteignit le fond même des doctrines».14 Erwin R. Goodenough (1893 – 1965), est bien entendu le savant qui a le plus fait pour promouvoir l’idée d’un judaïsme mystérique. Dans son opus maximum, que forment les 13 volumes de Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (1953 – 1968), Goodenough va plus loin que Cerfaux: selon lui, c’est pour Philon lui-même, quand on le comprend bien, que le culte juif est un mystère, et le judaïsme, tout comme la religion d’Isis, sous sa forme ésotérique, est un mystère cosmique, immatériel, typifié par l’arche d’alliance. Pour Goodenough, mysterion / a chez Philon est à bien com‑ prendre au sens propre, et non pas au sens métaphorique qu’il avait reçu dans la tradition philosophique depuis Platon et les stoïciens. Depuis la publication des Jewish Symbols, Goodenough reste au centre de toute discussion des mystères juifs. Il est certain qu’il a mis l’accent sur certains éléments jusque-là oubliés d’une pensée religieuse extrêmement vibrante. Mais Goodenough n’a pas réussi à convaincre la communauté savante de l’existence d’un culte juif mys‑ térique conceptualisé selon les cultes à mystères hellénistiques.15 Nock reconnaît certes l’importance du langage mystérique chez Philon, mais offre une série d’ob‑ jections fondamentales aux idées de Goodenough.16 Similairement, Markus Bock‑ 13   L. Cerfaux, «Influence des mystères sur le judaïsme alexandrin avant Philon», Le Muséon 37 (1924), 38 – 88. 14   Cerfaux, «Influence,» 87 – 88. 15   Pour un Forschungsbericht, voir G. Lease, «Jewish Mystery Cults since Goodenough», Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 20.2 (1987), 858 – 880. 16   Nock, «The Question of Jewish Mysteries,» dans ses Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, I, 459 – 468.

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muehl note que le Sitz im Leben du langage ‹mystérique› allégorique de Philon reflète l’idiome littéraire et philosophique contemporain, plutôt que l’observance popu‑ laire.17 Il est cependant permis d’appliquer à la thèse des mystères juifs la remarque épistémique de Nock au sujet de l’idée d’un impact des mystères païens sur le mys‑ tère chrétien: «Without exaggeration and oversimplification little progress is made in most fields of humanistic investigation.»18 S’il semble bien qu’il soit impossible de retrouver la trace d’un «mystère» juif, on trouve certainement le mot lui-même, dans certains textes bibliques et parabibliques, ainsi que dans la Septante.19 Comme nous le rappelle Anders Hultgård, raz est un mot iranien, employé aussi en hébreu, dans le sens de ‹secret›, et qui apparaît neuf fois dans les passages ara‑ méens de Daniel.20 Dans les textes de Qumran, sod, apparaît 62 fois.21 D’après Fabry, sod a trois sens principaux: l’assemblée de la communauté, le conseil de Yahvé, et la communauté cultuelle. Dans 1 QS 8:5, la communauté de Qumran s’identifie à la fois comme la réalisation du conseil du trône céleste et comme la seule réalisa‑ tion légitime du temple. Le sod est la congrégation de la fin des temps.22 Les mys‑ tères, le secret et l’ésotérisme à Qumran ont fait l’objet de nombreuses études précises depuis deux générations, et pourtant certains concepts clés restent encore assez mal compris, comme par exemple le concept central de raz nihye.23 Les champs séman‑ tiques de sod et de raz, par ailleurs, ne semblent pas encore assez bien définis. Ce serait une grave erreur de méthode, cependant, que de borner aux textes pré‑ chrétiens la recherche des sources juives des conceptions chrétiennes. La littérature talmudique et rabbinique de l’antiquité tardive est notoire pour la difficulté qu’on a à dater précisément la plupart des traditions qu’elle conserve, du fait que les textes circulèrent oralement pendant plusieurs générations avant d’être rédigés. Dans cette littérature, il semble à première vue – mais une étude précise, qui n’existe pas, s’impo‑ serait – que raz, sod et hen (hokhmat ha‑nistar, la sagesse ésotérique) ont des champs 17

  M. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Tübin‑ gen, 1990), 81. A ce sujet, voir aussi C. Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 26; Berlin, New York, 1987). 18   Nock, «Hellenistic Mysteries», 820. 19   Voir G. Bornkamm, «mysterion, mueō», Theological Dictionary of the New Testament IV, G. Kit‑ tel, ed., G. Bromiley, tr. (Grand Rapids, 1967), 802 – 828. Cf. B. L. Gladd, Revealing the mysterion: The Use of Mystery in Daniel and Second Temple Judaism (Berlin, New York, 2008). 20   Voir sa contribution, «La notion de ‹raz› dans le mazdéisme ancien et la question des mystères iraniens» dans Les mystères: nouvelles perpsectives. Actes des Entretiens de Strasbourg, Y. Lehmann, L. Pernot, M. Philonenko, eds. (Recherches sur les Rhéthoriques Religieuses; Turnhout, 2017), 11 – 34. 21  Voir H.‑J. Fabry, «sod», Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament  X, G. J. Botterweck, H.‑J. Fabry, H. Ringgren, eds. (Grand Rapids, 1999; ed. allemande, 1986), 171 – 178. Voir surtout S. I. Thomas, The «Mysteries» of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (SBL – Early Judaism and Its Literature, 25; Leiden, 2009). 22   I QH 3:21; voir Fabry, «sod», 178. 23   Sur les termes raz et raz nihye, voir en particulier S. Ruzer, «Eschatological Failure as God’s Mystery: Reassessing Prophecy and Reality at Qumran and in Nascent Christianity,» Dead Sea Discoveries 23 (2016), 347 – 364, qui démontre leur contexte eschatologique.

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sémantiques à peu près équivalents.24 Pour les rabbins, le mistorin (calque linguistique, au singulier, du grec mysterion) est un terme assez fréquent, et d’une grande plasticité sémantique. Dans un traité du Talmud babylonien, le sabbat, la circoncision, les mois intercalaires et l’agneau pascal sont tous appelés le mistorin.25 Pour Tehilim Rabba, un ouvrage rédigé en Palestine au Ve siècle, c’est la Mishna qui est le mistorin de Dieu.26 Le midrash Tanhuma déclare que le mistorin divin est la circoncision, dont le secret fut révélé à Abraham.27 Notons enfin que dans les Hekhalot Rabbati, textes mystiques juifs de l’antiquité tardive, raz et sod sont utilisés dans les descriptions des techniques magiques permettant au mystique d’atteindre, à travers les cieux, le trône divin.28 En se fondant sur le passage d’une lettre de Clément d’Alexandrie qu’il avait découverte au monastère de Saint Sabbas, dans le désert de Judée, l’historien des religions américain Morton Smith a voulu démontrer l’existence chez Jésus à la fois d’un enseignement et d’un rituel secrets. Selon lui, mysterion chez Paul fait allusion au baptême, qui est pour lui l’équivalent de la circoncision.29 Comme on le sait, les thèses de Smith ont suscité une polémique très violente depuis les années 1970, polé‑ mique qui ne semble pas près de s’éteindre. On a même accusé Smith d’avoir fabriqué lui-même le texte de la lettre de Clément. Je ne puis ni ne veux ici entrer dans cette polémique, souvent d’ailleurs fort peu académique, sur laquelle je me suis exprimé ailleurs.30 Je tiens à ajouter que récuser les accusations scandaleuses contre Smith n’implique aucunement accepter toutes ses hypothèses. Quoi qu’il en soit, Smith a insisté sur le fait que dans la discussion des mysteria chez Philon, on oppose trop souvent rites ésotériques et description allégorique, alors que rituels secrets et ins‑ truction philosophique ne sont pas nécessairement exclusifs l’un de l’autre.31 Pour résumer l’enquête jusqu’ici, mysterion semble bien être utilisé avant tout au sens métaphorique dans les textes juifs et chrétiens, chez Philon comme chez Paul. Un tel usage métaphorique pouvait certes se prévaloir d’une longue tradition philo‑ sophique, depuis Platon et les stoïciens. La question reste cependant posée: par quel mécanisme un mot renvoyant à un culte païen devint‑il assez séduisant en milieu monothéiste pour designer des réalités religieuses sublimes? Un élément de réponse a été récemment proposé par l’historien des religions Christoph Auffarth.32 Auffarth, à qui nous devons le concept de religio migrans comme principe heuristique pour la 24

  En hébreu moderne, raz traduit ‹mystère›, alors que sod traduit ‹secret›.   Beitsa, 16a. 26   Psaumes Rabba, 5, 14b. 27  Midrash Tanhuma sur Gen 12:2: lo gila Ha‑Kadosh Barukh Hu mistorin shel mila ela le‑Avraham. 28   Voir par exemple Hekhalot Rabbati 27.1; 28.3; 29.1; 2.4; références données par M. Smith (voir notes 27 et 29 infra). 29   M. Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 183. 30   Voir G. G. Stroumsa, ed., Gershom Scholem and Morton Smith: Correspondence, 1945 – 1982 (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 9; Leyde, Boston, 2008), Introduction, VII – XXIV. 31  Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 44, 199 ff. 32   C. Auffarth, «Mysterien», Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, XXV, G. Schöllgen, ed. (Stuttgart, 2013), 422 – 471, esp. 433 – 34. 25

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circulation des idées et des faits religieux dans le monde méditerranéen ancien, émet l’hypothèse que ce qu’il nomme une ‹mystérisation› (Mysterisierung) reflète la trans‑ formation de la religion dans l’empire romain. Il souligne que nulle part ailleurs que dans le judaïsme, la critique et la crise du rituel n’alla aussi loin que dans le judaïsme, où le culte du Temple se transforma en culte du Livre.33 Individualisée, la religion devint maintenant avant tout expérience, émotion, secret et connaissance soudaine (gnose). Dans une telle atmosphère, ‹mystère› devint un terme de choix pour faire allu‑ sion à une expérience sublime. ‹Mystère›, donc, dans les textes juifs et chrétiens, reflète ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui l’hybridité religieuse, la volonté de faire appel à un terme provenant d’un autre cadre culturel pour souligner la nouveauté religieuse.34 On n’a pas assez remarqué, me semble-t‑il, que dans différentes cultures du monde méditerranéen ancien, on trouve toute une série de Livres de mystères, ou Livres de secrets. Pensons par exemple, dans la littérature juive, au Livre des Mystères de Qumran.35 Ou encore au Sefer Ha‑Razim, plus tardif, un texte hébreu aux échos magiques, et dont la réception médiévale fut extrêmement importante.36 Dans la littérature patristique, il faut mentionner avant tout le De Mysteriis d’Ambroise, mais aussi les Mystères des Lettres de l’Alphabet, un texte grec anonyme fort intéressant, datant probablement du VIe siècle. N’oublions pas, du second siècle, le Livre des Mystères de Bardaisan, du troisième, le Livre des Mystères de Mani. Ces ouvrages sont certes fort différents les uns des autres, et certains (celui de Bardaisan, celui de Mani) sont perdus. Ce qui compte avant tout ici, cependant, c’est d’essayer de comprendre ce que peut avoir signifié l’importance, dans des milieux si différents, et dans une très longue durée: car la succession de Livres de secrets continuera tout au long du Moyen Age, en arabe et en hébreu aussi bien qu’en latin et en grec. La question qui doit nous préoccuper ici est celle de l’autorité de ces Livres de mystères, en particulier dans un milieu de révélation scripturaire. Pour les juifs d’abord, les chrétiens, puis les musulmans ensuite, la révélation divine est tout entière inscrite dans le Livre divin (ou dans les Livres divins) révélé à l’humanité. Dans les ‹religions du livre›, ces Écritures révélées constituent en théorie le principe supérieur d’autorité. L’autorité des Écritures est bien entendu toujours interprétée, selon différentes règles 33

  Auffarth appuie ici son argument sur Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice.   Pour une démonstration exemplaire du fonctionnement d’une telle hybridité, voir C. Bon‑ net, Les enfants de Cadmos: Le paysage religieux de la Phénicie hellénistique (Paris, 2015). Cf. mon compte-rendu dans Studia Classica Israelica 34 (2015), 249 – 251. 35   1 Q 27 et 4 Q 299 – 301. Je ne peux ici que faire allusion aux hieroi logoi dans le monde grec. Par définition, ainsi que nous le rappelle W. Burkert, un hieros logos est anonyme, et ne doit pas être révélé aux non-initiés. Les hieroi logoi sont donc a priori apocryphes. Voir A. Henrichs, «Hieroi logoi and hierai bibloi: The (Un)Written Margins of the Sacred in Ancient Greece,» Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003), 207 – 266. 36   Voir la nouvelle édition du Sefer HaRazim: B. Rebiger et P. Schäfer, eds., Sefer ha‑Razim I und II; Das Buch der Geheimnisse I und II; Band 2: Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 132; Tübingen, 2009). 34

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herméneutiques. Ces règles permettent d’extrapoler des versets des Écritures révélées, de leurs mots, parfois même des lettres les composant. Elles sont établies, et contrô‑ lées, par des spécialistes religieux, souvent hiérarchiquement organisés, et parfois (par exemple chez les juifs) représentant la transformation des anciennes prêtrises, et le pas‑ sage de l’autorité religieuse des prêtres aux nouvelles élites intellectuelles, les rabbins. Dans un tel système, l’idée d’un livre secret tient du paradoxe. Elle propose en fait une révélation parallèle, mais une révélation ésotérique, puisqu’elle ne s’offre qu’à ceux à qui les clefs ont été données pour lire et comprendre l’écrit secret. Le Livre de secrets permet de conserver une attitude ésotérique à l’intérieur d’un système reli‑ gieux de révélation (un autre moyen pour arriver au même résultat étant une hermé‑ neutique ésotérique, à plusieurs niveaux, sur le même texte de l’Écriture). Or, les systèmes religieux du monde méditerranéen et du proche orient antique semblent tous accepter l’idée d’une «double vérité» (pour utiliser de façon anachro‑ nique ce terme technique de la philosophie médiévale), c’est-à-dire d’une religion qui s’exprime de façon simplifiée pour le peuple, et de façon profonde pour les meilleurs esprits. Cette idée de la vérité s’exprimant à deux niveaux se retrouve un peu partout, du mazdéisme ancien au christianisme de Clément d’Alexandrie, en passant par les Pythagoriciens. Elle reflète la complexité des rapports entre écriture et oralité dans des sociétés où l’écriture reste un phénomène assez rare pour qu’on puisse vraiment faire confiance aux textes écrits comme transmetteurs des vérités les plus profondes. Pour que ces vérités restent l’apanage des spécialistes, il faut qu’elles soient encodées, afin qu’elles ne puissent être déchiffrées que par ceux qui en sont dignes. Certes, les «livres de secrets» n’existent pas qu’en milieu de révélation monothéiste. Se référant en particulier au papyrus Gurob, Walter Burkert a pu noter que des livres ont très tôt été utilisés dans les cultes à mystères.37 Mais dans un tel milieu, les livres de secrets ont un statut particulier, en ce sens qu’ils semblent contredire celui, inalié‑ nable, des Ecriture révélées, et de l’idée même de révélation, qui en principe ne devrait pas tolérer l’ésotérisme. En fait, dans le paléo-christianisme, ce sont ces mouvements que nous avons pris l’habitude d’appeler «la gnose» qui absorbèrent, au second siècle, les traditions ésotériques provenant du judaïsme (ou de ses marges). La victoire des Pères de l’Eglise dans le combat qu’ils menèrent contre la gnose assurèrent, en quelque sorte, le rejet des courants ésotériques hors du christianisme orthodoxe, en les identi‑ fiant comme étant essentiellement hérétiques.38 Le christianisme, depuis lors, se défi‑ nit comme une religion essentiellement ouverte à tous, de façon égale, sans offrir aux lettrés (c’est-à-dire aux théologiens) aucun véritable avantage sotériologique. On a là les éléments d’une sociologie du secret, dont Georg Simmel avait posé les premiers jalons il y a plus d’un siècle et qui n’a pas depuis accompli de progrès vraiment décisif. 37

 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 70 – 71. Cf. chapitre 3 ci‑dessus.   Ainsi l’incipit du Livre de Yehu se réfère aux «mystères cachés». Voir C. Markschies, «Haupt­ einleitung», dans C. Markschies, J. Schröter, eds., Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (Tübingen, 2012), I, 19. 38

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Le Livre de mystères (ou Livre de secrets) est en fait l’équivalent d’un livre apo‑ cryphe: il détient la vérité, qui reste cachée pour tous, sauf pour ceux qui l’ont décou‑ vert, et savent le lire. Ainsi, Michel Tardieu traduit par «Livre secret» le vocable apokryphon dans le titre d’œuvres gnostiques tels que le «Livre secret de Jean» retrouvé à Nag Hammadi.39 Le statut particulier des Livres de mystères dans les reli‑ gions monothéistes tient au fait qu’ils semblent échapper à l’autorité des Écritures révélées, ou plus précisément, au système formé par les Écritures et leur tradition herméneutique. Tout se passe comme si le Livre de mystères permettait de court-cir‑ cuiter la tradition herméneutique, à la fois le texte des Écritures, les règles exégé‑ tiques et les autorités herméneutiques. Pour utiliser un vocabulaire wébérien, on peut dire que les Livres de mystères représentent des mouvements de révolte contre la tendance naturelle à la ‹routinisation› de la religion, et le désir de maintenir le ‹charisme› propre aux mouvements prophétiques et aux origines des mouvements religieux. Le Livre secret donne à celui qui en détient la clef une autorité, comme s’il s’agissait d’une révélation particulière, encore plus vraie, plus pure, que celle de l’Écri‑ ture offerte à tous. La Mishna, en ce sens, appelée en grec Deuterosis, ou répétition (de la Torah), est ainsi un mistorin donné par Dieu à Israël. En fait, les Livres de mystères proposent une autorité sans canon, ou plutôt un canon alternatif. Il ne faut donc pas s’étonner si de tels livres, souvent appelés «apo‑ cryphes» furent le plus souvent identifiés aux mouvements hérétiques, dans le judaïsme comme dans le christianisme de l’antiquité tardive. De l’autorité du livre secret à celle du saint, du texte à l’individu: il s’agit là du passage à une nouvelle sen‑ sitivité religieuse dans l’antiquité tardive: de la vérité, qui est à révéler (en passant par la tradition, qui doit être enseignée), à l’exemple, qu’il faut donner. Pour le Livre des mystères de Qumran, c’est la révélation, et non pas la raison, qui offre la clé de la sagesse (le mot raz est utilisé treize fois dans l’écrit, dont le concept central, aux connotations eschatologiques, mais qui reste assez mal compris est: raz nihye).40 A la fois l’idéologie, l’orthographie et le langage de l’écrit semblent refléter une origine différente de celle des autres textes de Qumran. Le cercle d’origine est un groupe d’élite détenant la compréhension correcte du plan de YHWH pour l’uni‑ vers et sachant comment lui plaire pour être sauve du destin des ignorants et des hypocrites. La référence est probablement à certains milieux scribaux de Judée de la période maccabéenne ou pré-maccabéenne.41

39   M. Tardieu, Codex de Berlin (Ecrits gnostiques; Paris, 1984). Sur les ‹mystères› dans les textes gnostiques coptes, voir M. Scopello, «Mystères et révélations dans la littérature gnostique copte,» dans Les mystères: nouvelles perspectives, M. Philonenko, Y. Lehmann, L. Pernot, eds. (Turnhout, 2017), 63 – 83. 40   1 Q 27 et 4 Q 299 – 301. Voir n. 23 ci‑dessus. 41   Ainsi T. Elgvin, «Priestly Sages? The Milieus of Origin of Q Mysteries and Q Instructions», dans J. J. Collins, G. E. Sterling, R. A. Clements, eds., Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah LI; Leyde, Londres, 2004), 67 – 87.

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Le Sefer ha‑razim, ou Livre des secrets, est le grand classique de la magie juive et hébraïque. Il fut utilisé aussi bien par les juifs que les chrétiens tout au long du Moyen Age, jusqu’à la Renaissance. Les plus anciens manuscrits qui nous sont par‑ venus émanent de milieux karaïtes du IXe siècle. Le terminus post quem doit proba‑ blement être fixé au début du IVe siècle. Notre texte est ainsi plus ou moins contem‑ porain des papyrus grecs magiques, de la littérature rabbinique, et de la littérature des Hekhalot. Avant le déluge, le Sefer ha‑razim est présenté à Noé par l’ange Raziel. Le livre décrit les sept firmaments et leurs anges. Des nombreux livres donnés à Noé, c’est celui qui est le plus précieux, car il lui révèle, parmi ses secrets, comment se sau‑ ver du déluge en construisant une arche. Du quatrième siècle, lui aussi, mais tout autre dans sa forme littéraire et sa fonc‑ tion est l’ouvrage d’Ambroise de Milan sur les mystères de l’Écriture, qui se veut une explication des rites sacrés (explanatio symboli), et qui commence ainsi: «Celebrata hactenus mysteria scrutaminum.»42 Pour l’auteur, la vérité du mystère est établie par les mystères de l’incarnation: «Suis utamur exemplis incarnationisque myste‑ riis adstruamus mysterii ueritatem.» L’Eglise, respectant la profondeur des mystères célestes: «Unde et ecclesia altitudinem seruans mysteriorum caelestium reicit a se . . .»43 Le Livre des mystères de Mani est perdu, mais il est possible de reconstituer en partie son contenu, au moins de façon spéculative, surtout en s’appuyant sur les tra‑ ditions mandéennes. Ainsi Iain Gardner a essayé récemment d’offrir une reconsti‑ tution des sujets principaux traités dans le livre de Mani.44 Dans la métaphorique des Psaumes manichéens, le Livre des mystères est appelé «le bistouri du chirurgien». Le texte semblait contenir une polémique soutenue contre les bardasainites, et trai‑ tait du rire de Jésus, se moquant des ignorants, un thème qui se retrouve dans cer‑ tains textes gnostiques et dont je crois avoir offert une interprétation nouvelle.45 Pour Gardner, qui s’oppose en cela à la majorité des savants, le texte semble avoir reflété une doctrine cohérente de Mani, surtout sur l’eschatologie. Le mystère des lettres grecques est un texte curieux, provenant sans doute d’un monastère de Palestine byzantine (rédigé peut-être au cinquième siècle).46 Le «mys‑ tère», ici, fait allusion au sens profond des lettres de l’alphabet. Bien qu’il s’agisse de l’alphabet grec (et que le texte soit grec), il compte vingt-deux lettres, comme l’alphabet hébreu ou araméen. Une bonne compréhension du texte doit postuler à sa base certaines traditions juives et judéo-chrétiennes. Il s’agit d’un pot-pourri de 42   De Mysteriis 53, dans Ambroise de Milan, Des Sacrements, Des Mystères, Explication des Symboles, ed., tr. Dom B. Botte (Sources Chrétiennes 25bis; Paris, 1980), 186 – 187. 43   De Mysteriis 56, 188 – 189. 44   I. Gardner, «Mani’s Book of Mysteries: Prolegomena for a New Look at Mani, the ‹Baptists› and the Mandaeans», ARAM 22 (2010), 321 – 334. 45   Voir G. G. Stroumsa, Le rire du Christ et autres essais sur le christianisme ancien (Paris, 2006). 46   Edition et traduction allemande par C. Bandt, Der Traktat vom Mysterium der Buchstaben (Berlin, 2007).

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spéculation paléochrétienne sur les lettres et la cosmologie, dans une tradition intel‑ lectuelle commune aux diverses cultures et religions du monde méditerranéen et proche oriental, de l’antiquité tardive au haut Moyen Âge. Ce texte exprime ainsi la révolution culturelle des moines, fruit d’une attitude religieuse fondée sur le livre révélé, et s’opposant à la paideia traditionnelle.47 L’écriture ésotérique exige la formation d’un code, permettant à la frontière sépa‑ rant initiés de non-initiés de passer à l’intérieur même de la communauté. Dans un système religieux fondé sur une écriture révélée, le Livre de mystères permet ainsi de conserver un enseignement ésotérique, sans qu’il soit besoin de développer une herméneutique complexe, à plusieurs niveaux. L’autorité du Livre de mystères est donc totale: alors que l’autorité de l’Ecriture révélée est canalisée par la hiérarchie religieuse, celle du Livre de mystères est directe, comme celle du saint, du «Holy Man», lui-même d’ailleurs parfois identifié à un livre vivant. Le Livre de mystères ne puise son autorité qu’en lui-même, sans faire appel à la tradition herméneu‑ tique ou à la hiérarchie ecclésiale. Ses secrets s’ouvrent à qui sait le lire, et ils s’ouvrent à lui directement.48 Si tous ces livres de mystères participent d’une même tradition, il n’en reste pas moins que certains de leurs caractères sont différents chez les juifs et les chrétiens. Chez les juifs, pour lesquels l’hébreu reste la langue de la révélation, l’idée de langue sacrée reste beaucoup plus forte, plus vivante, que chez les chrétiens: le  pouvoir magique de la langue, des lettres mêmes, reste plus net. Ainsi, on pourra parler de théosophie chez les uns, de mystique chez les autres. Par ailleurs, l’ésotérisme restera central dans la Kabbale, alors qu’il sera identifié comme hérétique dans le christia‑ nisme. Dans le judaïsme, enfin, la transformation religieuse annoncée par la fin du sacrifice en fit une religion de literati dans laquelle le Livre, ainsi que ses commen‑ taires, acquirent un statut sans commune mesure avec celui qu’ils devaient revêtir dans le christianisme.

47   Voir G. G. Stroumsa, «The Mystery of the Greek Letters: A Byzantine Kabbalah?», dans Historia Religionum 6 (2014), 35 – 43, repris dans idem, The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., 2016), 108 – 110 et notes. 48   Je me réfère ici à la communication de D. Tripaldi, «Secret Books and Corporate Oaths», à un colloque organisé par le Center for the Study of Christianity de l’Université Hébraïque de Jérusalem, les 25 et 26 mai 2014: «Whenever and wherever the adjectives ‹secret› and ‹mysterious› are used practically as synonymous with ‹sacred› and ‹authoritative›, as it was customary in late antiquity, the need to commit to writing and spread ‹sacred› and ‹mysterious› lore and thereby produce ‹authori‑ tative› and ‹secret› books’ ends up pairing as well as colliding with the danger of publishing them – that is, potentially trusting them to uninitiated hands – and thereby profaning them . . .»

6. In illo loco: Paradise Lost in Early Christianity The myths through which the early Christians used to reflect upon the origins of humanity are, of course, those of the book of Genesis, read (at first) in its Greek version.1 Myths of origins can stress either theogony, cosmogony, anthropogony, or the birth of society as such (a neologism could be »poligony«). From the second to the late fourth century, before Augustine in the west and the Cappadocian Fathers in the east, one cannot really speak of a Christian society, or of a Christian culture. It is nevertheless in the Christian literature of the first centuries, apocryphal and patristic, that Christian mythology and cultural memory took shape. Christian theo‑ logians were busy refining their hermeneutical tools and creating the frame within which Christian culture would hatch and grow, as the Roman Empire was being Christianized. The transformation of Greco-Roman culture did not only entail a new theology, but also a dramatic transformation of anthropological perceptions. The early Christian thinkers, then, as they were inventing the past, were not only reinter‑ preting Judaism, but also establishing the basic parameters through which Europe would learn to think about human beginnings, at least until the early modern times. Both Jews and Greeks had devoted much thought to the origins of humankind. While the reflection of Christian thinkers started, like that of their Jewish coun‑ terparts, from the biblical text, it is obvious that Jews and Christians were to high‑ light different elements in these chapters. For both Christians and Jews, history was Heilsgeschichte, and what would happen at the end of times had much to do with what had happened in illo tempore. Illud tempus was also illus locus, and throughout Christian history, discussions of paradise would to a great extent deal not only with its nature, but also with its location on earth; eutopia, as it were, rather than uto‑ pia. Both the Christian and the Jewish thinkers of the first centuries, the Fathers of the Church and the Rabbis of the Talmud, however, were struggling to develop and establish some kind of orthodoxy which would underline and reinforce the ecclesial structures they were building. This drive toward orthodoxy, i. e., inter alia, censorship and intellectual control, goes a long way to explain why they regarded with some suspicion those first chapters of Genesis, which had served as the basis for drastic 1   To be sure, the text of Genesis itself reflects the interpretatio hebraica of a very old Mesopota‑ mian mythical substratum. See for instance J. Errandonea Alzuguren, Eden y Paraiso: fondo cultural mesopotamico en el relato biblico de la creacion (Madrid, 1966). See further G. G. Stroumsa, »Intro‑ duction: The Paradise Chronotrope,« in M. Bockmuehl and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views (Cambridge, 2010), 1 – 14.

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attempts at re-mythologization (and sectarianism), both in Jewish apocryphal and in Gnostic literature. In some ways, then, both Rabbis and Fathers sought to play down the mythological elements involved with the Paradise story and neutralize them, preferring to put the heavier emphasis on other figures and events of the early history of humankind. In the biblical text, the Lord God had expelled Adam from Eden, the »garden of delight« (ek tou paradeisou tēs tryphēs), establishing him in vicinity of that gar‑ den, now protected by the Cherubs and the fiery sword (Gen. 3:23 – 24). Focusing upon Adam’s exile from Paradise as perceived by the Church Fathers, the following remarks seek to stress the ambivalence of these thinkers not only towards Adam and Paradise, but, more generally, their ambivalent perceptions of history and eschatol‑ ogy, both personal and collective. More precisely, I will argue that early the Christian understanding of Adam’s exile from Paradise reflects the new conceptions of time and of the person taking shape in late antiquity. In the first centuries of the common era, a number of religious groups offered competing versions of accounts on the same themes: these groups included, at least, the Rabbis, dualists of various shades, such as the Hermetist author of the Poimandres, the different Gnostic thinkers and sects, and the Manichaeans. Already, Jewish literature from the Second Temple period had reflected at length on the old myths preserved in the first chapters of Genesis. This literature came both from Palestine (mainly the disparate corpus known as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, which had offered a radical re-mythologization of the elliptic first chapters of Genesis), and from the Diaspora. From the long tradition of Hellenistic Jewish literature, on the other hand, we are mainly left with Philo, who offered an essentially Platonist hermeneutics. To simplify in the extreme an immensely complex story, one can say that the Gnostics and the Manichaeans followed the path opened by Apocryphal literature, while the Church Fathers followed in Philo’s footsteps.2 The book of Genesis retains various myths pertaining to our topic, from the hexaemeron to Cain’s murder of Abel, the Tower of Babel, and the Flood. At each point, humanity takes a new start, as it were, and civilization is defined anew. In order to understand properly the early Christian understanding of human origins, one should in principle analyze the complete perspective offered by the patristic perception of these myths. This is certainly a study worth undertaking, and which, to the best of my knowledge, is still to be written. Here, however, I shall only focus upon the first stage in this progressive formation of human societies, as reflected in Adam’s sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. This expulsion signifies the very beginning of life on earth as we still know it – i. e., a life of toil, suffering, violence, and death. 2

  On apocryphal literature as the immediate background from which Gnostic mythology was born, see for instance G. G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Nag Hammadi Studies 24; Leiden, 1984). On Philo and patristic thought, see for instance H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, Mass., 1947).

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The patristic texts themselves raise some important issues: What was the function of the reflection on human origins? How and why did the Church Fathers relate to the origins of mankind? How were they related to the new, Christian understanding of time and history?3 How widespread were their intellectual constructs, and to what extent did they reflect or inform popular perceptions? Such issues, difficult to answer in earnest, should at least be mentioned here. In the Greco-Roman literary tradition, there was no single authoritative text which offered one formal, binding myth of the golden age and the origins of man‑ kind. This fact highlights a great divide between the mainstream of Greco-Roman culture and the biblical tradition. Although the status of Homer (and, to a certain extent, that of Hesiod) remained foundational in Greek culture throughout the cen‑ turies, Homer’s epics and Hesiod’s works never achieved the kind of canonicity per‑ taining to a single, divine, revealed text. Hence, the various myths of origins and of the golden age in the Urzeit, or various references to a »paradise« of sorts did not have in the Greek tradition the power which was that of the first chapters of Gene‑ sis in Judaism and in Christianity. We know of some traditions of mythical places: Homer refers to the Elysian Fields (Odyssey IV), to the Island of the Phaeacians, and the walled garden of Alcinous (Odyssey VII). The Fortunate Islands are mentioned in Pindar’s Second Olympic, while Diodorus of Sicily mentions a voyage to a southern Island from Ethiopia. But parallel to those, there are also traditions about a paradisia‑ cal period at the dawn of time: so Hesiod refers to the golden age in the ancient past, while Plato speaks in the Politicus about the happy period under the rule of Chronos. It is not to a golden age at the dawn of history that the Greek perceptions of the Fortunate Islands referred, but rather, to a blissful state of affairs – happy and free of worries – which is perhaps not common, but to be found upon earth. Such perceptions were certainly rather common in the Greco-Roman world, and must have influenced the Christian perceptions of Paradise. Such perceptions would now emphasize the blissful state to be achieved by the Christian believers, or rather the place in which they would live blissfully after death. The earliest Christians read the Bible in Greek, and their theology emerged and grew within the Greco-Roman cultural milieu. Hence, it comes as no surprise if such Greek representations of the golden age or of the Fortunate Islands or the Elysian Fields would soon be perceived as parallels to the Christian conceptions of paradise. Thus, although the Greek conceptions of time and history are fundamentally differ‑ ent from those developed by the Church Fathers, one can observe a certain amalga‑ 3   On patristic conceptions of history, see for instance R. Mortley, »The Past in Clement of Alex‑ andria,« in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, I (London, 1980), 186 – 200. On Christian perceptions of time, see for instance Le temps chrétien de la fin de l’antiquité au Moyen-Age, IIIe – XIIIe  siècles (Colloques internationaux du CNRS; Paris, 1984). The studies collected in this vol‑ ume deal with various aspects of time in the new Christian religiosity: initiation, death, eschatology, penitence, pilgrimage, purgatory, etc., but there is no single study of Christian conceptions of the illud tempus.

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mation of traditions, which eventually became a fixture of the collective imaginary. In his De Paradiso, for instance, Ambrose of Milan offers a synthesis of the old myth of the golden age and Philo’s spiritual interpretation of the Genesis story. One can speak of the Christianization of some Greco-Roman myths, and of philosophical reflections on the golden age.4 There existed in Christian antiquity various attempts to locate Paradise, usually »in the east,« as implied by Gen. 2:8.5 These attempts would survive as late as the seventh century, when Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologies, still felt the need to argue that the Fortunate Islands, known today as the Canaries, were not identical with the Garden of Eden.6 Incidentally, the attempts to locate Paradise continued until the modern times. Thus, various authors, in the seventeenth century, look for Paradise in various parts of the earth in their ethnological and geographical curiositas and their search for societies governed by law of nature.7 From Ezekiel 28:13 ff., »You were in Eden, the garden of God . . . You were on the holy mountain of God,« Paradise could easily be construed as a mountain. Para‑ dise was often conceived to be a holy mountain, in particular in the eastern tra‑ dition, which is still reflected in the name of the monastic »republic« on Mount Athos, Hagion Horos. On this holy mountain, a perfect cult, holding salvific power, is celebrated. Thus, for instance, in the Syriac Cave of Treasures, as Serge Ruzer has convincingly argued.8 Some Christian intellectuals, however, found in the biblical story of Adam and Eve support for a reflection upon primitive life, as it had been analyzed by some trends in the philosophical tradition. For the Greeks, it was precisely to want, or deficiency (chreia), that humanity owed its progress at the end of the golden age. As Marguerite Harl has shown, for some of the Church Fathers, the parallel moment in the biblical story was Adam’s discovery of his own nudity. To be sure, a majority of the Church Fathers fostered what she calls a »pessimistic« outlook, and saw in human work a punishment for the original sin, an ascholia which represented an obstacle to the contemplation of spiritual realities. Some, however, and particularly Origen, supported an »optimistic« understanding of the first chapters of Genesis, and considered as a gift to man his need to set his intelligence to work, arguing that 4

  See in particular J. Delumeau, Une histoire du paradis, I, Le jardin des délices (Paris, 1992), 11 – 25.   Hence the qibla toward the East in early Christian prayers. See F. Dölger, Sol Salutis: Gebet und Gesang in christlichen Altertum, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Ostung in Gebet und Liturgie (Münster, 1925), 220 – 242. 6   Isidore of Seville discusses in Etymologies the question whether or not paradise is a place. See also Pseudo-Basilius, Homily (PG 30), cols.  63 – 66. 7   See M. Alexandre, »Entre ciel et terre: les premiers débats sur Gen 2, 8 – 15 et ses réceptions,« in F. Jouan and B. Deforge, eds., Peuples et pays mythiques (Paris, 1988), 187 – 224. 8   S. Ruzer, »The Cave of Treasures on Swearing by Abel’s Blood and Expulsion from Paradise: Two Exegetical Motifs in Context,« Journal of Early Christian Studies  9 (2001), 251 – 271, and Delumeau, op. cit., 27, for whom most writers, in the Christian east as well as in the west, sustain such views and reject a symbolical reading of the Genesis text. 5

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this work prepared him to approach God. Man’s deficiency encouraged him to invent the sciences, and these are a preparation of sorts for the way to God.9 The strong »pessimistic« perception of Adam and of his »primordial« sin in early Christian theology is too well-known, and too dominant, to require analysis here. For the Church Fathers, who were elaborating upon Paul’s thought, Adam’s sin had brought death upon all mankind, and it is only through Christ, the last Adam, and his own sacrifice that the consequences of this curse would be erased. In a sense, then, the first chapters of Genesis were not only perceived as a myth of the Urzeit but given a metaphorical interpretation which emphasized their significance for human nature in general, not only regarding the prototypes’ deeds and fate. In the Christian interpretation, then, the myth of the Urzeit was implicitly transformed, to a great extent, into a myth about human nature. If all men had been implicated in Adam’s sin, all could be saved by the coming of the second Adam. Adam’s fault, in short, was not an unmitigated tragedy. Indeed, it would be called by Augustine (who did not propound an exactly optimistic and light-filled vision of history and of human nature) a felix culpa. Through his sin, Adam had unwittingly permitted the future coming of the Savior. The first humans’ expulsion from paradise should thus be per‑ ceived as only a temporary, rather than a permanent feature of human life. Paradise, then, is not lost forever: it can indeed be reclaimed, not only in the eschatological time, but also hic et nunc. This amounted to nothing less than a dramatic transfor‑ mation of the meaning of the biblical myth of the Urzeit. Notwithstanding their diversity, Greek ideas about time have often been per‑ ceived as essentially cyclical in nature, and hence diametrically opposed to the Jew‑ ish and Christian linear conceptions of time, which are predicated upon the creation of the universe and the expectation of the end of the world.10 Such a perception of things, according to which Judeo-Christian thought, but not Greek thought, would be fundamentally endowed with a real historical dimension, is of course too simplis‑ tic to be heuristically useful. The hermeneutics of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise reflect the complex, ambivalent attitude of the early Christian thinkers to the Urzeit. It is mainly through Jewish lenses that the early Christian thinkers learned to reflect upon human origins. But they adapted these lenses to the new requirements of their own self-perception and mythology. It is thus only to a certain extent that the Rabbis and the Fathers can be said to reflect on the same text, although both offered an exegesis of Genesis. For the Jews, the beginnings of mankind were the prelude to the birth of Israel and the development of Heilsgeschichte, ending in eschatological  9   M. Harl, »La prise de conscience de la ›nudité‹ d’Adam: Une interprétation de Genèse 3,7 chez les Pères Grecs,« reprinted in her Le déchiffrement du sens: Etudes sur l’herméneutique chrétienne d’Origène à Grégoire de Nysse (Collection des Etudes Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité, 135; Paris, 1993), 291 – 300. 10   The classic comparative study is T. Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek (New York, London, 1960). See also H.‑C. Puech, En quête de la gnose (Paris, 1978), I, 1 – 24, 215 – 270; and G. G. Stroumsa, Savoir et Salut (Paris, 1992), 85 – 98.

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messianism. When reflecting on origins, the Jews were inclined to stress the histori‑ cal roots of their own peoplehood. It is within this frame that eschatology and soter‑ iology, i. e., messianism, found their meaning. Important as it was, the story of Adam and Eve in paradise, as echoed in Genesis Rabba, for instance, seems to have been less significant for the Rabbis than Israel’s exodus from Egypt and its Sinaitic sequel. Christian intellectuals, on the other hand, perceived themselves to be verus Israel, the true Israel. Yet, their conception of peoplehood was deeply different from that of the Jews: they were, in the language of the Epistle of Diognetus in the second century, and in that of Aphrahat in the fourth, »a nation from among the nations.« Moreover, for the Christians, the story of Adam and Eve provided the justification for the com‑ ing of Jesus Christ, and was to be understood in the light of His saving mission. Since Paul, who had announced that death, brought in by Adam, had been vanquished by Christ (Rom. 5:12), Christian soteriology had insisted on the direct line from the first to the last Adam. Such a perception obviously trivialized the place of Israel in the history of salvation. This fundamental difference between the Jewish and the Christian approach to the myth of Paradise is reflected in the dual structure of the Christian Scriptures, and in the very specific intertextuality that they demand. The Old and the New Testa‑ ment are to be interpreted in the light of one another. As sacramenta futuri, the tales and figures of the Old Testament are not to be understood in and by themselves but should rather be seen to be alluding, in a veiled form, to the perfect, final expression of Divine revelation in the figure of Jesus Christ.11 Quite clearly, then, such a concep‑ tion entails a certain blurring of the historical dimension of these tales and figures. This blurring is perhaps nowhere as striking as in the interpretation of Adam’s felix culpa. In the New Testament and in the earliest Christian writings, the story of Adam and Eve in Paradise plays a very minor role, and this role seems to reflect its place in contemporary Jewish literature.12 One should insist upon the fact that for Jesus and his disciples, the story of the Garden of Eden is not very significant.13 For both Jews and Christians, reflection on the Urzeit was focused upon the story of creation 11

  For an example of how this conception is reflected in patristic biblical hermeneutics, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Herméneutique biblique et identité: l’exemple d’Isaac,« Revue Biblique 99 (1992), 529 – 543. 12   For some iconographic references, see K. and U. Schubert, »Die Vertreibung aus dem Paradies in der Katakombe der Via Latina in Rom,« in J. Neusner, ed., Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults, II, (SJLA 12; Leiden, 1975), 173 – 180. The authors show that the iconography reflects the reading of the Targum of Gen. 3:24, which points to an eschatological understanding of paradise. 13   See for instance Luke 23:43, where Jesus tells the good thief that he will soon be with him in Paradise; comparing Luke 16:19 – 31 on the rich man and poor Lazarus. Cf. K. Galling, »Paradei­ sos I,« PW XVIII (1949), pp. 1131 – 1134; and J. Jeremias, »Paradeisos,« Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, V, 765 – 773. See further H. Bietenhard, Die himmliche Welt im Urchristentum und im Judentum (WUNT 2; Tübingen, 1951), 161 – 191. Paul’s mystical ascent to the third heaven (I Cor. 12) was also interpreted as a vision of Paradise. Cf. I. Ayer de Vuippens, Le Paradis Terrestre au troisième ciel: Exposé historique d’une conception chrétienne des premiers siècles (Paris, Fribourg, 1925).

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itself, the hexaemeron, since in the Graeco-Roman world, creatio ex nihilo was the most dramatic claim to originality of the biblical Weltanschauung. But gan eden and paradeisos had also begun to acquire in Jewish and in Christian writings a new, met‑ aphorical meaning, referring to the Place of the Just at the Endzeit. In a sense, one can say that for both Christians and Jews, the coming kingdom of God in the Mille‑ nium would be the new paradise. For the Christians, however, the power of the Paradise story was affected by another aspect of their soteriology. The centrality of Jesus Christ for the new religion weakened the weight of eschatology, since the central messianic expectation had already been fulfilled. This »realized eschatology,« to use theological jargon, permit‑ ted a progressive disengagement from the eschatological expectation of the Second Coming, from the second to the fourth century. The Christians would then, more and more, think of Paradise in terms of the Kingdom of God – and Ephrem of Nisibis, for instance, will identify both concepts. »Paradise« soon becomes associated with the blissful state of the elect, which will eventually be graphically reconstituted in the monastic cloister: already for Jerome, the monastery is identified with a paradise.14 Among the early Christian thinkers, then, one can distinguish two main trends. For some Fathers, such as Epiphanius, Chrysostom, or Lactantius, who read the Genesis text corporaliter (as Augustine describes it in De Genesi ad Litteram VIII, 1 – 2, 5), Paradise is a concrete place upon the earth. For others (mainly Origen), on the other hand, who read the text spiritualiter, Paradise is a state of bliss. In both cases, how‑ ever, Paradise is certainly not confined to the Urzeit. A third trend, stemming from Philo, and to which Augustine himself belongs, together with Theophilus of Antioch and Ambrosius, thinks that paradise should be understood utroque modo.15 The Christian de-mythologization of paradise grew from a complex background. Its most obvious origin is probably related directly to the transformation, or rather the realization, of the Jewish concept of Messiah. Jesus Christ had offered salvation, and yet history was far from having ended. Hence, the Jewish linear vision of history was profoundly modified. If there was no clear end to Heilsgeschichte, its beginning in time, too, would be blurred. The one real focal point of world history was neither its beginning nor its end, but rather its middle, the coming of Jesus Christ upon the earth, His life, death, and resurrection, which must be perceived by the Chris‑ tian believer as constantly occurring in the present. From such a perspective, as we have seen, Adam was the first sacramentum salutis, or figura of Christ, in the biblical text – although his sin and punishment only highlighted the discrepancy between him and the recapitulation of history in Jesus Christ: sin, punishment, and salvation. 14  Jerome, Epistle 125, 7 ff. Reference in A. Louth, »Paradies, IV,« TRE 25, ed. G. Müller (Berlin, New York, 1995), 714 – 717; see also bibliography there. Further, see J.‑C. Sagne, »Paradis, II: Le désir de paradis,« Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 12 (1984), 197 – 203. 15   See P. Miquel, »Paradis, I: dans la tradition chrétienne,« Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 12 (1984), 187 – 197.

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The early Christian traditions about Adam´s skull lying at the foot of the cross on Golgotha reflect precisely this concrete link between Adam and the Son of Man, the last Adam.16 One can perhaps say, then, that the Christians overcame Adam through his last avatar – from above, as it were. The Jews, for their part, seem to have harbored a rather similar ambivalence in their feelings toward the figure of Adam. Yet, it is before Adam (or from below) that they discover another mythological figure, the Primordial Adam, or Adam Kadmon, later to become a protagonist in kabbalistic literature. Adam Kadmon, however, remains a rather weak figure in midrashic literature. In Genesis Rabba, for instance, he never achieves a truly prominent status. It is only with the Gnostic trends as reflected in texts dating from the second or third centuries, and later, in Manichaean traditions, that one finds a consistent re-mythologization of the first humans’ story in paradise. This complex and baroque myth-making lies beyond the scope of this paper, but I wish at least to quote from one of the most powerful texts, the so-called Hypostasis of the Archons, found at Nag Hammadi: From that day, the Snake came to be under the curse of the Authorities, until the All-powerful Man was to come, that curse fell upon the Snake. They turned to their Adam and took him and expelled him from the Garden (paradeisos) along with his wife, for they have no blessing, since they too are beneath the curse. Moreover, they threw Mankind into great distraction (perispasmos) and into a life of toil, so that their Mankind may be occupied by worldly affairs, and might not have the opportunity (scholazein) of being devoted to the Holy Spirit.17

In their dramatic struggle against the Gnostic radical re-mythologization of cosmog‑ ony and anthropogony, second-century Christian theologians were bound to put less emphasis than their competitors on the interpretation of the first chapters of Gene‑ sis. The best strategy against Gnostic myth-making was to avoid discussing the same issues at great length, and to move the focus elsewhere.18 Similar attitudes would be reflected in the anti-Manichaean polemics of the third and fourth century. More pre‑ cisely, the patristic heresiologists would consistently choose to focus the debate upon ethics rather than upon metaphysics in their interpretations of the Paradise story.19 16   On Christ as the last Adam, see J. Daniélou, Sacramentum futuri. Etudes sur les origines de la typologie biblique (Paris, 1950), 3 – 44. The most dramatic classic iconographic treatment is perhaps Pierro della Fancesca’s fresco about Adam’s death in Assisi. 17   CG II, 91; I quote according to Bentley Layton’s translation, »The Hypostasis of the Archons, or The Reality of the Rulers,« Harvard Theological Review 67 (1974), 351 – 425. See his commentary, »The Hypostasis of the Archons (Conclusion),« HTR 69 (1976), 31 – 101, esp. 59 – 60, notes 79 – 80. 18   This method was applied in a much more radical way by the Rabbis, who knew to kill their opponents by silence – whereas the patristic heresiographers expounded the heretics’ views at great length before refuting them. 19   See G. B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers (Second edition; New York, 1967), 63 – 82, 152 – 162. Cf. G. H. Williams, Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought (New York, 1962).

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It is Philo’s interpretation of the expulsion from paradise which lies at the bottom of the Origenian understanding. For Philo, the story of Adam and Eve teaches us about human nature, and their sin and punishment does not stain the beginning of history. Cain’s crime, rather, seems to be the primordial disaster of the human race.20 Philo points out that while God »establishes« Adam near Paradise after his expulsion (Gen. 3:24: katōikisen auton apenanti tou paradeisou tēs tyuphēs), the biblical text speaks of Cain as »inhabiting« (Gen. 4:16: kai ōikēsen en gēi Naid katenanti Edem). For Philo, this difference highlights the fact that Adam was expelled, while it was voluntarily that Cain left his previous home (De Posteritate Caini, 10). For Origen, in the mid-third century, the biblical story of Paradise reflected a mysterion much more interesting than Plato’s myths (Contra Celsum IV.40). For the early Christian thinkers, the status of the first chapters of Genesis was, as argued above, somewhat similar to that of myths in the Greek world. In Alexandria at the turn of the third century, Origen, educated in a Middle Platonist milieu, follows in Philo’s footsteps and applies to the Bible the allegorical methods of interpretation which had been applied for many centuries by Greek grammarians and philosophers to the Homeric texts. For Origen, the expulsion from Paradise was more a reference to the history of the soul than to that of humanity. It is in that sense, mainly, that Origen compares the first chapters of Genesis to Plato’s myth of the fall of the soul (Phaedrus, 246 b – c). For him, the Bible (a philos‑ ophy called »barbarian,« as it was written in Hebrew), offered under the popular garb of its stories a teaching of metaphysical truths even deeper than that proposed by the Greek philosophers for the Homeric texts. In that sense, the story of Para‑ dise, when interpreted correctly, offered an understanding of the soul and of its fall which went beyond anything Plato had proposed. It is quite clear, then, that Origen’s position denies any real »historical« significance to the paradise story. For him, for instance, the Hebrew word Eden simply means sweet (hēdys).21 We do not know much more about Origen’s view of Adam’s expulsion from paradise, as he actually says very little on the subject. One should moreover mention the puzzling fact that Paradise is totally absent from Origen’s Homilies on Genesis.22 In any case, the proper understanding of Paradise played a significant role in the Origenist controversy, as reflected by Epiphanius and Jerome.23 The most important Origenist treatment of Paradise comes from Didymus the Blind, a fourth-century theologian from Egypt. In his Commentary on Genesis,24 20

  See Ruzer, »The Cave of Treasures on Swearing by Abel’s Blood and Expulsion from Paradise.«   Selecta in Gen., ed. J.‑P. Migne (PG 12), 1000A. 22   See Origen, Homilies sur la Genèse, text with trans. by L. Doutreleau (SC 7; Paris, 1976). See especially the first homily (pp. 24 – 74), on Creation. 23  Epiphanius, Ancoratus 58, 6 – 8 (GCS I, 68 – 69); Panarion 64, 42 (GCS II, 472 – 473); Jerome, Letter to John of Jerusalem, Ep. 51, 5 (ed. Labourt, II, 163 – 166). 24   The text, found in a Tura papyrus, was edited for the first time by P. Nautin and L. Doutreleau; see Didymus the Blind, Sur la Genèse (SC 233; Paris, 1976), 252, 268. 21

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Didymus follows Philo in his juxtaposition of Adam and Cain, and even accentu‑ ates it. Like Origen, Didymus is a great opponent of literal interpretation: if Paradise is a particularly high place (hyperanabebēkos), Adam and Eve could not have been dressed there before they were expelled, as dense bodies could not have sojourned in Paradise. It is therefore wrong to assume that Adam and Eve possessed physi‑ cal bodies when in Paradise. The latter idea reflects a naive attitude, similar to the belief that Paradise is an actual place, located somewhere upon the earth. Didymus states expressly that »Adam means man in general.« Adam, then, »who was not the great culprit,« was expelled from Paradise. The real guilt for the sin fell on the snake (i. e., the devil), who had been the real cause of transgression, as he tempted Adam by suggesting pleasure instead of good. God, then, did not expel Adam, with his wife (i. e., mankind), »without any hope of return: he makes him dwell before Paradise so that he (Adam) may live in the memory of Paradise, keeping his eyes fixed upon Him (i. e., God).« This is not what one can call a real expulsion. God has »Adam settle before the Paradise of delights through putting a law in his mind – the same law that he would later write down – so that man, finding virtue inscribed in the commands of his own reason, would practice it. Virtue, in return, would make him understand what the divine and most pure life of Paradise is.« God, then, continues taking care of Adam. He instills in his thought the laws which prohibit evil, i. e., He offers him an initiation to good. And He does not hide Paradise from Adam, as He does not take away from him the knowledge of good, and does not let him forget the virtue in which he lived when in paradise. A little later, Didymus states that Scripture itself, i. e. both the Word of God and His command, is Paradise.25 From a different perspective, and without the Platonist allegorizing, the Syrian tra‑ dition reflects a similar de-dramatization of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise. In his Hymns on Paradise, a rather puzzling work whose precise Sitz im Leben escapes us,26 Ephrem of Nisibis writes about both the garden of Eden and the Paradise in the world to come after death and the end of this world. For him, then, Paradise is to be found at both ends of the world, in cosmogony and in eschatology. But, more impor‑ tantly, it remains visible and accessible, as it was for Adam after his expulsion. The fourth Hymn in particular dwells on this event, its cause, and its aftermath. Ephrem starts by saying that Adam had crossed the (abstract) moral boundary of God’s prohibition. In order to prevent him from sinning again, God replaced the moral boundary by a more concrete mark: the Cherub with his fiery sword became the enclosure of Paradise. Then comes the refrain: »In Thy goodness, Make me wor‑ 25

  Ibid., 264, 270.   See Ephrem de Nisibe, Hymnes sur le Paradis, trad. R. Lavenant, S. J., intr. notes F. Graffin, S. J. (SC 137; Paris, 1968), 28. For the Syriac text, see E. Beck, ed. with trans., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Paradiso und Contra Julianum (CSCO 174 [text], 175 [trans.]; Louvain, 1957). Cf. J. Teixidor, »Muerte, cielo y Seol en S. Efrén,« Orientalia Christiana Periodica 27 (1961), 82 – 114. 26

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thy, so that we may enter into Thy Paradise!« This sentence is difficult to under‑ stand, but it shows that in Ephrem’s community, Paradise was a very concrete ideal (stanza 1).27 Paradise is then compared to a Tabernacle, violated by a morally stained Adam, who is impure like a dead body, and therefore expelled by God, »the ocean of life« (stanza 2). A further figure of the expulsion of impurity, Ephrem goes on, is that of the lepers in the Hebrew camp in the desert. But as soon as the leper was healed, he would be purified by the priest and could return into the camp, »his heritage« (stanza 3). Adam, at first, was pure in the splendid Garden. But the snake’s breath made him a leper, and the Garden (sic) had to expel him. The High Priest, seeing him from above, condescended to purify Adam with hyssop, and brought him back into paradise (stanza 4). Later, Ephrem compares Adam to Moses, who was prevented from entering the Holy Land because he had expressed doubt. After their death, however, thanks to Our Lord, and through Resurrection, Moses could enter the Land, and Adam could return to Paradise (stanza 6). The Hymn ends with Ephrem’s prayer to God, to admit him into Paradise, as he has preserved the divine secrets and respected the Divine Logos (stanza 11).28 For Ephrem, then, a harmonious life is possible, for Adam or for the faithful before Par‑ adise, and such a life should lead us back into Paradise. A similar de-dramatized vision of a repenting Adam is found in Antiochene exe‑ gesis: Theodore of Mopsuestia states that after his expulsion from Paradise, he tills the land »and so remembers the early life, without pain, and hates sin, cause of pain‑ ful life.« As pointed out by E. Testa, this clearly reflects the anti-Manichaean trend in Antiochene interpretation.29 Augustine, to  whom western Christianity owes the dubious honor of having developed ad absurdum the idea of the original sin, stands at the end of a long herme‑ neutical tradition, and knows that »de paradiso multos multa dixisse.«30 Augustine is indeed a highly pessimistic thinker, who harbors few illusions about human nature and behavior. He emphasizes Adam’s sin and its catastrophic consequences through‑ out history. As a Paulinian theologian, however, he also sees the direct line linking Adam to Jesus, and sin and death to redemption: »Sicut in Adam omnes moriuntur, ita et in Christo omnes vivificabuntur.«31 To some extent, it seems that Augustine 27

 See Hymnes sur le Paradis, 63, n. 2.   See also Hymn III, 17: God closed Paradise from inside, but opened it from outside, so that Adam might still look at it. 29   Theodore of Mopsuestia, Art. 61.7, quoted by E. Testa, Il peccato di Adamo nella Patristica (Gen. III) (Studii Biblici Franciscani Analecta 3; Jerusalem, 1970), 105. See further Moses Bar Kepha (10th  cent.), Comm. de Paradiso (PG  111), cols. 479 ff. Similarly, Basil of Caesarea, De  Paradiso (PG 30), cols. 62 – 72; Procopius of Gaza, Comm. in Genesim (PG 87A); John Chrysostom, In Cap. II Genes. Homil. XIII (PG 53), col. 108. None of these authors deals with the theme of the expulsion from Paradise. 30  Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. VIII.1.1. 31  Augustine, Nupt. et conc. 2.46. See G. Bonner, »Adam,« Augustinus Lexikon I (1986), 63 – 87. 28

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never quite succeeded in freeing himself from his Manichaean background. In order to understand him more properly, however, one should remember that he had to keep fighting on two fronts: against Julian of Eclanum and Pelagianism, as well as against Faustus of Milevis and Manichaeism. It should be noted, however, that he did not fight both at the same time, a fact which might explain Augustine’s evolution, from his earlier allegorical understanding to his later insistence on a literal reading. From a »structural« point of view (i. e., from a theological schematic point of view), Pelagianism was perceived by the Church Fathers to be at the antipodes of Manichaeism, just as they had considered Judaism to be at the antipodes of Gnosti‑ cism. In both cases, the Christian theologians sought to navigate between what was for them a Carybdis and a Scylla, between what is sometimes called in theological jargon an over-pessimistic conception of salvation and an over-optimistic one.32 Just as the Manichaean anthropogony relayed the Gnostic one, so Pelagian ethics, which put all the emphasis on man’s ability to reach salvation through ascetic behavior, without the need of grace, echoed the Rabbinic ethos. For Augustine more than for anyone else, Adam’s primordial sin involved all of mankind after him, but it also offered him the means of salvation: this was, indeed, a felix culpa. Against the Manichaeans, Augustine insists on the dignity of Adam’s primal condition and the depth of his thought. Against the Pelagians, he stresses the tragic consequences for humanity of Adam’s sin. It is through his pride that Adam fell, prompted by the Devil. Adam’s sin was conscious and voluntary, and it is passed to his offspring as a hereditary infection (Augustine refers to gout in this context!).33 Augustine’s basic approach stands far apart from that of Didymus or Ephrem. Yet, for him as for them, the story of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise does not really tell the beginnings of history and society; rather, it is in human nature that it finds its real meaning. It is, in Origen’s words, a mysterion rather than a mythos. During the first centuries, Christian theologians sought to reinterpret their bib‑ lical heritage in the cultural context (and in the languages) of the Roman Empire. They thus transformed a new ideology into the imaginaire of European culture in the making. In this context, they were brought to reflect on the myths related in the first chapters of Genesis: cosmogony, anthropogony, and what I called above »poli‑ gony.« As we have seen, their strongly ambivalent attitude to history brought them to reinterpret these myths, to a great extent, into myths of the soul and of its salva‑ tion. Jesus’s deeply ambivalent attitude towards political power (»Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God«) remained a basic atti‑ tude through much of Christian history, even after the Constantinian revolution.34 The most pregnant instance of this permanent ambivalence, perhaps, is to be found 32

 Testa, Il peccato di Adamo nella Patristica.   See G. Bonner, »Adam,« Augustinus-Lexikon I, 63a – 87a. 34   Matt. 22:17 – 21; Mk. 12:14 – 17; Lk. 20:22 – 25. Cf. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, eds., Jesus and the Politics of His Day (Cambridge, 1984). 33

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in Augustine’s City of God, which would inform all future political thought in the West: Christians can take part in human societies, but they do so only as guests, as residents, and not as real citizens. They remain peregrini within the civitas terrena. Therefore, they have only a lukewarm interest in reflecting on its origins, which are deeply rooted in Adam’s sin – whether pride or sex, in any case reflecting a hybris and leading to violence, in short, a sin equivalent to unredeemed humanity. I have sought to show elsewhere how the early growth of Christianity repre‑ sented, in the ancient world, the appearance of a new kind of religion, previously unknown.35 The above remarks let us perceive here another aspect of the religious revolution launched by Christianity. The radical turn inward (a turn prepared, to be sure, both in Jewish and in Hellenistic thought), the new focus on the interior life, the life of the soul, much weakens the singular dimension of historical (or »historical«) events, including the very first one, the event which started history: Adam’s expulsion from paradise. This comes to reflect the story of the soul, of its salvation. As Tertul‑ lian put it, anima naturaliter christiana. The interpretation of Adam’s expulsion from paradise by the Christian Fathers of the first centuries reflects the novitas christiana: the new anthropology it sought to develop, an anthropology under the sign of ambi‑ guity. It is no longer a myth which speaks about what happened in illo tempore, but, rather, in illo loco – a place for the redeemed soul, outside of the civitas terrena.

35   See G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (WUNT 102; Tübingen, 1999), 44 – 56.

7. Christ’s Laughter: Docetic Origins Reconsidered I. One of the most radical attitudes to be found among the early Christians, Docetism soon became a generic term for some of the worst heresies fought by the Church Fathers. Oddly enough, this puzzling phenomenon does not seem to have elicited enough scholarly attention. In 1957, Gustave Bardy, who claimed that »les origines de cette erreur sont obscures,« lamented the lack of a full-fledged monograph on the topic, and no such monograph has appeared in print since then.1 Moreover, there is no general agreement upon a convincing definition of Docet­ ism, and one is at a loss as to the focal point of the Docetic worldview. The two main approaches relate either to Christ’s Incarnation or to his Passion. Either Christ was not really incarnated, as the Divine and matter could not have a common ground, and Christ would be totally spiritual in nature, or Christ was indeed incarnated, but did not really suffer on the cross. These two views are not identical. The first, being broader, is inclusive of the second. Most scholars seem to support the first approach, and find the roots of Docetism in Platonic thought, or in what is sometimes called, rather nebulously, »Graeco-Oriental Dualism.«2 For them, Docetism argues that the human nature of Jesus is only a semblance. For the second opinion, which focuses on the crucifixion, Jesus’s death, rather than his very corporeal existence, was the scandal that the first Docetists sought to avoid. J. G. Davies, in a paper read at the Sixth Oxford Patristics Conference and published in Studia Patristica in 1962, seems to have been the first to suggest this idea.3 Soon thereafter, Norbert Brox seconded him with new arguments.4 According to both scholars, Jewish motives (for Davies), 1   This essay is dedicated to Fritz Stolz’s memory. Bardy, »Docétisme,« Dictionnaire de Spiritua­ lité III (1957), 1461 – 1468, see 1462. The Heidelberg dissertation of P. Weigandt, Der Doketismus im Urchristentum und in der theologischen Entwicklung des 2. Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg University, 1961), was never published. An analysis of Weigandt’s main argument can be found in M. Slusser, »Docetism: a Historical Definition,« The Second Century 1 (1981), 163 – 172. Slusser also quotes var‑ ious definitions of Docetism offered since the days of Baur. 2   J. G. Davies, »The Origins of Docetism,« Studia Patristica VI (TU 81; Berlin, 1962), 13 – 35, see 13. Note a similar expression in N. Brox, »Doketismus: Eine Problemanzeige,« ZKG 95 (1984), 301 – 314. 3   Davies, »The Origins of Docetism.« 4   See N. Brox, »Doketismus: eine Problemanzeige,« Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 95 (1984), 301 – 314. See further W.  Schoedel, Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1985), 152 – 161 (To the Trallians, 9 – 11) and 225 – 229 (To the Smyrnaeans, 2 – 3).

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or Jewish-Christian ones (for Brox) should be identified, together with »Graeco-ori‑ ental« dualism, at the origins of Docetism. It should be pointed out, however, that the views of Davies and Brox do not seem to have become the majority opinion. As knowledgeable a scholar as Basil Studer remarks that the Docetic tendency makes sense only within a Platonic context, adding that »strictly speaking, only Valentinians should be considered docetists.«5 Charles Munier, for his part, who echoes Bardy when he states that »les commence‑ ments du docétisme sont insaisissables,« argues that Docetism was born »from the difficulty to conciliate Jesus Christ with Hellenistic conceptions about God’s tran‑ scendence.«6 What is clear is that in modern, scholarly usage, »Docetism« does not refer to any clearly definable sect, but rather to an attitude. While many of those doctrines we often refer to (rather vaguely) as »Gnostic« also reflect a docetic attitude, »Docetism« is by no means identical to »Gnosticism.« Michael Williams has made a convinc‑ ing case for questioning the hypostatic use of the concept of »Gnosticism,« as if it referred to a stable, historically and theologically defined movement.7 A similar cau‑ tion should be used with the construct of »Docetism.« In other words, »Docetism« is no more than »Gnosticism« a fixed set of doctrines, but rather a theological option that shows up in a wide variety of early Christian texts. It is probable that »Docetic« doctrines were already present in the first Christian century, as it is against such doc‑ trines that the author of I and II John, for instance, seems to argue.8 The first appear‑ ance of doketismos, however, is only found in Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis, while Eusebius refers briefly to the »Docetes«.9 For Clement, Docetism is related to those who claim that birth is evil, and is therefore upheld by Julianus Cassianus, the father of Encratism, as well as by Marcion and Valentinus, for whom Christ’s body was »psychic.« The developed character of Valentinus’s doctrines, and in particular his complex conception of Christ, are probably responsible for the commonly par‑ taken view that Docetism owes its rejection of the physical body to the influence of the Platonic negation of matter. Seeking to offer a taxonomy of three different kinds of Docetic attitudes, Georg Strecker proposed to distinguish between three different claims: the one according to which Simon of Cyrene was the substitute of Jesus on the cross (a claim made by Basilides, at least according to Irenaeus), the one affirming that Christ left Jesus just 5

  B. Studer, »Docetism,« Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church I, 244A.   C. Munier, »Où en est la question d’Ignace d’Antioche?« ANRW II.27.1 (Berlin, New York, 1993), esp. 407 – 413, here 409. 7   See M. A. Williams, Rethinking »Gnosticism«: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, 1996). 8   See for instance G. Strecker, Commentary on the Johannine Letters (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1995), 69 – 77. See, in particular, II John 1:7. 9  Clement, Strom., III.17.102. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. VI.12.6 (LCL II, 42 – 43): hous Dokētas kaloumen. 6

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before his death on the cross (according to Cerinthus, and the Gospel of Peter),10 and, finally, the claim that Jesus Christ was indeed crucified, but did not suffer, and remained impassibilis, as his nature is pneumatic (the claim of the Docetists fought by Ignatius).11 While the above-mentioned articles of Davies and Brox point in the right direc‑ tion in the search for the origins of Docetism, both retain, unfortunately, rather vague formulations in their hypotheses, and argue for a »twofold« origin of Docetism, in both »Graeco-Oriental and Jewish thought.«12 To my mind, however, the very historical core of Docetism, at least in its earliest phases, does not lie in Platonic elements, which were wholly absent from Christian origins, but in the rejection of Jesus’s passion on the cross, »stumbling block (skan­ dalon) to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,« to use Paul’s terms (I Cor. 1:24). This rejection, I submit, came first, and only then were the Docetic attitudes broadened, as it were, to include the very incarnation, the idea of Christ having possessed a body of flesh. It is only at a later stage, finally, that Docetism may have influenced early Christian conceptions of martyrdom.13 While it is by no means my intention here to offer a review of all the evidence on early Christian Docetism, I shall discuss a few texts which I hope will shed some new light on the origins of Docetism, and I shall emphasize its roots in the earliest stages of Christianity. I shall begin with the Treatise of the Great Seth, a particularly powerful text (extant in Coptic translation) which has been called one of the most interesting texts from Nag Hammadi relating to Docetism.14 For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness. They nailed their man up to their death. For their minds did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they render judgment against themselves. As for me, on the one hand, they saw me; they punished me. Another, their father, was the one who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They were hitting me with the reed; another was the one who lifted up the cross on his shoulder, who was Simon. Another was the one on whom they put the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the riches of the archons and the offspring of their error and their conceit, and I was laughing at their ignorance.15

10   See J. W. McCant, »The Gospel of Peter: Docetism Reconsidered,« NTS 30 (1984), 258 – 273. McCant’s conclusion that the Akhmim fragment »should not be considered docetic« reflects a rather limited and rigid conception of Docetism. On the text, see W. Schneemelcher, The New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Cambridge, 1991), I, 216 – 227. 11   G. Strecker, Commentary on the Johannine Letters, 72. 12   Davis, »Docetism,« 16. 13   Pace R. Grant, »Gnostic Origins and the Basilidians of Irenaeus,« Vigiliae Christianae  13 (1959), 121 – 125. 14   K. W. Tröger, »Doketistische Christologie in Nag-Hammadi-Texten: ein Beitrag zum Doketis‑ mus in frühchristlicher Zeit,« Kairos 19 (1977), 47 – 52, see 51. Tröger, however, does not offer a real analysis of this text, and only refers to the parallel about the suffering Simon and the laughing Christ in the views attributed to Basilides in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I.24.4. 15   Gr. Seth, NHC VII.2; 55:30 – 56:19.

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One does not have to be a Christian to be taken aback by the image of Christ laugh‑ ing when seeing from heaven the poor Simon of Cyrene carrying his cross, and suf‑ fering in his place.16 Indeed, a quite common image of Christ in the Christian tra‑ dition, from antiquity to modern times (albeit not the only one), is that of a stern figure, who could cry at times, but had never laughed. The topical texts here are some Homilies of John Chrysostom and a text of Ambrosius.17 While it is true that the Treatise of the Great Seth does not specifically say that Simon was crucified in Christ’s place, it is hard to argue (as Gregory Riley, whose translation I have quoted, seems to do) that this text has no Docetic proclivities.18 The cosmic cruelty of this laughter seems to evoke Siva’s mythic destruction of the demons’ cities rather than Christ’s traditional compassion. This passage is not the only one mentioning Christ’s laughter. In the Apocalypse of Peter, another text from Nag Hammadi, we read: When he had said these things, I saw him [the Savior] apparently being seized by them. And I said, »What am I seeing, O Lord? Is it you yourself whom they take? And are you holding on to me? Who is this one above the cross, who is glad and laughing? And is it another person whose feet and hands they are hammering?« The Savior said to me. »He whom you see above the cross, glad and laughing, is the living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driv‑ ing the nails is his physical part, which is the substitute.19

Various other texts from Nag Hammadi reflect the same docetic perception of Jesus, who did not suffer on the cross. The Letter of Peter to Philip offers a similar vision of things: »My brothers, Jesus is a stranger to this suffering. But we are the ones who have suffered at the transgression of the mother.«20 The text entitled The Concept of our Great Power describes how the ruler of the archons »found that the nature of his [the Savior’s] flesh could not be seized, in order to show it to the archons.«21 In the First Apocalypse of James, the Lord is quoted as saying: »James, do not be concerned for me or for this people. I am he who was within me. Never have I suffered in any 16   This laughter of Christ is reflected in the title of an introductory book to Christian Gnos‑ ticism, J. Dart, The Laughing Savior: The Discovery and Significance of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library, first published in 1976, and in a revised and expanded edition, under the title of Jesus of Heresy and History: The Discovery and Meaning of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library (San Francisco, 1988). Dart, however, does not deal at length with this passage and its parallels. See also I. S. Gilhus, Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: Laughter in the History of Religion (London, New York, 1997). Gil‑ hus, too, although a specialist of Gnosticism, refers to this and similar passages, but without offering any real interpretation of them. 17   See J. Le Brun, »›Jésus-Christ n’a jamais ri‹: Analyse d’un raisonnement théologique,« in Homo religiosus: autour de Jean Delumeau (Paris, 1997), 431 – 437. Le Brun refers to Chrysostom, Hom. VI on Matthews, and Hom. XV on Hebrews, and to Ambrosius’s De officiis ministrorum, I.23.102, on Luke 23:25. 18   See B. Pearson, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex VII (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 30; Leiden, New York, Köln, 1996), 137 – 138. »Their man« is the body of Christ. 19   Apoc. Peter, NHC VII.3; 81:3 – 21, trans. J. Brashler, ibid., 241. 20   NHC VIII.2; 139:15 – 22, trans. F. Wisse, in J. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco, 1977), 397. 21   NHC VI.4; 41:14 – 42:3, ibid., 287.

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way, nor have I been distressed. And this people has done me no harm.« Elsewhere in the same text, the Lord says to James that he will reveal to the »authorities,« or archons, that »he cannot be seized.«22 Two other texts, at least, mention the laughter of a feminine figure behaving in a manner similar to that of the docetic Christ, namely avoiding being caught by the evil archons. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve »laughed at [the authorities], for their folly and their blindness; and in their clutches, she became a tree, and left before them a shadow of herself resembling herself.« It is this shadow, of course, that they catch and defile.23 In the Valentinian Exposition, finally, Sophia »laughs since she remained alone and imitated the ›ungraspable‹.«24 The figure imitated by Sophia seems to be he who cannot be caught, i. e., who cannot suffer through his capture by the archons.25 To these texts, one should add some »Gnostic« traditions retained by the patristic heresiographers, in particular the views of Basilides according to Irenaeus of Lyon. The question has been raised whether it really reflects Basilides’s doctrine, or rather the views of some of his followers, but this does not affect the report’s significance for our present task. And unto the nations belonging to them it (the intellect) appeared on earth as a man, and he performed deeds of power. Hence he did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear his cross for him, and it was he who was ignorantly and erroneously cruci‑ fied, being transformed by the other, so that he was taken for Jesus; while Jesus, for his part, assumed the form of Simon and stood by, laughing at them (irrisisse eos).26 22   NHC V.3; 31:15 – 22 and 30:1 – 4, trans. W. R. Schoedel, ibid., 243. In a note to his recent trans‑ lation of the text, Antonio Pinero offers the following explanation (which explains very little): »La sonrisa del Salvador puede ser una invercion gnostica a los escarnios de lo que veian la cru‑ cifixion (Mt 27:39 – 43).« In A. Pinero, J. Montserrat Torrents, and F. Garcia Bazan, Textos gnosticos: Biblioteca de Nag Hammadi III (Madrid, 2000), 67, n. 88. 23   NHC II.4; 89:23 – 26. I quote the translation of B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (New York, 1987), 71. Layton does not deal with Eve’s laughter in his commentary to his edition of the text, »The Hypostasis of the Archons (Conclusion),« Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976), 31 – 101. See B. Pearson, »›She Became a Tree‹ – a Note to CG II, 4:89, 25 – 26,« Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976), 413 – 415. 24   NHC XI.2; 34:35 – 38. (Or »the uncontainable one,« according to J. Turner’s translation, in Rob‑ inson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, 439.) See J. E. Ménard, L’exposé valentinien, les fragments sur le baptême et sur l’eucharistie (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi 14; Québec, 1985). Ménard trans‑ lates: »l’insaisissable,« and offers a commentary on p. 76. »Le rire est l’apanage des êtres célestes, celui du Christ par exemple . . .« Ménard’s remark (»Le rire de la Sophia vient de ce qu’elle a voulu imiter l’Insaisissable sans être pour autant dans le monde des syzygies . . .«) does not really solve the riddle. 25   See also On the Origin of the World, NHC II, 113: 13, where Sophia Zoe laughs at the archontic authorities, NHC II, 116: 26, where Eve laughs at the powers (text parallel to that form the Hypostasis of the Archons cited in n. 23 above), and NHC II, 112: 27, where the Archons laugh at the Archigen‑ itor because of his foolishness. These texts are referred to by one of the anonymous readers for the JECS, who adds the Apocryphon of John (NHC II, 22:12), where the Savior laughs (or smiles) when answering a question from John or some other disciple. 26  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I.24.4. I am quoting the translation of B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, 242. For further references to the theme of laughter in gnostic sources and traditions, see W. A. Löhr, Basilides und seine Schule: Eine Studie zur Theologie- und Kirchengeschichte des zweiten

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Finally, the Acts of John preserve a famous description of Christ’s docetic nature, quite similar to the »gnostic« traditions quoted above. As noted by the editors of this text, Éric Junod and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, the dissociation reflected in this text between the Savior and the man on the cross fits quite well with Eastern Valentinian Christology.27 »So then I have suffered none of those things which they will say of me . . . You hear that I suf‑ fered, yet I suffered not . . . and that I was pierced, yet I was not lashed, that I was hanged, yet I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, yet it did not flow . . .« When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going down I laughed at them all when they told me what they had said about him . . .28

The texts briefly discussed above, which are certainly not the only ones harboring a docetic view of the Savior, are enough to highlight the importance of the motif of laughter on the part of Christ, as he secretly avoids the passion on the cross. One cannot say, however, that this laughter, which has been identified by various scholars as »typically Gnostic« and as directly related in its origin to both gnostic mythology and Docetism, has been adequately explained.29 Louis Painchaud, in the commentary to his edition of the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, refers to some of the parallels, noting that the laughter underlines the blindness and ignorance of the archons and of their creatures, and their inability to distinguish reality from illusion. Jacques Ménard, on his side, notes the strangeness of this laughter, adding that it is typical of »celestial entities.« Neither Junod and Kaestli, nor Bentley Layton, nor even Antonio Pinero, who refers only to »a Gnostic inversion,« offers any substantial interpretation.30 The only serious suggestion I am aware of is that of Robert Grant, who pro‑ posed, in an article published long ago, to interpret Christ’s laughter as a reflection of Psalms 2:4: »He who sits in the heavens laughs [yoshev ba‑shammayim isḥaq]; the Lord has them in derision.« This proposal must be taken seriously, as Psalm 2 deals with the messianic drama, calling the Messiah God’s son (verse 8). The same chapter, moreover, is quoted in Acts 4:23 – 26 in the prayer of Peter and John after their release by the Sanhedrin.31 I hope to offer here a more convincing interpretation of Christ’s

Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1996), 269, n. 58. Löhr, however, does not really offer an interpretation of this laughter of Christ. See also, especially, some rich pages in A. Orbe, S. J., Cristologia gnostica (Madrid, 1976), I, 381 – 412 (on gnostic Docetism) and II, 229 – 237 (on the theme of laughter). Orbe states (II, 229): »El tema de la risa merecería estudio.« 27   É. Junod and J.‑D. Kaestli, eds., Acta Iohannis (Corpus Christianorum 2; Turnhout, 1983), 601. 28   Acts of John, 101 – 102. 29   Cf. G. Bröcker, »Lachen als religiöses Motiv in gnostischen Texten,« in P. Nagel, ed., Studien zum Menschenbild in Gnosis und Manichäismus (Halle, 1979), 111 – 125. 30   See note 19, above. 31   R. Grant, »Gnostic Origins and the Basilidians of Irenaeus,« Vigiliae Christianae 13 (1959), 121 – 125. See also Proverbs 1:22 – 26: »I will laugh at your calamity.«

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laughter. My proposal, however, is not exclusive of Grant’s suggestion, as an early conflation between two different themes might have contributed to the development of the idea of Christ’s laughter. Before going any further, it is important to underline the context of this laugh‑ ter. It seems that in various texts, the Savior’s laughter (or that of a heavenly figure seeking to imitate him) is directly related to his ability to avoid death at the hands of the archons. It is either through his transformation at the last moment, his dis‑ appearance, or his replacement by a substitute, such as Simon of Cyrene, that the Savior avoids death, and he laughs at having succeeded in averting the evil archon’s scheme. This laughter, then, would appear to be integral to the docetic interpretation of Christ’s Passion.

II. As is well known, the biblical patriarch Isaac is presented in early Christian litera‑ ture as a typos of Christ, or sacramentum futuri.32 While Isaac is not alone among the major figures of the Old Testament to be thus perceived, he certainly has a pride of place, thanks both to his birth and to his sacrifice.33 After the New Testament, the earliest text to refer to Isaac explicitly as a typos of Christ is the Epistle of Barnabas. The Lord »was going to offer the vessel of the spirit as a sacrifice for our sins, in order that the type established by Isaac, who was offered upon the altar, might be fulfilled.«34 From then on, many patristic authors writing in Greek, Latin or Syriac will refer to Isaac as a typos of Christ, focusing, in particular, on the Akedah in Gen‑ esis 22. Abraham, like God, intended to sacrifice His own son.35 Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering, in a prefiguration of Jesus carrying his cross. The major 32   On this concept, see in particular J. Daniélou, S. J., Sacramentum futuri: Études sur les origines de la typologie biblique (Paris, 1950). 33   See for instance J. Daniélou, »La typologie d’Isaac dans le christianisme primitif,« Biblica 28 (1947), 363 – 393, esp. 365. 34   Barnabas, VII.3 (Apostolic Fathers, LCL I, 364 – 365): hina kai ho typos ho genomenos epi Isaak tou prosenekhthentos epi to thysiastērion telesthēi. Barnabas also mentions the two goats of Yom Kip‑ pur (Lev. 16:7 – 9), one of which is sent to Azazel. Cf. Babylonian Talmud Yoma. 35  Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IV.5.4. »Abraham, whose faith drew him to obey God’s order, offered his only and beloved son in sacrifice to God, so that God, in his turn, would grant him the gift of sacrificing His only and beloved son for the redemption of all his posterity.« See also M. Harl, »La ›ligature‹ d’Isaac (Gen. 22.9) dans la Septante et chez les Pères grecs,« in A. Caquot, M. HadasLebel, J. Riaud, eds., Hellenica et Judaica: Hommage a Valentin Nikiprowetzky (Leuven-Paris, 1986), 457 – 472, who points out that Melito is the only author to relate the binding of Isaac to that of Jesus. See further S. Brock, »Genesis 22 in Syriac Tradition,« in P. Casetti, O. Keel, A. Schenker, eds., Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy: Études bibliques offertes à l’occasion de son soixantième anniversaire (Fribourg-Göttingen, 1981), 1 – 21. Brock notes that in the Syriac tradition, Isaac and the ram are a combined type of Christ, and that we do not find there the allegorical or anagogical interpretation familiar from the Alexandrian tradition.

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difference between the two figures, of course, lies in the fact that according to the biblical texts, Isaac was eventually not sacrificed, while Jesus did die on the cross. Melito of Sardis deals with the parallelism between the two figures in his Peri Pascha.36 Melito, who has been called »the first poet of Deicide,« emphasizes the difference between Isaac and Christ: and he carried the wood on his shoulders      as he was led up to be slain like Isaac by his Father. But Christ suffered (epathen), whereas Isaac did not suffer;      for he was a model of the Christ who was going to suffer. But by being merely the model of Christ      he caused astonishment and fear among men.37

Origen devotes to the biblical figure of Isaac one of his most powerful Homilies on Genesis. According to him, »Isaac means laughter or joy« (Isaac risus uel gaudium interpretatur).38 Origen does not pursue this line of interpretation, and does not link Isaac’s laughter to Christ. He does say, however, that Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son, hoped that he would be resurrected, believing that what had never taken place would happen. Abraham’s faith was based upon his knowledge that Isaac was the prefiguration of the truth to come, Christ’s resurrection from the dead.39 »That Isaac carried himself the wood for the burnt offering, this is the figura of Christ who carried himself his cross.«40 Later, he adds that while Abraham offered to God a mortal son who did not die, »God, for humans, delivered to death an immortal Son« (Abraham mortalem filium non moriturum obtulit Deo; Deus immortalem filium pro hominibus tradidit morti).41 In the next paragraph, Origen discusses the ram, which was indeed slaughtered, as another typos of Christ, in parallel to Isaac. In order to

36

  Fragments 9 and 10 in Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha and Fragments, ed. with trans. by S. J. Hall (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford, 1979), 74 – 77. The two following fragments, 11 and 12, deal with the ram as a typos of Christ. 37   See R. L. Wilken, »Melito, the Jewish Community at Sardis, and the Sacrifice of Isaac,« Theological Studies 37 (1976), 53 – 69. Wilken rightly insists upon the significance of Melito for the cen‑ tral role of the Akedah in the polemics between Jews and Christians in late antiquity, but is wrong when he claims that the Akedah played only a minor role in early Christianity during the first 100 or 150 years (p. 64). On the role of the Akedah in these polemics, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Herméneu‑ tique biblique et identité: l’exemple d’Isaac,« Revue Biblique 99 (1992), 529 – 543, where I tried to connect rabbinic and patristic interpretations with the different contexts and parameters of Jewish and Christian identity. 38   I am using the edition of L. Doutreleau: Origen, Homélies sur la Genèse (SC 7; Paris, 1976), VII.1, 194 – 195. The next homily, VIII, is dedicated to the Akedah (pp. 212 – 235). 39   Ibid. VII.1, 216 – 217. 40   Ibid. VIII.6, 222 – 223. 41   Ibid. VIII.8, 228 – 229. P.  Perkins, The Gnostic Dialogue (New York, Toronto, 1980), 180, refers to Christ (ho Kyrios) laughing with scorn at the ignorance of those who crucified him in Origen’s Commentary on Matthew, XIII.9. Origen quotes here from LXX Psalm 2:4; the archons who betrayed him are laughed upon and derided by the Lord.

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explain the double type of Christ, he notes that Christ is at once human, born of a virgin, and the Logos of God, coming from on high. Hence, Christ suffers, but [only] in his flesh, and he underwent death, but [only] in the flesh, of which the ram is here the form (Patitur ergo Christus, sed in carne; et pertulit mortem, sed caro, cuius hic aries forma est). John said, similarly, »Here is the lamb of God, who takes away sin from the world.« The Logos, however, which is Christ according to the spirit, of whom Isaac is the image, remained »in incorruptibility.« (Verbum uero in incorruptione permansit, quod est secundum spiritum Christus, cuius imago est Isaac). This is why he is at once victim and high priest.42

In other words, Origen points out that the parallelism between the Akedah of Isaac and the crucifixion of Christ relates, precisely, to the fact that Christ, at least in His divine nature, like Isaac, did not suffer death. Isaac as a figura of Christ also often appears in Latin authors. For Tertullian, types and figures needed to be covered in obscurity, so that difficulty of understanding might make request for the grace of God. And so Isaac, to begin with, when delivered up by his father for a sacrifice, himself carried the wood for himself, and did at that early date set forth the death of Christ, who when surrendered as a victim by his Father carried the wood of his own passion.43

Augustine, too, discusses both the meaning of Isaac’s name (Isaac, quod interpretatur Risus) and the ram of the Akedah as referring to Jesus (Quis ergo illo figurabatur, nisi Iesus, antequam immolaretur, spinis Iudaicis coronatus?).44 He also knows that Isaac is a figure of Jesus, but he does not seem to be particularly interested by the topic.45 In iconography, too, the importance of the sacrifice of Isaac seems to reflect its similitude to the crucifixion in Christian culture throughout the ages.46 This tradi‑ 42

  Ibid. VIII.9, 230 – 231.  Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, III.18.2, ed. and trans. E. Evans (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford, 1972), I, 224 – 225. Cf. Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos, 13.636. For Tertullian, the ram, too, is parallel to the crucified Christ with the crown of thorns. In other words, the typos of Christ is double: while Isaac, who did not die, is the typos of the divine nature of Christ, the ram, who was sacrificed, is the typos of his human nature. This conception will become widespread, also in the Christian east; see for instance Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. P. Meyendorff (Crestwood, New York, 1999), 84 – 85. 44  Augustine, De Civitate Dei XVI.31 and 32. This etymology (Isaac, quod interpretatur risus) is of course an old and popular one, which seems to have been included in most lexica and commen‑ taries in antiquity. It does not testify to any real knowledge of Hebrew. 45  Augustine, Ennarationes in Psalmos, 51.5. Much has been written on the figure of Isaac in Christian literature and art. See for example J. Gribomont, »Isaac le Patriarche,« Dictionnaire de Spiritualité VII (1970), 1988 – 2005; C. Jacob and S. Schrenk, »Isaak I (Patriarch),« Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 18 (1998), 910 – 930; J. Daniélou, »La typologie d’Isaac dans le Christianisme primitif,« Biblica 28 (1947), 363 – 393; D. Lerch, Isaak’s Opferung christlich gedeutet: eine auslegungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Tübingen, 1950); and Daniélou, Sacramentum futuri (1950). 46   See for instance I. Speyert van Woerden, »The Iconography of the Sacrifice of Abraham,« Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961), 214 – 255, and the bibliography at the end of the entry »Isaak I (Patri‑ arch)« in RAC. 43

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tion, which has been much studied, is reasonably well charted. It should be pointed out that a similarly central place of the Akedah seems to be found among Jews, as reflected in synagogue mosaics such as the ones from Beit Alpha and Sepphoris.47 A passage from Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus deserves special attention in our present context.48 While this intriguing text has received some notice (Jean Gribomont calls it »une page curieuse«, and Jean Daniélou speaks of »ce passage très remarquable«),49 its full significance seems to be still ignored. In the context of the discussion of the various ways in which men can be called children – and thus in need of education by the divine teacher – Clement writes: »The word Isaac I also connect with child. Isaac means laughter (gelōs hermeneuetai ho Isaak).« Clement then goes on to interpret this laughter as the joy of the Chris‑ tians, who rejoice in the salvation offered by Christ, adding: That which is signified by the prophet may be interpreted differently, namely, it is we who rejoice and laugh on account of salvation, like Isaac. He too laughed, when delivered from death (egela de kakeinos tou thanatou lelymenos) . . .

Further on, he adds: The king, then, is Christ, who beholds our laughter from above, and looking through the window, as the Scripture says, looks at the thanksgiving, and the blessing, and the rejoicing, and the gladness, and furthermore the endurance which works together with them and their embrace . . . He himself [Christ] is Isaac (for the passage may be interpreted otherwise), who is a type (typos) of the Lord, a child as a son; for he was the son of Abraham, as Christ, the Son of God, and a sacrifice as the Lord. But he was not immolated as the Lord. Isaac only bore the wood [of the sacrifice], as the Lord the wood [of the cross]. And he [Isaac] laughed in a secret way (egela de mystikōs), prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy, as we have been redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord. But Isaac did not suffer, yielding the pre‑ cedence in suffering to the Logos. Moreover, his not having been slain hints at the divinity of the Lord. For Jesus rose again after His burial, without having suffered, exactly like Isaac was released from sacrifice (mē pathōn, kathaper hierourgias apheimenos ho Isaak).50

While many other patristic authors refer to the similarities between Isaac and Jesus, Clement (who like them also recognizes the difference between the two figures: Isaac did not suffer, and is therefore inferior to Jesus) seems to be the only one to 47   See E. Kessler, »Art Leading the Story: the Aqedah in early synagogue art,« in L. I. Levine and Z. Weiss, eds., From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series; Portsmouth, RI, 2000), 73 – 81. 48   I.5.21.3 – I.5.23.2. I am using the text in Clement of Alexandria, Le Pédagogue, Livre I, intro. and notes by H. I. Marrou, trans. by M. Harl (SC 70; Paris, 1960), 148 – 153. See also the English trans‑ lation by S. Wood, Christ the Educator (Fathers of the Church; Washington, D. C., 1954). 49   Daniélou, »La typologie d’Isaac,« 381. 50   Both Marrou and Harl seem puzzled by the text here, in which Jesus is said not to have suf‑ fered. See 152, n. 5, where Marrou considers the text to be corrupt, and Harl’s translation: ». . . res‑ suscita sans avoir souffert (dans sa divinité) exactement comme Isaac fut libéré du sacrifice.« Bardy notes that Photius (Bibliotheca, 109) accuses Clement of having taught docetic doctrines in his Hypotyposes (Bardy, »Docétisme,« 1466).

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go beyond insisting on the etymological meaning of Isaac’s name (ytzḥak: he will laugh) – a meaning that he could easily have learned from Philo and Jewish Alex‑ andrian traditions with which we know he was familiar. As we have seen above, this Alexandrian tradition is also reflected by Origen. Clement, however, also connects this laughter directly with Isaac’s last-minute escape from sacrificial death. He also relates Isaac’s laughter to the joy of the Christians, as their Lord, although he had been crucified, did not suffer, thanks to His resurrection, and equates this lack of suffering to Isaac’s avoidance of sacrifice.51 It is worth noting that Clement, as also Origen after him, underlines the fact that, at least in His divine nature, Jesus did not suffer. One can speak here, in a way, of a semi-docetic perception. A full-fledged docetic perception, however, would contradict the central myth and the central rit‑ ual of Christianity: a sacrifice. Such a full-fledged Docetism is of course conceivable only in a religious system where there exist other sacrifices: when the very notion of sacrifice is rejected, Docetism is meaningless. The significance of this unique text goes far beyond the story of the Akedah. It should lead us on the way to an interpretation of Christ’s puzzling laughter in the gnostic texts mentioned above, and to a new suggestion about the origins of Docetism.

III. It is a fact beyond dispute that the Jewish hermeneutical tradition on the Akedah in Genesis 22 is very old, and can be followed through the different literary genres from the Second Temple period.52 This fact entails, inter alia, that the intricate connections between the Akedah and the crucifixion, which have attracted scholarly interest for a long time, can be documented as having started very early. Indeed, there is reason to believe that they are reflected in significant fashion in the New Testament. James Swetnam’s monograph on Jesus and Isaac has highlighted the deep significance of 51

  One of the anonymous readers refers here to the Gospel of Philip (NHC  II, 74:25 – 75:2): »Some have entered the kingdom of heaven laughing . . .«, adding that while the passage is here frustratingly fragmentary, it is tempting to see here something similar to Clement’s remarks about laughter and salvation. 52   I shall not deal here with the original meaning and function of the myth as it appears in Genesis, as a »mitigation« of human sacrifice. For parallels in Greek religion, see D. D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London, New York, 1991), 90 – 92. For a recent monograph on the Akedah in the Jewish tradition and the New Testament, see L. Kundert, Die Opferung / Bindung Isaaks, Band I: Gen 22:1 – 19 im Alten Testament, im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament, and Band II: Gen 22:1 – 19 im frühen rabbinischen Texten (Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament, 78 – 79; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2002). I owe this reference to Clemens Leonhard, who is preparing various critical remarks on some of the conceptions of this work, to appear in his book on Passover and Easter. Leonhard argues that the importance of the Akedah for the under‑ standing of Passover has been overstated in the history of research.

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the Akedah in various writings of the New Testament, besides its obviously central role in Hebrews 11:17 – 19.53 Swetnam has also offered a detailed status quaestionis, the results of which need not be repeated here.54 The most seminal article on the topic, however, remains Israel Lévi’s study of the connection between the Akedah and the death of Jesus, published in 1912.55 Lévi was seeking to refute the argument of Abraham Geiger. According to Lévi, the sig‑ nificance of the Akedah in the Jewish liturgy of the New Year, Rosh ha‑Shana, was a later development, which had taken place in late antique Mesopotamia, and which reflected a Christian influence on Rabbinic Judaism. Although Lévi’s study has been criticized for his anachronistic use of Jewish liturgy, he was able to show quite con‑ vincingly that the Jewish sources relating the Akedah, not only to Passover – as for instance in Jubilees (ch. 18), a text from the third century b.c.e.56 – but also to the Rosh ha‑Shana ritual (prayers as old as the first century c.e.), could not possibly have been redacted under a Christian influence. Moreover, Lévi showed that the old identification of the place of the Akedah as the Temple Mount pointed, not only to Temple sacrifices, but also to the Messiah, while the ritual connections between Isaac and the blowing of the shofar on Rosh ha‑Shana were directly linked to messianic prayers. The cumulative evidence showed, argued Lévi, that the sacrifice of Isaac (or rather his binding, or akedah) was conceived, before the emergence of Christi‑ anity, as having a merit which could save Israel from the consequences of its sins.57 Further studies followed the path opened by Lévi. Hans Joachim Schoeps and Geza Vermes made a more systematic analysis of Targumic sources, without changing in any drastic way the picture drawn more than ninety years ago by Lévi.58 Both Scho‑ 53   J. Swetnam, S. J., Jesus and Isaac: A Study of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Light of the Akedah (Analecta Biblica, 94; Rome, 1981). 54   See also R. J. Daly, S. J., Christian Sacrifice: The Judeo-Christian Background before Origen (Washington, DC, 1978), 175 – 186: »The Sacrifice of Isaac.« 55   I. Lévi, »Le sacrifice d’Isaac et la mort de Jésus,« Revue des Études Juives 64 (1912), 161 – 184, and Revue des Études Juives 65 (1913), 138 – 143; reprinted in I. Lévi, Le Ravissement du Messie à sa Naissance et autres essais, ed. E. Patlagean (Paris, Louvain, 1994), 143 – 172. One should be grateful to Evelyne Patlagean for having made Lévi’s important studies readily accessible. 56   Other connections with Passover in Jubilees: the completion of Noah’s ark, Abraham’s offering in Sichem, Jacob’s dream in Beth El. 57   For Isaac’s sacrifice and Yom Kippur, see D. Stökl Ben Ezra, Yom Kippur in Early Christianity (WUNT; Tübingen, 2003). The continued centrality of the Akedah among Jews throughout late antiquity is reflected in the various synagogue mosaics describing it, such as those in Beth Alpha and Sepphoris. See for instance J. Yahalom, »The Sepphoris synagogue mosaic and its story,« in L. I. Levine and Z. Weiss, eds., From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity (Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series, 40; Portsmouth, RI, 2000), 83 – 91. 58   H. J. Schoeps, »The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul’s Theology,« Journal of Biblical Literature  65 (1946), 385 – 392; G. Vermes, »Redemption and Genesis XXII,« reprinted in his Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Studia Post-Biblica 4; Leiden, 1973; second ed.), 193 – 227. See further R. A. Rosenberg, »Jesus, Isaac, and the ›Suffering Servant‹,« Journal of Biblical Literature 34 (1965), 381 – 388. For a seminal study of the motif of the Akedah in rabbinic Judaism, see S. Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice

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eps and Vermes insisted on the significance of the Akedah for some of the earliest Christian texts and doctrines, such as Paul’s epistles (Schoeps) or the formulation of the Eucharist (Vermes). In the conclusion of his study, Lévi argued that Paul combined the Akedah and Isaiah 53 in his conception of Christ’s redemptory death: »Once Paul had accepted the principle of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the transposition was obvious, God took the place of Abraham, and Jesus that of Isaac. At the same time, the redeeming virtue of Isaac’s sacrifice was transferred to the death of the crucified one.«59 It is the almost undisputed consensus that the Targums represent major testimo‑ nies of Jewish conceptions in the latter part of the Second Temple period. (On the other hand, the Targums remained living literature for more than a millennium, and it stands to reason to assume later accretions from the rabbinic period.) The four versions of the Palestinian Targum essentially agree in their interpretation of the Akedah.60 The connection they see between the Akedah and Passover is clear: Isaac is considered to be a sacrificial victim – who may even have been actually sacri‑ ficed – and Abraham prays that his own obedience and Isaac’s consent be remem‑ bered. Other early sources corroborate these conclusions. Thus, the lengthy and somewhat romantic passage on the Akedah in Josephus’s Antiquities contains most of the essential features of the targumic tradition.61 The early date and the importance of the redemptive conception of Isaac’s sac‑ rifice are quite striking. Moreover, this sacrifice is sometimes perceived – in direct (New York, 1979); A. Agus, The Binding of Isaac and Messiah: Law, Martyrdom, and Deliverance in Early Rabbinic Religiosity (Albany, New York, 1988); and J. D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, London, 1993), esp. chapters 14 – 15. See further the articles in F. Manns, ed., The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions (Analecta, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum; Jerusalem, 1995). 59   Lévi, »Le sacrifice d’Isaac et la mort de Jésus,« 163 – 164: »Une fois admis par Paul le principe de la filiation divine de Jésus, la transposition allait de soi, Dieu prenait la place d’Abraham, et Jésus celle d’Isaac; en même temps, la vertu rédemptrice du sacrifice d’Isaac passait à la mort du crucifié.« 60   On the importance of the Targums, see R. Hayward, »The Present State of Research into the Targumic Account of the Sacrifice of Isaac,« Journal of Jewish Studies  32 (1981), 127 – 150; R. Le Déaut, La nuit pascale: Essai sur la signification de la Pâque juive à partir du Targum d’Exode XII.42 (Analecta Biblica 22; Rome, 1963). 61   I.222 – 236. The Liber Antiquarum Biblicarum, or Pseudo-Philo (a text written in Hebrew before the end of the first century c.e.), mentions Isaac’s blood (18:5), a tradition echoed in the Targum on I Chronicles 21:15. See further Athanasius, Hom. Pasch. VI.8, referring to the Jewish doctrine accord‑ ing to which Isaac had voluntarily offered his life for his people (cf. Daniélou, Sacramentum Futuri, 100). For a summary of research, see Daly, Christian Sacrifice, 175 – 186. The best study is S. Spiegel, The Last Trial (New York, 1967; Hebrew ed. 1950), see esp. 38 – 44 on Isaac’s ashes in later Hebrew traditions. For the Akedah at Qumran and in other early Jewish texts, see M. Bernstein, »Angels at the Aquedah,« DDS 7 (2000), 263 – 291; and J. C. vanderKam, »The Aqedah, Jubilees, and PseudoJubilees,« in C. A. Evans and S. Talmon, eds., The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (BIS 28; Leiden, 1997). See further J. A. Fitzmyer, »The Sacrifice of Isaac in Qumran Literature,« Biblica 83 (2002), 211 – 229; and F. Garcia-Martinez, »The Sacrifice of Isaac in 4 Q 225,« in E. Noort and E. Tigchelaar, eds., The Sacrifice of Isaac: The Aqedah and Its Interpretation (Themes in Biblical Narrative, Jewish and Christian Traditions, 4; Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2002).

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contradiction to the biblical text! – as Isaac’s voluntary self-immolation, and as hav‑ ing actually occurred. This material has, I believe, dramatic consequences for the sacrificial theology expressed in various texts of the New Testament. The fact that this theology can only be properly and fully understood within the context of the Akedah has already been pointed out many times since Lévi published his article. It appears now in even stronger light. The Akedah was indeed so obviously present in the minds of Jews in the first century c.e. that the story of Jesus’s redemptive sacrifice must be seen directly in its light. There is no doubt that Lévi’s conclusion regarding Paul should be both sharpened and applied to other New Testament texts, beyond the Epistle to the Hebrews. To give just one (but central) example: »the Lamb of God who takes away the sin from the world« (John 1:29) seems to be directly related to both the Paschal lamb and Isaac, whose sacrifice, according to Jewish tradition, also happened at Passover.62 There were, then, two possible Jewish interpretations of the Akedah, one (follow‑ ing the biblical text) according to which Isaac had been bound, but not killed, and the other according to which he had actually been immolated. Scholars, however, all seem to accept as a premise that the earliest conception of the Passion of Jesus had been predicated upon his death – and resurrection. If, as it seems, the first Christians were keenly aware of Isaac as a typos of Christ, there existed also, prima facie, another possibility for essentially exegetic minds: namely, that Jesus, just like Isaac, had not really died on the cross, but had been saved in extremis by his Father, and replaced by a substitute sacrifice, just as Abraham had replaced his own son by a substitute sacri‑ fice. While this suggestion, which strikes me as logically plausible, cannot be proven, it should be accepted at least as a working hypothesis. The obvious implication of this hypothesis is the existence of a docetic interpretation of Christ’s Passion at the very origins of the new faith. I shall presently seek to strengthen my case with some circumstantial evidence from Philo of Alexandria.

IV. When dealing with the traditions on the meaning of the name »Isaac« as laughter or joy, as reflected in Clement and Origen, I postulated that these were Jewish Alexan‑ drian traditions. Indeed, Jewish Hellenistic literature, or its remains, has kept for us various references to Isaac. Fragments of both Demetrius the Chronographer, in the third century bce and Philo the Epic Poet, at the turn of the second century, reflect an interest in the figure of Isaac.63 62   See R. Le Déaut, La nuit pascale, 201 – 210. See further J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to a.d. 70 (London Oriental Studies 12; London, 1963), 241 – 246, on the secondary identification of the Last Supper with the Pesach meal. 63   See J. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, New Jersey, 1985), II, 848 and 781, respectively. See also II Maccabees 16:11, 20 (a work of the first century c.e.).

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Such traces, however, remain quite scarce. By far the most obvious and significant source for the passing of Jewish Hellenistic traditions to the early Christian authors is of course Philo. Let us then review some of Philo’s perceptions of Isaac, which might prove highly relevant to our present task. Sadly, the figure of Isaac in Philo does not seem to have attracted much attention. This is perhaps due to the puzzling fact that Philo’s treatise On Isaac has not survived, just like the passages of his Questions in Genesis dealing with Gen 22, the chapter relating the Akedah. Gleaning Phi‑ lo’s works, however, brings some remarkable contributions to our theme. For Philo, Isaac, who is presented as carrying the wood to his own sacrifice, was not actually slain.64 (To be sure, the fact that Philo moves freely between the literal and »historical« registers demands an extra caution on our part.) Philo knows that the name »Isaac« means laughter – in Chaldean, he tells us. He comes back to this meaning of the name on various occasions, in different contexts.65 Isaac means not only »laughter,« but also »happiness.«66 For him, indeed, Isaac’s name is connected to the fact that »laughter is the outward and bodily sign of the unseen joy in the mind, and joy is in fact the best and noblest of the higher emotions.«67 As such, he is »the only example of freedom from passion beneath the sun,« higher than Abraham and Jacob, and purely spiritual – asōmatos.68 Such references are enough to point to the origin of Clement’s and Origen’s ety‑ mologies of Isaac’s name. But for Philo, Isaac, alias Laughter, is happiness personi‑ fied, or joy, i. e., laughter in bonam partem, the good emotion of understanding, and reflects the nature of the incorporeal God, who has no passion, and is perfect happi‑ ness and bliss.69 More explicitly, even: Laughter is the outward and bodily sign of the unseen joy in the mind, and joy is in fact the best and noblest of the higher emotions. By it the soul is filled though and through with cheer‑ fulness, rejoicing in the Father and Maker of all.70

Philo goes further: For God is the Creator of laughter that is good, and of joy, so that we must hold Isaac to be not a product of created beings, but a work of the Uncreated One (ergon de tou agenētou). For if »Isaac« means »laughter,« and according to Sarah’s unerring witness God is the maker of laughter, God may with perfect truth be said to be Isaac’s father.71 64  Philo, Abr. 171, 177 (LCL VI, 86 – 87, 88 – 89; all further references to Philo are from the Loeb Classical Library edition). 65  Philo, Abr. 201 – 202 (LCL V, 201 – 202); Mut. 137, 157 (V, 212 – 213; 222 – 223). Leg. All. I.82 (I, 200 – 201), III.83 (I, 358 – 359); Quod Det. 124 (II, 284 – 285). See further the highly interesting appendix in A. Jaubert, La notion d’alliance dans le Judaïsme aux abords de l’ère chrétienne (Paris, 1963), »Note complémentaire sur le symbolisme d’Isaac,« 491 – 494. 66  Philo, Leg. All. III.83 (LCL I, 328 – 329), III.218 (I, 448 – 451); Cher. 8 (VI, 12 – 13) 67  Philo, Praem. 31 (LCL VIII, 330 – 331). 68  Philo, Quod det. 46 (LCL II, 232 – 233); Leg. All. II.59 (I, 260 – 261). 69  Philo, Abr. 201 – 204 (LCL VI, 98 – 101). 70  Philo, Praem. 31 (LCL VIII, 330 – 331). 71  Philo, Quod det., 124 (LCL II, 284 – 285); Mut. Nom. 131 (V, 208 – 211).

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Philo comes back elsewhere to this striking teaching: that God, not Abraham, is Isaac’s father, showing full awareness of his audacity: he opens his interpretation of Gen. 21:6 (»The Lord hath made laughter for me . . .«) by stating: This is a »holiest teaching,« to be heard only by initiates (ō mustai!). »The »laughter« is joy, and »made« is equivalent to »beget,« so that what is said is of this kind, the Lord begat Isaac; for He is Himself Father of the perfect nature, sowing and begetting happiness in men’s souls.72

The idea that God, rather than Abraham, is Isaac’s real father, according to Philo’s esoteric teaching, is surprising enough. But this is not all. In his treatise On the Cherubim, Philo has a long paragraph introduced with a reference to a »divine mystery« reserved to »the initiated who are worthy to receive the holiest secret.«73 Philo uses here, obviously, the language of the Greek mysteries, which he often does as a façon de parler, in allegorical fashion, as it were. In any case, this language, which should not, perhaps, be taken at face value, does reflect the seriousness of his intent. The gist of this »holiest secret« is the following: while men and women hold intercourse in order to beget children, God sows virtues. »When He begins to consort with a soul, He makes what before was a woman into a virgin again.« The first and best example of a woman who became a virgin again, in order to conceive from God, is Sarah, before she conceived Isaac, God’s Son.74 The idea of Sarah’s virginal conception of Isaac is certainly not a slip of Philo’s pen, as it were. Philo’s introduction clearly shows that he is quite aware that he is going to present a higher, esoteric interpretation of Moses’ work. Moreover, the same teaching appears at least one more time in Philo’s works.75 The perception of Isaac as Son of God and born of a virgin, by a contemporary coreligionist of Paul, brings us to reconsider the idea of Isaac as typos of Jesus. The conclusion seems to impose itself that there existed, in first-century Judaism, or at least in certain trends within Hellenistic Judaism, a conception of Isaac, alias Laugh‑ ter, as Son of God, born of a virgin.76 If Isaac had been offered in sacrifice by his 72  Philo, Leg. All. III.219 (LCL I, 450 – 451): Ho gelōs estin hē khara, to de epoiēsen ison tōi egennēsen, hōst’ einai to legomenon toiouton: Isaak de gennēsen ho kyrios, autos gar patēr esti tēs teleias physeōs, speirōn en tais psychais kai gennōn to eudainonein. 73  Philo, Cher. 42 (LCL II, 34 – 35). 74  Philo, Cher. 42 – 51 (II, 32 – 29). 75  Philo, Post. 134 (II, 404 – 405). In his beautiful study of the avatars of the Great Mother in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern religions, Philippe Borgeaud has devoted a few pages to the early figure of the Virgin, but does not deal with contemporary parallels to the early Christian figure. See P. Borgeaud, La Mère des dieux: de Cybèle à la Vierge Marie (Paris, 1996), esp. 175 – 177. Incidentally, this conception of Sarah’s (renewed) virginity bears upon that of the virgin birth of Christ. Scholarly consensus views this conception as stemming from a mistranslation of ‘almah in LXX Isaiah. Philo’s discussion would seem to absolve the Christians from their supposed misreading and make the virgin birth an aboriginal part of their tradition, as it were. 76   For Jewish pre-Christian conceptions of the Messiah as Son of God, see I. Knohl, The Messiah before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2000), 87 – 89. See idem, 25, where Knohl states that a combination of divine status and suffering is unknown before the Qumran hymns, where a messianic interpretation of the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is offered for the first time.

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Heavenly Father for the redemption of his people, and had escaped death, all the elements needed for the emergence of a docetic theology of Jesus, having escaped suffering on the cross, were present at the very origins of Christianity. These elements might well have been known to some of the first Christians, toward the end of the first century, who could hardly have avoided thinking of Isaac and his Akedah when reflecting on the crucifixion of Jesus. For the first believers that Jesus had sacrificed himself willingly for the sins of Israel, his figure could not but evoke instantly that of Isaac. The acceptance of Jesus’s death, and its transformation into the cornerstone of Christian theology, was the invention of Paul’s religious genius. But it was not the only possible interpretation readily available. Philo’s De Isaaco seems to have been lost quite early, as Ambrose of Milan, in his own work on Isaac, comments mainly on Song of Songs.77 Had he had a copy of Philo’s work at his disposal, he would no doubt have followed it, as he did in other occasions.78 We do not know why the De Isaaco disappeared. A long time ago, Erwin Goodenough speculated upon the reasons for the lack of preservation of Phi‑ lo’s De Isaaco and of the passages on Gen. 22 in his Questions in Genesis. Unfortu‑ nately, the fact that he remained unable to substantiate his speculation on any real independent evidence prevents us from building upon it. Goodenough argued that the disappearance of the Philonic texts on Isaac might not simply have been due to the vagaries of ancient manuscripts in late antiquity. Goodenough claimed that that these texts might have disappeared on purpose, as Christian scribes found what Philo said about Isaac to be unacceptably close to what was said about Jesus Christ in the Christian tradition.79 If my analysis is convincing, Christ’s laughter as it appears in some docetic tra‑ ditions reflects the fact that very early on – in the first century – some (Jewish) believers in Jesus and in his redemptive role considered him to be, as it were, Isaac redivivus. In a second stage, when the docetic attitude became more or less identified with gnostic dualism and antinomianism, Christ’s laughter received a new turn, as it came to reflect his sarcasm at the failed efforts of the forces of evil to kill him. To be 77  Ambrose, De Isaac vel anima, ed. C. Schenkl (CSEL 32, 1; Vienna, 1896), 640 – 700. In this text, Ambrose refers to Plotinus; see J. Rist, »Plotinus and Christian Philosophy,« in L. P. Gerson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge, 1996), 403 and 413, n. 47. 78   See Daniélou, »Typologie,« 389, n. 2. 79   See E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven, 1935), 153 – 179, esp. 153 – 157 and n. 15. Cf. H.‑C. Puech’s review in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 116 (1937), 95 – 99. Puech also refers to Philo’s conception of the triune God; see for instance Qaest. Gen. IV.8 (on Gen. 18:6) and De Sacr. Abelis et Caini 60. If one also adds to these Philonian views his conception of the Logos as Son of God, or His »firstborn« (Agric. 51 and Som. I.215; cf. Fug. 109 and Conf. Ling. 63.146), one cannot but be impressed by the fact that so many elements usually consid‑ ered to be specifically Christian are present in his works. See further Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, IV (Bollingen Series 37; New York, 1954), 172 – 185, and op. cit., XII (New York, 1965), 90, where Goodenough argues that the analogy Isaac-Christ would be »still more piquant« if Christians had not, apparently quite purposely, destroyed Philo’s Life of Isaac and all the sections of his writings which would have commented upon the Akedah at length.

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sure, there are different kinds of laughter of Christ. It would be the goal of another study to attempt a taxonomy of these cases of laughter, also in other traditions, such as some Arabic Sufi texts describing the laughing Issa (Jesus) in bonam partem, in opposition to the stern figure of Yaḥya, John the Baptist.80 Obviously, I do not claim in any way that such a view of things is exclusive of other directions in the search for the origins of »Docetism.« Neither do I claim that the identification of the historical origins of a phenomenon is enough to understand its character, later evolution and nature. There is certainly a possibility of conflation or meeting between two different interpretive directions. What I do claim is that in some way the figure of Isaac was central in this regard. For first-century Jews, the fig‑ ure of Isaac, in relation to both his sacrifice (whether accomplished or not) and his miraculous birth, had reached a very high stature. In contradistinction to Greeks, for instance, Jews were living not only with their myths, but in them. Their myths had a historical significance, and history was Heilsgeschichte. The constant re-presentation of the Biblical myths in Jewish cult and liturgy reflected (and still reflects) what is usually called »the exegetical mind.« Such a phrase is of course correct, but remains perhaps rather pale, and does not express clearly enough the constant mythopoeic power of this obsession to insert the present, literally, into the cast of the past.81 When we speak of the Jewish origins of Christianity, we usually mean that many of the stones of the new religious monument built by Paul and the first generations of Christian thinkers and writers were Jewish stones. Traditions such as those retained by Philo, about Isaac born of God and a virgin, are cause for some dizziness: for it would mean that not only early Christianity’s stones, but much of the building itself was a Jewish creation.

80

  I owe this reference to my colleague Sara Sviri.   The mythopoeic power of the Akedah is still alive, as the recently stolen war memorial in the Sheffield Cathedral testifies: it represents Abraham embracing Isaac, and surrounded by explicitly Christian memorials. 81

8. The Greek and Jewish Origins of Docetism I. While Docetism is well-known as one of the major early Christian »heresies,« its origins remain very much in the dark. Remarkably little has been written about these origins, on which there is no scholarly consensus. While some search in the direction of Hellenic thought, others look for the roots of the phenomenon on Judaic soil.1 Many of the doctrines usually identified (rather vaguely) as »gnostic« also reflect a docetic attitude.2 Docetism, however, is by no means identical to Gnosticism. In modern scholarly parlance, »Docetism« does not refer to any clearly definable sect, but rather to an attitude, shared by various individuals and movements at the origins of Christianity. Despite the dearth of evidence, one cannot speak of a single, identifiable sect of Docetists. A fortiori, it is impossible to refer to one precise body of docetic beliefs. A similar caution as that recently recommended by Michael Wil‑ liams about seeing »Gnosticism« as a stable, historically and theologically well-de‑ fined movement should be used with the construct of »Docetism.«3 In other words, »Docetism« no more than »Gnosticism« represents a fixed set of doctrines. Rather, it reflects a theological option revealed in a wide variety of early Christian texts. It seems, then, that one is dealing with a series of groups holding similar beliefs and exhibiting between them what Wittgenstein called »family resemblances.« These groups flourished mainly in the second and third centuries. »Docetic« doctrines probably date from the first Christian century, as it is against such doctrines that the author of I and II John, for instance, seems to argue.4 The abstract noun dokēsis, however, is only found in Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis.5 According to Clement, Docetism is related to those who claim that birth is evil, and 1   This essay is co-authored by Ronnie Goldstein. Its introductory paragraphs follow closely several points made in chapter 7, above. See, too: N. Brox, »›Doketismus‹  – eine Probleman‑ zeige,« ZKG 95 (1984), 301 – 314; and J. G. Davies, »The Origins of Docetism,« Studia Patristica VI (TUGAL 81; Berlin, 1962), 13 – 35. 2   See for instance K. W. Troeger, »Doketistische Christologie in Nag-Hammadi-Texten: Ein Bei­ trag zum Doketismus in frühchristlicher Zeit,« Kairos 19 (1977), 45 – 52. 3   See M. A. Williams, Rethinking »Gnosticism«: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, 1996). Williams makes a convincing case for questioning the heuristic value of the concept of Gnosticism. 4   See for instance G. Strecker, Commentary on the Johannine Letters (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1995), 69 – 77. See especially II John 1:7. 5  Clement, Strom. III.17.102.

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is therefore upheld by Julius Cassianus, the father of Encratism, as well as by Marcion and Valentinus, for whom Christ’s body was »psychic.« The developed character of Valentinus’s doctrines, and in particular his complex conception of Christ, is proba‑ bly responsible for the commonly held view that Docetism owes its rejection of the physical body to the influence of the Platonic negation of matter. Around 190 c.e., Serapion of Antioch, a contemporary of Clement, identifies with the term dokētai a particular group, who transmitted the Gospel of Peter.6 According to Irenaeus, moreover, Cerinthus taught that Christ descended upon Jesus at the time of baptism and went back to heaven after the crucifixion,7 while Marcion thought that Christ ascended to the Pleroma before suffering, and had passed through the body of his mother »as water through a tube.«8 Irenaeus further tells us that Mar‑ cion and others held that Jesus »was a man merely in appearance.«9 It should be noted that Irenaeus never refers to the holders of such views as »Docetists« (dokētai), a term available to Serapion and Clement only a few years later. In the early third century, moreover, in the Refutation of All Heresies, attributed to Hippolytus, a whole chapter is devoted to the refutation of the doctrines of heretics who call themselves hoi dokētai.10 Seeking to offer a taxonomy of three different kinds of docetic attitudes, Georg Strecker has proposed to distinguish between three different claims: the one accord‑ ing to which Simon of Cyrene was the substitute of Jesus on the cross (a claim made by Basilides, at least according to Irenaeus),11 the one affirming that Christ left Jesus just before his death on the cross (according to Cerinthus, and the Gospel of Peter),12 and, finally, the claim that Jesus Christ was indeed crucified, but did not suffer, and remained impassibilis, as his nature is pneumatic (the claim of the Docetists fought by Ignatius).13 In all probability, the original core of Docetism did not lie in its Platonic elements, which became apparent only at later stages, but in the rejection of Jesus’ passion on

 6   In his letter to the people of Rhossos; see Eusebius, H. E. VI.12.6 (LCL II, 42 – 43): hous Dokētas kaloumen.  7  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses II.24.4.  8  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses III.11.3: quasi aquam per tubam; kathaper hydor dia solenos; Contre les hérésies, ed. with trans. by A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau (SC 211; Paris, 1974), 146 – 147. Cf. III.16.1 and III.22.1 – 2.  9  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses IV.33.2.5: pareret quasi homo; phainomenos hos anthrōpos. See also Adversus Haereses V.1.2. 10  Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium VIII.6 – 11, ed. M. Marcovich (Patristische Texte und Studien 25; Berlin, New York, 1986), 323 – 330. 11   See note 36, below. 12   See J. W. McCant, »The Gospel of Peter: Docetism Reconsidered,« NTS 30 (1984), 258 – 273. McCant’s conclusion that the Akhmim fragment »should not be considered docetic« reflects a rather limited and rigid conception of Docetism. On the text, see W. Schneemelcher, The New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Cambridge 1991), I, 216 – 227. 13  Strecker, Commentary on the Johannine Letters, 72.

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the cross, »stumbling block (skandalon) to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,« to use Paul’s terms (I Cor. 1:24). This rejection must have come first, and only then were the docetic attitudes broadened, as it were, to include incarnation, the idea of Christ having possessed a body of flesh. It is only at a later stage, finally, that Docetism may have influenced early Christian conceptions of martyrdom.14 The following pages will seek to shed new light on the origins of Docetism, through a fresh look at Greek ways of dealing with mythological figures.

II. The Greek word eidōlon is polysemic. While it often means the phantom of a dead person, it can also refer to the ethereal »double« of a living figure.15 Classical Greek literature offers various examples of such an eidōlon of mythical figures. In the Iliad, for instance, Apollo seeks to protect Aeneas from a dangerous battle by taking him away from the fighting to his temple in Pergamon. Then the text reads: But he of the silver bow, Apollo, fashioned an image (eidōlon) in the likeness of Aineias himself and in armour like him, and all about this image brilliant Achaians and Trojans hewed at each other, and at the ox-hide shields strong circled . . .16

In the Nekyia, Ulysses is presented as seeing Herakles in Hades. It is actually Herak‑ les’ eidōlon who stands in front of him, as Herakles himself is dining with the immor‑ tal gods on Mount Olympus (Odyssey XI.601 – 604). Similarly, we can find the eidōlon of a leading figure in a fragment of Hesiod’s Catalogue: Iphimede the well-greaved Achaians slaughtered on the altar of famed [Artemis of the golden arrows] on that day [when they sailed in their ships] to Ilion [to exact] a penalty for the [slim-ankled] Argive woman, an eidōlon, that is. For [Iphimede herself the huntress] showerer of arrows easily saved, and poured down upon her head [lovely ambrosia, so that her flesh might be unchanging], and she made her immortal and ageless all her days. And now the races of men upon the earth call her Artemis of the wayside, [the attendant of the famous] showerer of arrows.17

14   Pace R. Grant, »Gnostic Origins and the Basilidians of Irenaeus,« Vigiliae Christianae  13 (1959), 121 – 125. 15  See Der Neue Pauly, vol. 3, col. 911a. On the question of the ›double‹ in Greek thought, see J.‑P. Vernant, »Figuration de l’invisible et catégorie psychologique du double: le colossos,« in his Mythe et pensée chez les grecs, II (Paris, 1974), 65 – 78. 16  Homer, Iliad V.449 – 452, trans. R. Lattimore (Chicago, London, 1951), 140. 17   R. Merkelbach and M. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford, 1967), frag. 24a, l. 21 ff. Translation according to T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore, London, 1996), 582 – 583. For another transla‑ tion, see N. Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom (Ithaca, London, 1994), 107 – 108. On this tradition see: M. L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure and Origins (Oxford, 1985), 133 – 135; Austin, op. cit., 106 – 110; Gantz, op. cit., 582 – 584.

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According to this passage, which deals with Iphigenia’s sacrifice in Aulis, it is not Iphigenia (alias Iphimede) who is being sacrificed to the gods, but rather her »dou‑ ble,« or eidōlon.18 Iphimede herself remains well protected, becoming a goddess. In his second Pythian Ode, Pindar tells of Ixion’s forbidden love for Hera, which ends in his rape of the goddess. But, adds Pindar, this rape did not really happen, since it was a cloud, rather than the goddess, that Ixion raped: . . . once in the great depths of her chambers he made an attempt on Zeus’ wife. One must always measure everything by one’s own station. Aberrant acts of love cast one into the thick Of trouble; they came upon him too, because he Lay with a cloud (epei nephelai parelexato), An ignorant man in pursuit of a sweet lie, For it resembled in looks the foremost heavenly goddess, Kronos’ daughter. Zeus’s wiles set it As a snare for him, a beautiful affliction.19

A parallel to this story appears in a reference to a lost poem of Hesiod, where the cloud (nephelē), is explicitly identified with Hera’s eidōlon.20 According to tradition, the poet Stesichorus (fl. late 7th – early 6th. cent.), as we know from Plato’s Phaedrus, lost his eyesight since he had slandered Helen in a poem, accusing her of lewd behavior. He then repented and wrote a second, revised version of his poem (Palinode) according to which Helen did not really go to Troy: . . . and for those who have sinned in matters of mythology there is an ancient purification, unknown to Homer, but known to Stesichorus. For when he was stricken with blindness for speaking ill of Helen, he was not, like Homer, ignorant of the reason, but since he was edu‑ cated, he knew it and straightway he writes the poem: »That saying is not true; thou didst not go within the well-oared ships, nor didst thou come to the walls of Troy . . .« And when he had written all the poem, which is called the recantation (palinōdia), he saw again at once.21

To a great extent we are left in the dark regarding the contents of the lost Palinode.22 We do know from Plato, however, that it is not Helen herself, but her eidōlon, who went to Troy:

18

  Although the text is very fragmentary and much of this translation represents a reconstruc‑ tion of the original text, the appearance of a double (eidōlon) of Iphimene is not in doubt. 19  Pindar, Pythian Ode 2, l. 32 – 40; trans. W. H. Race (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., London, 1997), 235. 20   Schol. Ap. Rhod. D 58; fragment 260 in Fragmenta Hesiodea (ed. Merkelbach and West). See further West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 135, n. 25. 21  Plato, Phaedrus, 243 A – B, trans. N. H. Fowler (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., London, 1953), 460 –  463. 22   See for instance J. A. Davison, »Stesichorus and Helen,« in his From Archilochus to Pindar (London, Melbourne, Toronto, 1968), 196 – 225.

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. . .  as Stesichorus says the wraith of Helen (to  tēs helenēs eidōlon) was fought for at Troy through ignorance of the truth.23

Stesichorus’ new version of the story seems to have earned early fame, and it appears in full-fledged form in Euripides’ play entitled Helen.24 The play opens with a mono‑ logue of the real Helen, in Egypt. The heroin describes the circumstances that brought her there. When Paris came to Sparta to pick her up as his prize, . . . Hera, annoyed that she did not defeat the other goddesses, made Alexandros’ union with me as vain as the wind: she gave to king Priam’s son not me but a breathing image (eidolon) she fashioned from the heavens to resemble me. He imagines – vain imagination, that he has me, though he does not (kai dokei m’echein, kenēn dokēsin, ouk echōn) . . . And for the fight against the Trojans, I was put forward for the Greeks as a prize of war – though it was not me but only my name (ego men ou, to d’onoma toumon). So Hermes took me up within the recesses of the sky, hiding me in a cloud (for Zeus had not forgotten me), and put me down at this house of Proteus, whom he judged the most virtu‑ ous man on earth, so that I might keep my bed unsullied for Menelaus.25

As has recently been shown by a number of scholars, the eidōlon functions as a tech‑ nical literary device in Greek literature, playing a role in the revision of myths.26 In particular, the use of the device appears quite clearly in Stesichorus’ Palinode. According to Plato, it was in order to solve a theological problem that Stesichorus had told the story of Helen’s eidōlon having gone to Troy with Paris. Had the real Helen accompanied Paris, her behavior would have been unfit for a goddess. Stesi‑ chorus’ solution, indeed, seems to have come from a desire to protect the virtue of the divinized Helen in places where she was already the object of a cult.27

23  Plato, Republic IX 586C. Cf. uses of eidōlon in 587 CD. Greek with trans. by P. Shorey (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., London, 1935), 392 – 393. 24   For a full discussion of the relationship between Euripides’ Helen and Stesichorus’ Pali­node, see R. Kannicht, ed. and comm., Euripides Helena (Heidelberg, 1969), I, 26 – 41. On the sources reflecting the version about Helen’s eidōlon and the development of this tradition see: Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 574 – 575; and Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom. For an Indian parallel, see W. Doniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (Chicago, Lon‑ don, 1999), 8 – 87. See further P. Jackson, The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle (Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, 23; Munich, 2006). 25  Euripides, Helen, text with trans. by D. Kovacs (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., London, 2002), ll. 31 – 48 (pp. 14 – 17). Later in the play (ll. 72 – 77), Teucer (a Greek warrior), who had thought in Troy he was seeing Helen while he was only seeing her eidōlon, when eventually meeting (the real) Helen in Egypt, does not believe his eyes. He calls her a deadly image (phonion) and a double (mimēm’) of what he thinks is the real Helen. 26   See especially the full-fledged study of Norman Austin, where he analyses the plot of Euripi­ des’ play and its literary roots, cited above; M. Griffith, »Contest and Contradiction in Early Greek Poetry«, in Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer (Atlanta, Georgia, 1990), 197 – 199; D. Lyons, Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult (Princeton, 1997), 134 – 162. 27   G. Nagy, Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore, London, 1996), 420, and Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom, 113.

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The eidōlon is used by Stesichorus (and Euripides in his footsteps) as a device which permits him to emend the traditional version of the myth. A similar strategy seems to stand behind the other literary constructions referred to above. In Hesiod’s dealing with Iphigenia and Hera, the eidōlon transforms the myth, and thus avoids attributing to the goddess an unfit behavior.28 As to Homer, it seems that the use of the eidōlon of both Aeneas and Herakles reflects later interpolations, made on the basis of either Stesichorus or Hesiod, and offering a solution to deep-seated prob‑ lems in myth interpretation. In the words of Martin West (relating only to Aeneas), »the idea of the Greeks and Trojans fighting about a phantom is particularly close to Stesichorus’ story of the phantom Helen, and the likelihood is that Il.  5.449 – 53 (or perhaps 447 – 53) is a post-Stesichorean interpolation.«29 In the case of Herakles, the use of eidōlon is an attempt to combine two traditions, one which made Herakles a mortal hero and the other a man who had become god. Already in antiquity, since Aristarchus, the passage had been recognized as a later interpolation.30 Plotinus’ reference to the Homeric passage shows that he, too, was aware of its hermeneutical nature: The poet seems to be separating the image with regard to Heracles when he says that his eidōlon is in Hades, but he himself among the gods. He was bound to keep to both stories, that he is in Hades and that he dwells among the gods, so he divided him.31

If we are not mistaken, then, the eidōlon is systematically used in Greek literature to solve theological problems related to myth and its interpretation. This simple device of the hero’s double solves the problem of an unworthy behavior on the part of the (usually divine) hero, or of his (or  her) intolerable fate, without suppressing the mythical story altogether.32 Through the use of the device, the known version of the myth becomes erroneous, and it is the new one that is perceived as true reflection of reality. This understanding of the two versions of the myth is reflected by Plato, who juxtaposes Homer’s blind‑ ness to Stesichorus having regained his eyesight after writing his Palinode. 28   F. Solmsen, »The Sacrifice of Agamemnon’s Daughter in Hesiod’s Ehoeae,« American Journal of Philology 102 (1981), 353 – 358, argues that the eidōlon passage in the Hesiodic fragment on Iphi‑ mede is a later addition, intended to avoid Iphimede’s slaughter. Solmsen compares our passage to the passage on Herakles in the Nekyia, a clear interpolation (see below). See also Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 583 – 584, who takes the Hesiodic fragment on Iphimede’s eidōlon as an interpolation follow‑ ing Stesichorus’ pattern. 29  West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 135. See further, with small differences, Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom, 104 – 110. 30   See for instance Solmsen, »Hesiod’s Ehoeae,« 355. See also A. H. Armstrong’s note in his edi‑ tion of Plotinus, Enneads IV (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1984), 121, n. 2. 31  Plotinus, Enneads I.1.12, cf. IV.3.27. 32   On this and other devices in antiquity for interpretation of problems in existing versions see further: R. Goldstein, »The Double Account of Jeremiah’s Meeting with Zedeqiah and Ancient Techniques for Challenging the Existence of Rival Versions«, in: Shay – Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Language Presented to Sara Japhet, (ed. M. Bar-Asher, N. Wazana, E. Tov, D. Rom-Shiloni), Jerusalem 2007, 17 – 35 (in Hebrew).

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III. Let us turn our attention to some docetic traditions and texts reflecting striking sim‑ ilarities with the above-mentioned passages. The Treatise of the Great Seth is a particularly powerful text (extant in Coptic translation). It has been called one of the most interesting documents from Nag Hammadi relating to Docetism.33 The text describes how the archons are misled in thinking they have succeeded in crucifying the Savior: For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness. They nailed their man up to their death. For their minds did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they render judgment against themselves. As for me, on the one hand, they saw me; they punished me. Another, their father, was the one who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They were hitting me with the reed; another was the one who lifted up the cross on his shoulder, who was Simon. Another was the one on whom they put the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the riches of the archons and the offspring of their error and their conceit, and I was laughing at their ignorance.34

The same duality between Christ and the figure suffering on the cross appears in various other contexts. In the Apocalypse of Peter, another text from Nag Hammadi, we read: When he had said these things, I saw him [the Savior] apparently being seized by them. And I said, »What am I seeing, O Lord? Is it you yourself whom they take? And are you holding on to me? Who is this one above the cross, who is glad and laughing? And is it another person whose feet and hands they are hammering?« The Savior said to me. »He whom you see above the cross, glad and laughing, is the living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driv‑ ing the nails is his physical part, which is the substitute (shebiō).35

Other texts from Nag Hammadi reflect the same docetic perception of Jesus, who did not suffer on the cross. The Letter of Peter to Philip offers a similar vision of things: »My brothers, Jesus is a stranger to this suffering. But we are the ones who have suffered at the transgression of the mother.«36 The text entitled The Concept of Our Great Power describes how the ruler of the archons »found that the nature of his [the Savior’s] flesh could not be seized, in order to show it to the archons.«37 In the First Apocalypse of James, the Lord is quoted as saying: »James, do not be concerned for me or for this people. I am he who was within me. Never have I suffered in any way, nor have I been distressed. And this people has done me no harm.« Elsewhere 33   Tröger, »Doketistische Christologie in Nag-Hammadi-Texten,« 51. Tröger, however, does not offer a real analysis of this text, and only refers to the parallel about the suffering Simon and the laughing Christ in the views attributed to Basilides in Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses I.24.4. 34   Gr. Seth, NHC VII.2; 55:30 – 56:19. 35   Apoc. Peter, NHC VII.3; 81:3 – 21 (trans. J. Brashler, 241). 36   NHC VIII.2; 139:15 – 22, trans. by F. Wisse, in J. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco, 1977), 397. 37   NHC VI.4; 41:14 – 42:3 (ibid., 287).

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in the same text, the Lord says to James that he will reveal to the »authorities,« or archons, that »he cannot be seized.«38 To these texts, one should add various »gnostic« traditions retained by the patris‑ tic heresiographers, in particular the views of Basilides according to Irenaeus of Lyon. The question has been raised whether this last report really reflects Basilides’ doctrine, or rather the views of some of his followers, but this question does not affect its significance for our present task. [The Intellect, the First-Born of the Father] appeared (apparuisse) on earth as a man, and he performed deeds of power. Hence he did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear his cross for him, and it was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, having been transformed by Him, so that he was taken for Jesus (transfiguratum ab eo, ut putaretur ipse esse Iesus); while Jesus, for his part, assumed the form (accepisse formam) of Simon and stood by, laughing at them.39

Another significant testimony is provided by Pseudo-Tertullian, Adversus Omnes Haereses, a text extant in Latin, but which may have been originally written in Greek and may have relied on a version of Hippolytus’ lost Syntagma. Referring respectively to Simon Magus and Saturninus, the text insists on the phantasmal semblance of the suffering figure of Christ (apud Iudaeos se in phantasmate dei non passum, sed esse quasi passum; Christum in substantia corporis non fuisse, et phantasmate tantum quasi passum fuisse). Dealing with Basilides, he offers the following development: Christ, moreover, he affirms to have been sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abrasax; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh (venisse in phantasmate, sine substanta carnis fuisse): that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon was crucified in His stead (non passum apud Iudaeos non esse, sed vice ipsius Simonem crucifixum esse): whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon.40

Finally, the Acts of John preserve a famous description of Christ’s docetic nature, quite similar to the »gnostic« traditions quoted above. As noted by the editors of this text, Eric Junod and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, the dissociation reflected in the Acts of John between the Savior and the man on the cross fits quite well Eastern Valentinian Christology.41 »So then I have suffered none of those things which they will say of me . . . You hear that I suf‑ fered, yet I suffered not . . . and that I was pierced, yet I was not lashed, that I was hanged, yet 38

  NHC V.3; 31:15 – 22 and 30:1 – 4 (trans. W. R. Schoedel, ibid., 243).  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I.24.4. I am quoting the translation of B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, New York, 1987), 242. For further references to the theme of laughter in gnostic sources and traditions, see n. 26 in chapter 7, above. 40   See E. Kroyman, ed., ›Tertulliani‹ Libellus Adversus Omnes Haereses (CSEL 42; Vienna, 1906), 213 – 226. Translated by S. Thelwall in Ante-Nicene Fathers III. 41   E. Junod and J.‑D. Kaestli, eds., Acta Iohannis (Corpus Christianorum Series Apocrypho‑ rum 2; Turnhout, 1983), 601. 39

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I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, yet it did not flow . . .« When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going down I laughed at them all when they told me what they had said about him . . .42

The duplication of the figure of Jesus Christ allows him not to suffer the painful and humiliating fate which a literal reading of the text grants him. A similar duplication is used by some gnostic texts to protect the divine figure of Eve from being raped by the evil archons. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, the heavenly Eve is described in the following manner: Then the archons came up to their Adam. And when they saw his female counterpart speak‑ ing with him, they became agitated with great agitation; and they became enamored of her. They said to one another, »Come, let us sow our seed in her.« And they pursued her. And she laughed at [the archons], for their folly and their blindness; and in their clutches, she became a tree, and left before them a shadow of herself resembling herself.

It is this shadow, of course, that they catch and defile.43 Another text from Nag Hammadi offers a similar description of the divine true, spiritual Eve: Then [the »Life« (Zoe)] Eve, since she existed as power, laughed at their intention [i. e., the desire of the evil archons to rape her]. She darkened her eyes and left her likeness there stealth‑ ily beside Adam. She entered the tree of knowledge and remained there. They (the archons) were troubled, thinking that this was the true Eve. And they acted recklessly, and came to her and seized her and cast their seed upon her.44

Traditions similar to those concerning Eve and her escape from the archons’ attempts to violate her were also told about Sophia. For instance, according to the Valentinian Exposition, Sophia »laughs since she remained alone and imitated the ›ungrasp‑

42   Acts of John 101 – 102; from E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, II, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Cambridge, 1992), 185 – 186. 43   NHC II, 89:23 – 26. I quote the translation of B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, 71. On p. 57, n. 61, of his commentary to his edition of the text, in Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976), 31 – 101, Layton calls attention to skia, the Greek word probably rendered by the Coptic text, adding: »The richness of this Greek word should not be overlooked: shadow, shadowy double, reflection, even phantom; this range of meanings survives well into the Patristic period. In our passage, the skiai of Plato’s Republic inevitably come to mind.« This shadow of Eve should be compared to the »shadow« (skia) of Christ engendered together with him by His Mother according to Valentinian cosmog‑ ony. »As this Christ was male, he detached this shadow from Himself and ascended back into the Pleroma.« (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses I.11.1; ed. Rousseau and Doutreleau, 168 – 171.) The exis‑ tence in Valentinian mythology of a shadow of Christ, remaining upon the earth while Christ him‑ self returned to heaven, is striking. It underlines the extent to which the origins of Gnosticism and those of Docetism are linked to one another. See further B. Pearson, »›She Became a Tree‹ – a Note to CG II, 4:89, 25 – 26,« Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976), 413 – 415. 44   Origins of the World 116:24 – 117:4.

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able‹.«45 The figure imitated by Sophia seems to be he who cannot be caught, i. e., who cannot suffer through his capture by the archons.46 In the gnostic texts, the substitute figure for both Jesus Christ and Eve functions exactly like the eidōlon of the divine figure in the Greek texts. In both literatures, the substitute of the hero suffers indignity in his stead. In the Greek texts, the sub‑ stitute or double of the hero, his (or her) eidōlon, is sometimes referred to as a cloud (nephelē), for instance in Pindar’s Second Pythian Ode. The testimony of Euripides’ Helen indicates clearly that this nephelē is anthropomorphic, and identical to the eidōlon. Helen, referring to the eidōlon sent to Troy in her stead, calls it a cloud, which has now returned to the upper air. Theoclymenus Where then is that curse sent in your place to Troy? Helen You mean that image made of cloud (nephelēs)? Gone up in the sky (aithēr).47

To be sure, no mention is made in the gnostic texts themselves of an eidōlon (or a nephelē) of Jesus Christ (or of Eve), although the term is used in the Acts of John in reference to the bodily appearance in opposition to the real self.48 Moreover, the testimony of Pseudo-Tertullian, who speaks about a phantasma of Christ, represents striking evidence in favor of the existence of such a conception.49 Various texts show that eidōlon and phasma (i. e., phantasma) are equivalent.50 Moreover, both Eve’s shadow, defiled by the archons in the Hypostasis of the Archons, and the Valentinian shadow (skia) of Christ, remaining upon the earth in his stead, function like eidōla.51 45   NHC XI, 34:35 – 38. Or »the uncontainable one,« according to J. Turner’s translation, in Rob‑ inson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, 439. See J. E. Ménard, L’exposé valentinien, les fragments sur le baptême et sur l’eucharistie (Bibliothèque Copte de Nag Hammadi 14; Québec, 1985). Ménard translates: »l’insaisissable.« 46   See also: On the Origin of the World, NHC II, 113:13, where Sophia Zoe laughs at the Archon‑ tic authorities; NHC II, 116:26, where Eve laughs at the powers (text parallel to that form the Hypos‑ tasis of the Archons quoted on n. 23 above); and NHC II, 112:27, where the Archons laugh at the Archigenitor because of his foolishness. 47  Euripides, Helen (trans. Kovacs), ll. 1218 – 1219 (p. 147); cf. ll. 582 – 584, where Helen states that the eidōlon was fashioned by the aithēr. Helen’s eidōlon, made by Hera, occurs again later in the text, for instance in ll. 1135 – 1136. Further discussion of nephelē in Kannicht, Euripides Helena, I, 36 – 38. 48   Acta Ioannis, ch. 28 (ed. Bonnet, 166, l. 13); Cf. W. Bauer, F. W. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Third ed.), s. v. eidōlon, 280. 49   Pseudo-Tertullian uses the term phantasma (also a loan word from Greek in Latin) rather than eidōlon, probably as the latter retains pagan connotations for a Christian writer. For another reference to Christ’s phantasma (who did not suffer, as no phantasma can suffer), see Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, III.8 – 11; text with trans. by R. Braun (SC 399; Paris, 1994), II, 94 – 100. 50   See G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. II, s. v. eidōlon, 376, esp. n. 4. Among the various references, see for instance Philo, Somn. II.133 and Spec. Leg. 126. 51   From the testimony of Aelius Aristides, indeed, we know that eidōlon and skia in the context of Stesichorus seem to be interchangeable. See Aelius Aristides, Oratio II (In Defence of Oratory), 234; text with trans. by C. A. Behr (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 406 – 407; and Oratio XXXIII, 2 – 3; ed. B. Keil, Aelii Aristidis quae supersunt omnia, II (Berlin, 1958), 228. For the translation of both pas-

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The texts, in any case, leave no doubt to the fact that the substitute has the physical appearance of the hero. One could not understand otherwise the error of the archons mistaking his (or her) identity. Thus, for instance the Apocalypse of Peter from Nag Hammadi (C.G. VII. 3) describes the man suffering on the cross instead of the Sav‑ ior as »his physical part, which is the substitute.«52 In other texts, for instance in the Treatise of the Great Seth, it is someone else, Simon of Cyrene, who is crucified in the place of Jesus. This replacement in extremis can only be understood if one assumes a physical similarity between the two figures. Such a physical similarity, indeed, is made explicit in Irenaeus’s treatment of Basi‑ lides, where Jesus and Simon simply exchange roles and physical form.53 Similarly, in the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve »left before them [the archons] a shadow of herself resembling herself.«54 While the substitute suffers indignity, the hero is transferred into safety. In some of the traditions, he (or she) is carried up into heaven. This is clearly the case for both Aeneas in the Iliad and Helen in Euripides’ play. Similarly, the Treatise of the Great Seth describes how it is from heaven that Christ laughs at the blindness of the archons deluding themselves that they have crucified him. Another element of similarity between the two bodies of texts is that of the third party, the participants or observers, and also of the transmitters of those traditions. Being ignorant or blind, they are unable to recognize that they are dealing with a substitute. For instance, Ixion, raping Hera (or rather, thinking he is raping her) is presented as ignorant. The foolishness and blindness of the archons and of their leader (often called Sammael, »the blind god«) is a central theme of gnostic mythol‑ ogy and theology. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, for instance, the archons raping the figure of Eve are described as foolish and blind. In the passage of the Acts of John quoted above, the author laughs about the transmitters of the traditional version of the crucifixion. Similarly, Plato quotes Stesichorus as saying that »the wraith of Helen was fought for at Troy through ignorance of the truth.«

sages, see P. Aelius Aristides, The Complete Works, trans. C. Behr (Leiden, 1981), vol. 1, 111; and vol. 2, 166. See further Kittel, Theological Dictionary, loc. cit., who refers to the use of the expression eidōlon skias in Plato’s Republic VII (532C) and eidōla, skias, and phasma together in Philo, Spec. Leg. I.26. 52   NHC VII, 81:15 – 24. 53   This clearly reflects a folkloristic motif, on which see E. J. Bickerman and H. Tadmor, »Da­rius I, Pseudo-Smerdis, and the Magi,« Athenaeum (NS) 56 (1978), 248. As claimed by Bickerman, the folk‑ loristic motif was used by Darius, molding the story of Gaumata (Pseudo-Smerdis), after the pattern of the folkloristic tales. The story about the impostor, the double of Bardiya, was a propagandistic version of the problematic reality of Darius being a usurper. As in the docetic case the solution was founded on the use of a similar device: a double. It seems that the use of an eidolon to replace the hero is also related to other folkloristic motives such as the deception by illusion, or deception by substitution, or various other illusions: S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, vol. 4, Motif K1800, K1840, and K1870. 54   See note 42, above.

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There are, then, some precise structural similarities between the Greek and the gnostic texts. Some among the earliest Christians, as we have seen, could not believe that Jesus had suffered on the cross. Their quandary was similar to that of Greeks seeking to salvage mythical figures through the device of the eidōlon. We may pos‑ tulate, then, that this device offered them a ready-made solution, which stands at the very root of Docetism. The use of the eidōlon had permitted the revision of Greek myths, and the perception of the old version as erroneous. Similarly, the Docetic solution presented the literal understanding of the crucifixion story as mistaken. Just as the substitute of Jesus permitted to reject this literal understanding, Eve’s substitute aimed at negating an already existing story about Eve’s real rape. Such a rape must be based upon the myth of the Sons of God and the daughters of man (Gen. 6:1 ff.). A gnostic development of this myth is found in the Apocryphon of John, where the archons commit adultery with Sophia (Apocr. John 28:5 – 32).55 Our hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that in classical Greek literature the word dokēsis with the meaning of »apparition,« »phantom,« seems to appear solely in Euripides’ Helen.56 There are three occurrences of the word in the play, where the verbal form is also used several times, referring to Helen’s eidolon. Referring to her abduction by Paris, Helen says: »He imagines – vain imagination – that he has me, though he does not« (kai dokei m’echein, kenēn dokēsin, ouk echōn).57 At the end of Helen’s monologue enters Teucer, coming back from Troy. He is struck upon seeing Helen, as he remembers having seen her in Troy, »dragged by her hair by Menelaus« (line 116). About the latter, he says: »I saw her with my eyes no less than I see you« (line 118). Helen unsuccessfully tries to warn him that he may be deluding himself, and mistaking a vision for reality. »Take care,« she says to him, »you might have been under some divinely sent illusion« (skopei de mē dokēsin eikhet’ ek theōn), adding: »Are you so convinced that your impression is right?« (houtō dokeite tēn dokēsin asphalē?) (lines 119 – 121). As we have just seen, the use of dokēsis in the sense of »apparition,« »phan‑ tom,« in classical Greek literature appears only in connection with the device of the eidōlon. Hence, the renewed use of the word in direct connection with a doctrine established upon a substitute to Jesus Christ reinforces our hypothesis about the origin of this doctrine. On the basis of the evidence, we remain unable to determine whether »Docetics« is a self-chosen appellation or not.

55   On this re-mythologization, see G. G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (NHS 24; Leiden, 1984), passim. 56   See H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s. v. dokēsis, col. 442b. See further Kan‑ nicht, Euripides Helena, II, 49. 57   See discussion of dokētai above. See also, for instance, Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 10.15, on Marcion: dokēsei.

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IV. Another piece of circumstantial evidence strengthening our hypothesis lies in the fact that the eidōlon solution attributed to Stesichorus was quite well known through‑ out antiquity. Even the Christian heresiologists refer to it. Irenaeus tells us in his chapter on the heresiarch Simon Magus about Helen, Simon’s consort, a prostitute from Tyre.58 This Helen was an avatar of the original Helen, she because of whom the Trojan war had occurred. Irenaeus mentions here Stesichorus, as well as the fact that he recovered his eyesight only after having discharged Helen from any guilt concerning that war. A similar reference to Stesichorus appears in Hippolytus’ Refutatio omnium haeresium (VI.19.3), a source independent from Irenaeus. Therefore, it stands to reason that the reference to Stesichorus does not originate with Irenaeus and is obviously of Simonian origin. Although Epiphanius, writing in the fourth century, does not mention Stesichorus in the chapter on the Simonians in his Panarion, he does speak of Helen, the woman on behalf of whom »the Greeks fought the Trojans.« This Helen, Simon identifies with Ennoia, also called Prounikos, »the lewd one.«59 We know, moreover, that the Homeric Helen was known to at least certain gnostic heretics, as she also appears in a text from Nag Hammadi, the Exegesis of the Soul (CG II.6). The context is the prostitution of the fallen soul, who is willing to sleep with anyone instead of keeping herself for her legal husband. After a chain of quota‑ tions from the prophets, the text goes on to quote Homer, »the poet,« with two ref‑ erences, the first to Odysseus (Od. I.48 – 49), and the second to Helen and Aphrodite (Od. IV.260 – 264). On Helen, Homer writes: »My heart] turned itself from me. It is to my house that I want to return.«60 Moreover, the eidōlon of a divine figure remained a known device up to the third century c.e., and this not only in gnostic or dualist milieus. As shown above, Ploti‑ nus presents Herakles as a model for the soul, as his eidōlon descends upon the earth while he himself remains in heaven.61 We may then claim that the detected 58  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses I.23.2. See further G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, s. v. dokeō, 3b (378b), and s. v. dokēsis 1a (379a). 59  Epiphanius, Panarion 21.2.4 – 5, 21.3.1. (ed. Holl, I, 240 – 241). 60   G. II.6, 136:27 – 137.1. Both Maddalena Scopello and Jean-Marie Sevrin, who have both edited the text and commented upon it, point out the few references to Homer in gnostic literature, and signal this quotation of Homer, and to the figure of the Soul, but without any far-reaching conse‑ quences. See J.‑M. Sevrin, L’exégèse de l’âme (Bibliothèque Copte de Nag Hammadi, Textes 9; Québec, 1983), 158 – 160; and M. Scopello, L’exégèse de l’âme (Nag Hammadi Codex II,6, NHS 25; Leiden, 1985), 117, where she points out the similarities between the fate of Ulysses and that of Helen, and claims that the breaking of the nuptial link was the source of Helen’s erring, as it had been that of the soul. 61  Plotinus, Enneads I.1.12 and IV.3.27. M. Tardieu, »Gnostiques et mythologies du paganisme,« in Y. Bonnefoy, ed., Dictionnaire des mythologies (Paris, 1981), 470, sees a parallel between the figure of Herakles as it appears in Plotinus and that of the Book Baruch of Justin the Gnostic. For him, one, a savior turned prisoner, and the other, double thanks to his eidōlon, both come from the same

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isomorphism of »double« and »delusion« reflects a historical link between Greek myth-criticism and the early Docetists. The longevity of the tradition about Stesicho‑ rus and Helen’s eidōlon, which remained well known in the first Christian centuries, strengthens this claim.

V. A possible thread might be proposed, according to which the concept of the eidōlon reached the gnostics, as a solution to problems stemming from difficulties in inter‑ preting myth. Many years ago, Marcel Detienne studied the figure of Helen in Pythag‑ orean literature, claiming that the Pythagoreans were probably interpreting the Homeric and Hesiodic poems already in the fifth century b.c.e.62 Detienne showed that the word-play on Helenē / Selēnē must have been common among Pythagoreans, as the story of a woman fallen from the moon was a well-attested »Orphico-Pythag‑ orean« doctrine.63 The speculation about Helen’s origin from the moon was in all probability instrumental in transforming Helen into a divine figure. Detienne points out various links between Stesichorus and the Pythagoreans, for whom the theme of the eidōlon, or the psychē, was of crucial interest. Finally, Detienne argues that the Pythagoreans did much to disseminate the Palinode, and suggests that the Simonian figure of Helen stems from the Pythagorean Helen. He calls attention to the fact that the Simonian Helen, at least in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones, is called Luna and said to have fallen from heaven.64 Whether or not Detienne’s argument is convincing in all its details, his claim that the dual figure of Helen had long been the core of spiritualizing interpretation stands to reason. It seems to us, however, that rather than the figure of Helen, it was the dual division between a heavenly divine figure and its earthly illusory phantom which became of major importance for the dualistic trends in earliest Christianity. Detienne’s argument about the Pythagorean channel through which the figure of Helen reached Simon does not bear upon the links through which the device of the eidōlon reached the first Christians. The Pythagoreans might have been instrumental in carrying the knowledge of the eidōlon, but the broad spectrum of major literary strand of thought. The figure of Helen was also well known to Platonic philosophers. For Hermias of Alexandria, a pupil of Proclus who wrote a commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus where he refers to Stesichorus’ Palinode, Helen – as prisoner of Ilion, or matter – is a reflection, or eidōlon, of the beauty of Hellas, her fatherland, the spiritual or intellectual world. See Hermiae Alexandrini In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, ed, P. Couvreur (Paris, 1901), 77. 62   M. Detienne, »La légende pythagoricienne d’Hélène,« RHR 76 (1957), 129 – 152. 63   Ibid., 132. 64   On the figure of Helen in Simonian Gnosis, see K. Beyschlag, Simon Magus und die christliche Gnosis (WUNT 16; Tübingen, 1974), esp. 153 – 158; and G. Lüdemann, Untersuchungen zur simonia­ nischen Gnosis (Göttingen, 1975), esp. 55 – 78. Neither Beyschlag nor Lüdemann call attention to the similarities between Helen’s eidōlon and gnostic traditions.

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Greek texts in which it appears does not permit to isolate one specific channel of transmission.65

VI. Among the various suggestions for the origin of Docetism, some have looked in the direction of Jewish sources and their interpretation. Many years ago, Robert Grant called attention to the Septuagint version of Psalm 2:2 – 4, where we read: The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers (archōntes) take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed, saying, »Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.« He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.66

Grant is probably right in seeing the interpretation of this passage as a possible source of Gnosticism, and of the docetic laughter of Christ. His insight is reinforced by verse 1 in the same chapter: Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain (kena)?

We suggest that the docetic story about the false crucifixion of Christ by the archōntes and the laughter of Christ in heaven is based on a direct interpretation of Psalm 2. This psalm was interpreted as dealing with the messianic drama already in the New Testament (see for instance Acts 4:23 – 26). In contradistinction to the »orthodox« story of the crucifixion, the docetic version seems to have adopted a literal reading of Psalm 2, according to which the plot to kill the Messiah was thwarted. While noting this suggestion by Grant, the preceding chapter has developed an argument according to which the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, or, more precisely, of his binding (Aqedat Ytzḥak), offered for the first followers of Jesus a model which could easily be applied to the case of Jesus himself.67 Jesus, like Isaac, would have been bound on the cross, but at the last minute, another victim would have been sub‑ stituted for him. This argument was supported by reference to the puzzling appear‑ ance of a laughing figure of Christ in heaven in the gnostic texts and traditions quoted above, while his substitute was suffering on the cross. The figure of a laugh‑ ing Christ can be explained if we admit that Jesus was perceived as Isaac redivivus.68 65   Moreover, the structural similarity between the eidolon of Hera and Iphigenia, neither of whom has a particular place in Pythagorean traditions, and the substitutes of Eve and Jesus, seems to weaken the emphasis upon the Pythagorean channel. 66   See R. Grant, »Gnostic Origins and the Basilidians of Irenaeus,« Vigiliae Christianae  13 (1959), 121 – 125. 67   See chapter 7, above. See further P. Grelot, »La naissance d’Isaac et celle de Jésus: sur une interprétation ›mythologique‹ de la conception virginale,« Nouvelle Revue Théologique 94 (1972), 462 – 487 and 561 – 585. Grelot’s over-complicated argument, which rejects the possibility of a Jew‑ ish Alexandrian influence on some of the earliest Christian conceptions, has failed to convince us. 68   Isaac’s name, Yitzḥak, literally means »he will laugh« in Hebrew.

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Prima facie, our whole argument here would seem to contradict both Grant’s and Stroumsa’s search for Jewish sources of docetic Christianity. The roots of Docetism, as those of Gnosticism, are usually claimed to come either from Greek or from Jew‑ ish sources, but not from both. We think, however, following here a path opened by J. G. Davies, that the overall evidence reflects a contamination of the Greek device studied above by the Jewish traditions about Psalm 2 and the Binding of Isaac.69 The motif of laughter, which the preceding chapter claimed to be central in the original conception of a docetic Christ, is quite absent from the Greek texts, and can be best explained as referring to Isaac’s name and to Psalm 2:4. Similarly the identity of the plotters, the archōntes, is best explained as an allusion to Psalm 2. However, neither Psalm 2 nor Genesis 22 refers to an illusory substitute. The docetic view of the cru‑ cifixion was thus probably shaped by the combination of both Greek and biblical sources. The problem of the suffering of Jesus was solved by referring to the vain plot against the Messiah in Psalm 2 and of the sacrifice of a substitute, as in the binding of Isaac and in the Greek stories about the eidōlon. The combination here of both Greek and Jewish patterns of thought should not be surprising. Both the animal and the eidōlon as substitute victims are found in alternative versions of the Greek myth of Iphigenia’s sacrifice. In the text of Hesiod quoted above, Artemis, taking pity upon the girl, spirited her away in a cloud at the last moment, substituting her eidōlon for her. In other versions, she is said to have replaced her by a deer. In different variants of the myth, Iphigenia is turned into a bull, or a bear.70 The fact that Iphigenia’s substitute in alternative Greek versions of her sacrifice can either be an animal or her eidōlon, leads to the assumption that for people who knew such different versions, the human substitute of Jesus could have played the same role as the animal substitute of Isaac.71 Those who offered a docetic 69

  See Davies, The Origins of Docetism, esp. 16 – 17, 31, 35.   On the different versions of Iphigenia’s myth, see Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 582 ff.; and »Iphi‑ genia,« New Pauly, vol.  6, 927 – 928. 71   A passage of Philo, De Abrahamo 180 (LCL, 88 – 89) shows that the story of Iphigenia was known to Alexandrian Jews, and that they compared it to the binding of Isaac. The parallelism between the story of Iphigenia being replaced by an animal substitute at the moment of sacrifice and that of Isaac’s Binding may also have been known to Hellenistic Jews, although this cannot be proven. In his classic study of the Akedah in Jewish traditions, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice (New York, 1967), S. Spiegel duly notes Philo’s perception of a parallel between Isaac and Iphigenia. For a close parallel in rabbinic literature of a substitute taking the hero’s place at the last moment, see Mekhilta de‑Rabbi Ishmael, tractate Amalek, ed. and trans. J. Z. Lauterbach (Second ed.; Philadel‑ phia, 1961), II, 171: ». . . They say: They seized Moses, brought him to the platform, bound him and put the sword to his throat. But then an angel came down and appeared to them in the likeness of Moses, so that they got hold of the angel and let Moses escape.« See L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, vol. II (Phil‑ adelphia, 1910), 282, and vol. V (Philadelphia, 1925), 406, n. 76: ». . . The view that an angel assumed the form of Moses (Docetism?) . . .« For other instances of an illusion in rabbinic and kabbalistic sources (called by Ginsberg ›Docetism‹) see Ginsberg, Legends of the Jews, I, 243 (on the illusion of the three angels); V, 275, n. 35 (on the tradition about Jacob’s death); VI, 411, n. 64 (on the kabbalistic tradition about the destruction of the Temple); VI, 460, n. 80 (on the late tradition about Esther’s image). 70

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interpretation of the crucifixion, then, must have been cognizant of the Greek use of an eidōlon in order to solve problems of mythology: it is the substitute of the divine figure, its eidōlon, who suffered. At the same time, the Binding of Isaac was obviously in the background of the crucifixion. Instead of the traditional ram, however, one could well think that it was the eidōlon of Jesus that had been crucified, as a simi‑ lar interchange between substitute animal and eidōlon existed in Iphigenia’s myth. Similarly, it is plausible that Psalm 2, according to which »He who sits in the heav‑ ens laughs« about the conspirators was combined with the Greek sources about the eidōlon, where the hero safely returns to heaven. The application of the eidōlon device to Jesus had some dramatic implications. The divinization of the figure of Jesus Christ remains a major problem in our under‑ standing of earliest Christianity. Like Helen, Iphigenia, or Herakles, divinized heroes, Jesus Christ did not really himself suffer. The fact that his eidōlon suffered in his place, while he went up to heaven, like Iphigenia (who became Artemis in heaven), could have helped the process of his divinization among people cognizant of such thought patterns. To be sure, our reconstitution of the mental steps involved in the birth of Docetism must remain hypothetical. This reconstruction is based on various argu‑ ments of a different nature, and seeks to take the following into account: thought patterns, technical vocabulary (dokēsis), puzzling isomorphisms, and circumstantial evidence (the reference to both Helen and Stesichorus in Simonian traditions). In conclusion, our argument has revealed some of the complex interplay between Greek and Jewish thought patterns in the ancient world, and at the very beginnings of Christianity. What we describe as a possible origin of Docetism also holds true for Gnosticism. In Greek literature, the use of the eidōlon device had instantly trans‑ formed previous versions of the myth into mistaken perceptions of reality. Similarly, docetic attitudes transformed the literal reading of the crucifixion story into a sim‑ plistic, mistaken, understanding of the central myth of Christianity. Such a transfor‑ mation lies at the root of gnostic thought and mythology. The fact that Valentinian mythology mentions a shadow (skia) of Christ, which suffered in his stead, clearly points to docetic thought patterns. Similarly, it seems that the argument developed here, according to which one of the main sources of the docetic story of the cruci‑ fixion was the Septuagint version of Psalm 2, would point to the fact that this same psalm is the probable source of the gnostic archōntes. We have not raised the question of the precise circles in which the docetic atti‑ tudes first blossomed. Should one look in the direction of Alexandrian Judaism or in that of various Jewish-Christian groups, in Palestine or elsewhere, gnosticizing or not? Such questions should be the object of future investigations.

9. Sacrifice and Martyrdom in the Roman Empire In religions of the ancient world, sacrifice, and in particular blood sacrifice, stood at the very center of cultic activity. This is true in all religions around the Mediterra‑ nean as well as in the Near East. Indeed, Greek sacrifices, for instance, show some striking parallels with West Semitic practices. According to Walter Burkert’s assess‑ ment, this might be explained through influences via Cyprus.1 Following Karl Meuli, Burkert claims that sacrifice stems from a feeling of guilt on the part of the hunters for having killed their game.2 It is not necessary to follow him here to recognize that blood sacrifices represented much more than ritual slaughter. To a great extent, sac‑ rifice was constitutive of the community, as it »stood at the center of a complex set of cultural, social and political institutions.«3 In ancient religions, indeed, sacrifice was the most obvious way of crossing the boundary between the human and the super-natural world. It is the offering of blood, or life, to the gods, that gave sacrifice its efficacy.4 In the ancient world, however, animal sacrifices were not the only blood sacrifices. Human sacrifices, although they were rarely practiced, remained present in the con‑ sciousness until a rather late date in the Roman Empire. To be sure, for both pagans and Christians, human sacrifice remained as a kind of spiritual limes, delimiting the border between civilization and barbarism.5 For a philosopher such as Porphyry, animal sacrifice was considered to be a kind of historic compromise between human sacrifice and a vegetarian ideal in which sacrifice would be unnecessary.6 As long as Christianity remained religio illicita, the Christians constituted an alternative com‑ munity of sorts, functioning in quasi-secrecy, and their values and behavior were strikingly different from those of society at large. In such conditions, it comes as 1   See for instance W. Burkert, »Opfertypen und antike Gesellschaftsstruktur,« in G. Stephen‑ son, ed., Der Religionswandel unserer Zeit im Spiegel der Religionswissenschaft (Darmstadt, 1976), 168 – 197. I wish to thank Joseph O’Leary, S. J., for various editorial suggestions. 2   See for instance J. N. Bremmer, »Greek Normative Animal Sacrifice,« in D. Ogden, ed., A Companion to Greek Religion (Oxford, 2007), 132 – 144, esp. 142. 3   S. K. Stowers, »Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Toward an Anthropology of Greek Religion,« in L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough, eds., The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis, 1995), 299 – 333, esp. 295. 4   See P. Veyne, Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien (312 – 394) (Paris, 2007), 177 – 178. 5   See J. B. Rives, »Human Sacrifices among Pagans and Christians,« Journal of Roman Studies 85 (1995), 65 – 85. 6   See A. McGowan, »Eating People: Accusations of Cannibalism Against Christians in the Sec‑ ond Century,« Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994), 413 – 442, esp. 423.

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no surprise that various accusations circulated against allegedly repulsive Christian rituals, including human sacrifices or even cannibalism.7 Enemies of the Jews had already accused them of similar behavior. In the case of Christians, however, accu‑ sations could be much more direct and violent. The Christians, on their side, viewed pagan blood sacrifices as a cult offered to demons, polluting those who took part in it. In expressing his horror of sacrifices (as well as of gladiator fights), Constan‑ tine showed a Christian sensitivity – which does not mean, of course, that sacrifices would immediately be discontinued. The central myth of Christianity, the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a figure at once human and divine, was notoriously difficult to understand in the Roman world. To be sure, myths of suffering gods, such as Herakles or Osiris, did exist in the ancient world; it is rather the idea of the resurrection in the flesh that remained puzzling. I wish to argue here that in order to better understand the per‑ ception of Christianity in Roman eyes, and in particular early Christian martyrdom, a puzzling phenomenon which often seems to elude clear comprehension, one must reflect on the concept of sacrifice – a concept central in early Christian texts. For Christian thinkers of the first centuries, indeed, the martyr was often offering himself or herself in sacrifice, just as Jesus Christ had done. Martyrdom, in this sense, was a mimesis of Christ’s passion, an imitatio Christi. I have sought to show in a monograph how certain deep psychological and cul‑ tural transformations in the Roman world both permitted and imposed a radically new structuring of the very idea of ritual.8 The rise of Scriptures as the very back‑ bone of religious movements transformed attitudes toward religious stories, or myths. As all religions hinge upon the two functions of myth-making (or myth-tell‑ ing) and ritual action, it stands to reason that one should be able to discern a trans‑ formation of ritual side by side with the transformation of myths. To a new concep‑ tion of historia sacra should correspond a new kind of religious praxis. In The End of sacrifice, I argued that the traditional distinction of polytheistic ver‑ sus monotheistic religions is not particularly useful to the historian from a heuristic point of view. Indeed, in the ancient world, both polytheists and monotheists used to offer blood sacrifices to the divinity or divinities, and considered such sacrifices to represent the very acme of religious life. Thus Macrobius, commenting upon Virgil, could claim that piety consisted in knowing how to offer sacrifices. Thus, Emperor Julian, in the second half of the fourth century, could write that »the Jews behave like the Gentiles, except the fact that they recognize only one god. On everything else, however, we share the same things: temples, sanctuaries, altars, purification rituals, 7   See n. 6 above, as well as A. Henrichs, »Pagan Ritual and the Alleged Crimes of the Early Chris‑ tians,« in P. Granfield and J. A. Jungmann, eds., Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, vol. I (Mun‑ ster, 1970), 18 – 35. 8   The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations of Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2008); originally published as La fin du sacrifice: mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Collège de France; Paris, 2005).

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various demands on which we do not diverge from one another, or else only in insig‑ nificant ways.«9 »Sacrificiorum aboleatur insania. Let the madness of sacrifices end!« This law of Constantinus II, preserved in the Theodosian Codex, encapsulates the revolution started by Constantine and pursued by his successors.10 This revolution was radical in its consequences: it put an end to public sacrifices. To be sure, the idea of ani‑ mal (or for that matter human) sacrifice never quite disappeared, and various traces of it are retained in later forms of Christianity, while Islam has a feast of sacrifice (‘Id al-adḥa). Long before the fourth century c.e., a major debate had been raging in Hellenic thought on the value of sacrifice. Lucian of Samosata, that second-century Voltaire, who knew how to poke fun at various ritual practices and religious attitudes, had sharply criticized sacrifices in his diatribe Peri thusiōn. In the third century, Por‑ phyry, following Theophrastus and his Peri eusebeias, could claim that the philos‑ opher was the true priest of the supreme god, and that his thought was the true temple. It is this identity that isolates the philosopher from the polis and its public rit‑ uals. In his treatise De abstinentia, Porphyry, drawing the logical consequence of his repulsion from animal killing, argues in favor of vegetarianism. In this context, one should call attention to his belief that the Jews are a race of philosophers, precisely because their sacrificial practices, in contradistinction to those of other peoples, are due to historical necessities rather than to low instincts. For Porphyry, then, true sac‑ rifice is the union with god, accomplished by the wise man through apatheia.11 Even a traditionalist like Iamblichus, who argues in favor of sacrifices, recognizes that they are not needed by the superior beings. Blood sacrifices, for him, are expected only by the lower gods, and represent only the material aspect of cult. For him, thus, spiritual sacrifices exist side by side with blood sacrifices.12 When their single Temple, in Jerusalem, was destroyed by Titus in 70 c.e., the Jews had to reinvent their religion in some dramatic ways, while arguing that they were changing very little, and this only under duress. If Jews could be perceived by some as a race of philosophers (for instance by Numenius, who argued, in the sec‑ ond century c.e., that Plato was »an atticizing Moses«), it seems to me that it is in no small measure due to the fact that their religion could now be perceived as one with‑ out blood sacrifices. Several dramatic consequences followed from the destruction of the Temple. The first was the birth of two new religions, rather than one. Side by side with the birth of Christianity, the appearance of Rabbinic Judaism after 70 c.e. and its growth in the following centuries represents a real mutation of the religion  9

 Julian, Against the Galileans, fr. 72.   Theodosian Codex XVI.10.2. See N. Belayche, »Le sacrifice et la théorie du sacrifice pendant la ›réaction païenne‹: l’empereur Julien,« Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 218 (2001), 455 – 486. 11  Porphyry, On Abstinence, II.  26 – 27. 12  Iamblichus, The Mysteries of Egypt, V.15. 10

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of Israel: indeed, a religion now with no sacrifices, a religion whose priests were out of business, in which religious specialists had been replaced by the intellectual elite. In a way, early Christianity, a religion centered upon a sacrificial ritual celebrated by priests, represents a more obvious continuity with the religion of Israel than that of the Rabbis. The fall of the Temple, and the impossibility of offering sacrifices, entailed the transformation of the ritual: daily sacrifices were now replaced by prayers recall‑ ing the sacrifices of old. The absence of a Temple and the neutralization of priests, in turn, led at once to a spatial explosion of Jewish ritual and its democratization. There was no omphalos anymore, no obvious place that God could call His own house. According to a famous rabbinic conception, the shekhina, or divine presence (from the root shakhan, to dwell), exiled from the destroyed Temple, now resided within »the four cubits of halakha«, within the narrow limits of personal religious duties.13 In other words, religion had now moved from the public to the private sphere. Askēsis, prayer, almsgiving: the various duties of private religion (duties to be ideally accomplished in private, even in secret) were all considered as due replace‑ ments for sacrifice. A rabbinic text compares, for instance, the fat burnt during a fast to the fat of a sacrificial animal.14 When the rabbis say that after the destruction of the Temple an iron wall rose between God and Israel, they mean to insist on the fact that Judaism has become a religion of alienation, a religion of God’s absence.15 Man must behave as if he did not expect a clear and distinct voice to answer his prayers, as if the time-consecrated do ut des formula did not work anymore. In a way, this attitude is rather similar to that of the Church Fathers, about whom one could speak, in Weberian sense, of an Entzauberung. The religion of the rabbis had replaced that of the prophets. The priests had disappeared for all practical purposes. They might have been a catalyst for the development of new mystical attitudes within the Jewish community. It stands to reason that some of the characters of mystical experience, as they are preserved for us in late antique Hebrew literature, and also in gnostic and Judeo-Christian texts and traditions, are similar to those developed by the priests in the Temple, who must have had powerful experiences.16 In strong opposition to post-Yavneh Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity unabashedly presented itself as a sacrificial religion, although one of a new kind, in which the central ritual was called anamnēsis, a re-actualization, or even re-activa‑ tion – rather than our weaker term, »memory« – of Jesus’s sacrifice. It was a religion without temples, in which the same sacrifice was offered perpetually, on a daily basis. It was offered by priests, organized in a hierarchy (in contradistinction to the basic equality of rank between the rabbis). The very metaphorization of biblical traditions 13

  Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 8a.   Ibid., 17a. 15   Ibid., 32b. 16   See R. Elior, The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (Oxford, and Portland, Or., 2004). 14

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by Christian thinkers permitted the conservation of the terms of Israelite religion. In Christian literature of the first centuries, one can follow the clear development of sacrificial vocabulary.17 The language of martyrdom, strikingly, is replete with allusions to sacrifice. Let us give here a few instances. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, clearly seeks to imitate Christ in his passion, in the expectation that he will become in his turn the object of mimesis: »For he waited to be betrayed as also the Lord had done, that we too might become his imitators (hina mimetai kai hemeis).«18 His execution is explicitly pre‑ sented as a sacrifice: »So they did not nail him, but bound him, and he put his hands behind him, and was bound, as a noble ram out of a great flock for an oblation (eis prosphoran),« and a few lines below: »And may I, today, be received among them before Thee, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice (thysiai).«19 Examples abound of references to sacrifice in early Christian literature. The corpus of Ignatius of Antioch, which dates from the first third of the second century, retains in its vocabulary some striking sacrificial connotations.20 In 304, Irenaeus, the bishop of Sirmium in Pannonia, is asked by the prefect Probus to offer a sacrifice to the gods. Irenaeus answers that he offers sacrifice only to the one God.21 A similar use of sac‑ rifice is found in the sixth letter attributed to Saint Anthony: »You shall not weary in the struggle until you have offered yourselves as a sacrifice to God in all sanc‑ tity, without which none can inherit God.«22 The recently uncovered Gospel of Judas apparently accuses bishops who support martyrdom of condoning human sacrifice.23 17   See R. J. Daly, Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Christian Background before Origen (Washing‑ ton, D. C., 1978); idem, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (Philadelphia, 1978); and F. M. Young, The Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers from the New Testament to John Chrysostom (Patristic Monograph Series 5; Philadelphia, 1979), esp. 227 – 230. 18   Martyrdom of Polycarp, I.2. 19   Martyrdom of Polycarp, XIV.1 – 2. See L. L. Thompson, »The Martyrdom of Polycarp: Death in the Roman Games,« Journal of Religion 82 (2002), 27 – 52; Thompson insists on the fact that the »whole of Polycarp’s arrest and execution reenacted ritually the passion of Christ,« and, following D. Riddle, on the parallelism between the redemptive value of martyrdom and the redemptive death of Christ (48). For a different understanding of sacrificial vocabulary in martyrological literature, see B. Dehandschutter, »Sacrifice and Martyrdom: Some Notes on Martyrium Polycarpi 14 and Vita Polycarpi 6,« Archivio di Filosofia 76 (2008). See further his »Martyrdom as a Gift in Early Chris‑ tianity,« in M. M. Olivetti, ed., Le don et la dette (Milan, 2004), 371 – 376 = B. Dehandschutter, Polycarpiana: Studies on Martyrdom and Persecution in Early Christianity. Collected Essays (BETL 205; Louvain, 2007), 229 – 235. 20   See for instance N. Hartmann, Martyrium: Variationen und Potentiale eines Diskurses im zweiten Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a. M., New York, 2013). 21   Martyrdom of Irenaeus, in H. Musurillo, ed. and trans., Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford, 1972), 296 – 297. See also, for the general introduction and the com‑ mentaries, A. A. R. Bastiaensen et al., eds. and trans., Atti e passioni dei martiri (Fondazione Valla, 1987). 22   I quote according to the translation of S. Rubenson, The Letters of Saint Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis, 2005), 216. 23   See L. Painchaud, »À propos de la (re)découverte de l’Évangile de Judas,« Laval Théologique et Philosophique 62 (2006), 533 – 568.

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While the sacrificial nature of this language has been recognized by scholars, they have systematically tended to play down its significance, often arguing that this lan‑ guage must be understood only metaphorically. Such an approach is far from con‑ vincing. It reflects, rather, the theological background of those scholars, for whom sacrifice in a Christian context can be related only to Christ’s passion. If we want to understand correctly early Christian texts and beliefs, we must resituate them in their historical contexts. It is within the context of religious attitudes from the ancient world that we must read the Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Since Hubert and Mauss’s Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice (1899) and Jane Harrison’s Themis (1912), we have learned to recognize the importance of the sacrificial animal agreeing to the sacrifice, in the various sacrificial systems of the ancient world. Henk Versnel has insisted upon the fact that presents to the gods must be offered voluntarily, »in a mood that is called libens laetus in countless inscriptions.«24 For Jean-Pierre Vernant, the animal must almost voluntarily run into the sacrificial fire.25 Similarly, martyr stories often insist on the joy expressed by the martyrs in face of death, to the point of smiling, or even laughing.26 Perpetua and her companions, who were probably martyred in 203, rejoice at the idea of partaking in the Lord’s passion. Carpus, who was probably martyred under Marcus Aurelius, smiles while being crucified. Asked about the meaning of this strange smile (Quid risisti?), he answers: »I have seen the glory of the Lord and have been happy from it, as I am now free from you and have no share in your sins.«27 As fear has been transformed into joy, and terrestrial death has become celestial life, one should not be surprised if the martyr is sometimes said not to suffer during his martyrdom. In the Acts of Montanus and Licius, for instance (both martyred in 259 at Carthage), Flavian is happy as soon as the sentence is pronounced, as he is now certain to become a martyr. In his joy, he tells about his visions: This is the vision I had when our bishop Cyprian was our only martyr. I thought to have asked Cyprian if the coup de grace was painful; as a future martyr, I wanted to get his advice on how to overcome pain. His answer was: "It is another body which suffers when the soul is in heaven. The body feels absolutely nothing when the spirit is totally absorbed by God.28 24

  H. S. Versnel, »Self-Sacrifice, Compensation and the Anonymous Gods,« in J. Rudhardt and O. Reverdin, eds., Le sacrifice dans l’antiquité (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 27; Vandoeuvres, Geneva, 1981), 135 – 185, esp. 147. 25   J.‑P. Vernant, »Théorie générale du sacrifice et mise à mort dans la thusia grecque,« in Le sacrifice dans l’antiquité (Geneva, 1981), 1 – 39, esp. 7. See C. Barton, »Honor and Sacredness,« in M. Cor‑ mack, ed., Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion (Oxford, 2002), 38. 25   Perpétue et Félicité 18.4; cf. K. Coleman, »Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Myth‑ ological Enactments,« Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 44 – 73. For further discussion see chap‑ ter 10, below. 26  Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 59 – 60. 27   Acts of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice, 4; Musurillo, Acts, 32 – 33; cf. Bremmer, art. cit., 95. See further Acts of Carpus . . . 36 (Greek version, 36; ed. Musurillo, 28 – 29). 28   Alia caro patitur cum animus in caelo est. nequaquam corpus hoc sentit, cum se Deo tota mens devovit. Acts of Montanus and Lucius 21 (ed. Musurillo, 234 – 235).

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I propose to call the remarkable phenomenon described here an »inverted docetism.« In order to avoid the paradox of a suffering Messiah, some among the first Christians had imagined that Jesus had not really been crucified. Docetic tendencies seem to have been directly linked to the Christian opposition to martyrdom. This is the case, for instance, for Basilides, a gnostic theologian from early second-century Alexan‑ dria. If Jesus Christ has not suffered on the cross, there is no reason to ask his believ‑ ers to die at the hands of the demons who rule this world. Therefore, Basilides and other docetic theologians ask the true Christians to accept obligations to sacrifice to the idols in order to avoid martyrdom. For crucifixion is indeed a matter of sacrifice. For the first Christians (who were Jews), two possibilities were open in order to interpret the crucifixion of the Messiah. Like Paul, one might accept this paradox and transform it into the lever of faith in the suffering servant – after all, a figure known in ancient Judaism. But one might also reject the ignominious death of the Son of God. Such an attitude, we know, represents one of the oldest and most radical of Christian heresies, Docetism: Jesus did not die on the cross, he only appeared (dokein) to suffer; his blood was not shed. In a second stage, amalgamating with Platonic concepts, Docetism came to deny the corporeal nature of Jesus. Several gnostic and docetic texts and traditions from the start of the second century describe a Christ laughing in heaven at seeing poor Simon of Cyrene being crucified in his place, knowing that the plan of the powers of evil had been defeated. There is no need to be Christian to be shocked by such an idea. Until now this laughter of Christ has not been explained – a laughter that of course had nothing to do with the one of which Lucian spoke. I think I have found a plausible explanation for this laughter.29 The idea that the blood of the human victim was not spilled, that the sacrifice had been avoided at the last moment, was of course a central idea in Jewish consciousness: this was exactly what had happened to Isaac, whose sacrifice had not been accomplished. The binding of Isaac, his Akedah in Gen‑ esis 22, was a theme of central importance in the first-century Jewish imagination. Much later, when this binding became a sacrifice, it remained a key theme in patris‑ tic thought and also in Christian representations, as is shown by the ubiquity of the scene of Isaac’s binding on sarcophagi. Isaac, indeed, quickly becomes in Christian thought a typos, or a figura of Christ, and his »sacrifice« is interpreted as a sacramentum futuri of the passion of Christ, with the difference, of course, that Isaac was not killed on the altar like Jesus on the cross. That Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah could have interpreted his binding on the cross as similar (in its con‑ sequences as well) to the Akedah of Isaac, should not be doubted. Thus the laughter of Christ seems to make direct allusion to the biblical etymology of the very name of Isaac, ytzḥak, »he will laugh.« Numerous Jewish and Christian texts support this argument. Here I refer to Philo of Alexandria, who comes back several times to the significance of the name Isaac. At one point, Philo even adds, using the esoteric lan‑ 29

  See chapters 7 and 8, above.

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guage of the mystics and announcing the revelation of a great secret, that Isaac was not, contrary to appearance, the son of Abraham, but rather of God! The maternity of Sarah is not in doubt, but Philo believes he knows that God, before giving birth to Isaac, miraculously returned Sarah to virginity.30 Thus we have from a contemporary of Paul’s the idea that Isaac was the son of God and of a virgin! The texts are irrefut‑ ably there, and yet nobody seems to have discussed them. How can one explain why such a tradition does not seem to have been remarked upon and interrogated, except that it is quite simply too evident, and it overthrows too many firm convictions? In a study as brilliant as it is suggestive, Martyrdom and Rome, Glen Bowersock has shown, against a whole historiographic tradition, that the Christian martyrs in Rome reflected an attitude quite different from that of the Maccabean martyrs.31 The identification of the martyr with a sacrifice seems to me to support Bowersock’s thesis in another way. In effect, it is only in a situation in which the sacrifice offered in the Temple no longer exists that such a metaphoric acceptance of the term might be developed. The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity offers one of the most gripping testimo‑ nies to the perception of the martyr as a sacrifice – by the pagans, as much as by the Christians.32 At the circus, before confronting the beasts, the Christians are made to dress in the robes of the priests of Saturn (for the men) and of the priestesses of Ceres (for the women). The martyr thus appears to be a new pharmakos of sorts. Indeed, in the ancient polis, the pharmakos was a poor man forced to dress like a king before being immolated in the name of the whole city. Similarly, again, it is with a mock crown that Jesus had been crucified.33 The ritual and carnivalesque character of the execution of Christians here transforms the Circus into a Temple. Pagans seemed to oblige the Christians, who offered themselves voluntarily as human sacrifices, against their own most solid beliefs. In his Peri stephanōn, the Christian Latin poet Pruden‑ tius conceives of the martyr’s death as a sacrifice, both redemptive and purifying.34 Such a concept echoes what Origen wrote. Referring to John 1:29 (»Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world«), Origen notes that the Old Testament speaks of the sacrifice of five animals. Four of these five animals, for him, prefigure the martyrs. Before Prudentius, Origen seems to be the only one to draw this parallel between the sacrificial texts of the Old Testament and the Christian martyrs.35

30

 Philo, De Cherub., 42 – 51. Cf. Quod Det. 124, Mut. Num. 131.   G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, 1995). For a different approach, see D. Boyarin, »Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism,« Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998), 577 – 627. 32   Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity 18.4. 33   On the pharmakos, see J. N. Bremmer, »Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece,« in R. Buxton, ed., Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (Oxford, 2000), 271 – 293. 34   Peri stephanōn 4.9 – 72. 35   See J. Petriccione, »The Martyr Death as Sacrifice: Prudentius, Peristephanon 4, 9 – 72,« Vigiliae Christianae 49 (1995), 245 – 257. 31

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The art historian Jas Elsner has recently shown the extent to which the formal transformation of art from Augustus to Justinian expresses a transformation in Roman culture of subjectivity into its very structure.36 Elsner shows in a convincing way how Mithraism, Neoplatonism, and Christianity all moved between the end of the second century and the end of the third in the same direction, that of the »sym‑ bolic« mode. The image of Mithras, for example, no longer represents the god itself but the symbol of the god. Insisting on the fact that one has to conceive of Christian‑ ity, too, as a sacrificial religion, Elsner analyzes the mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome dating from Pope Sixtus III, in the 430s, and the sacrificial processions in the mosaics of Sant’Apollinaris Nuovo. According to him, these mosaics demonstrate not only the symbolic polysemy of Christian sacrifice, but also the radical abolition of the ideology of reciprocity, even if the pagan gesture of sacrifice is still known. The martyrs and virgins no longer bring sacrifice – they are the sacrifice. Christianity, in effect, offers to every man and woman the possibility of becoming the sacrifice. If art, here, has the function of offering exegesis that allows the celebrant to understand his act, these mosaics reflect the profound transformation of religious action between pagan Rome and Christian Rome. The representations of sacrifice thus reflect a fun‑ damental conceptual break in the very meaning of religion.37 One is able to discern, among Christians as among Jews, a fundamental ambigu‑ ity vis-à-vis the very idea of sacrifice, an ambiguity that demands we define Judaism and Christianity as sacrificial religions without blood sacrifices. It is no less true that, for the Christians, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple quickly came to signify a heavenly punishment inflicted on the Jews for the crime of deicide. In Christian eyes, the sacrificial system of Israel was defunct, terminated forever, and pagan sac‑ rifices, as cult-offerings to demons, evidently had no value whatsoever. They were religious fossils of a past that should be changed under the new covenant. Chris‑ tian thinkers to a large extent recognized the novelty of the system they were in the course of fashioning. This awareness of their originality allowed them, as of the first half of the second century, to develop a new conception of the history of reli‑ gions. For Christians as for Jews, it was not the history of religion that was part of history. It was rather general history that was integrated within the framework of the Heilsgeschichte, the history of salvation. Clement of Alexandria, toward the end of the second century, was perhaps not among the most innovative of the Christian theologians, but his intellectual curiosity about religious phenomena, which might be compared to that of his elder, the pagan Lucian of Samosata, makes him one of our most precious witnesses about various »mystery« cults (as a Christian, he had few scruples about violating their arcana), and also about Egyptian religion in its last phases. In his Protrepticus, Clement offered what one might call a concise history of 36   J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity, (Cambridge, 1995); see in particular, 157 ff. 37   See chapter 10, below.

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paganism in seven stages, trying to explain the theological errors of the Greeks and barbarians.38 For several Christian thinkers, moreover, the sacrifices formerly offered in the Jerusalem Temple represented a concession permitted by God to a stiff-necked people, overly influenced by the practices of pagan peoples such as Egyptians, among whom they had long sojourned. For these theologians, perhaps influenced by the Theophrastic tradition to which I alluded above (stemming from his Peri eusebeias), biblical sacrifices represented only a stopgap, retaining a whiff of paganism and des‑ tined to be replaced by the new covenant. Note that toward the end of the twelfth century, the Arabic-speaking Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who thought of him‑ self as responsible for a community of individuals incapable of attaining intellectual truth, developed in his Guide for the Perplexed a historic concept of sacrifices that seems to be literally copied from the one invented by the Church Fathers, and that also echoes certain of Iamblichus’ ideas (although we cannot retrieve the channels through which it passed from Christian authors to Maimonides).39 Whatever the case, this historicizing and relativizing reflection on biblical sacrifices would in turn be passed along, at the start of the modern era, to some Christian scholars who were trying to reflect rationally on both the biblical text and the comparative history of ancient religions. To give only one example, but a major one, let me mention John Spencer and his De legibus hebraeorum ritualibus, dating from 1684. In Spencer’s pages, one sees how patristic reflection on the end of sacrifices had a dramatic his‑ torical influence; it is even rediscovered at the end of a complex itinerary, as far away as the origin of the modern discipline of the history of religions.40 The fall of the Jerusalem Temple that put an end to Jewish sacrifices, naturally allowed early Christianity to shift the center of its magnetic field from Jerusalem to Rome. Romam factam Hierosolymam (Rome become Jerusalem), as Jerome would rather hastily put it. Christianity wants, almost from its beginnings, a religion at the level of the Empire, at least. As, for Christians, Jerusalem was becoming a metaphor, situated in heaven, and blood sacrifices belonged to the past, a thorough reorga‑ nization of religious space and religious time soon became necessary. The urgent Messianic expectation of the parousia became blurred and the world loses its axis, its omphalos. The capital of the Empire, being also that of idols, could not really become God’s capital, and it was elsewhere that Christians had to establish their veritable citizenship. Thus Augustine, after the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, felt the need to explain to worried Christians that Rome, city of paganism, merited heavenly punish‑ ment and that in no case could the civitas Dei be identified with the civitas terrena. I cannot insist enough on this overthrow of the categories in which the very idea of 38

  See chapter 13, below.   See S. Stroumsa, »Sabéens de Haran et Sabéens de Maïmonide,« in T. Lévy and R. Rashed, eds., Maïmonide, philosophe et savant (Leuven, 2004), 335 – 352. 40   See G. G. Stroumsa, »John Spencer and the Roots of Idolatry,« History of Religions 40 (2001), 1 – 23. 39

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religion had been inscribed until then. In their diaspora, the Jews had succeeded in reorganizing a religious life without daily Temple sacrifices. But a diaspora without a center is no longer a diaspora. The disappearance of a locatable, central focus must have had long-term, capital importance for the Christian perception of the relation between religion and the state. The kingdom of God being no longer of this world, according to the Gospels, the ambiguity would remain total, through the centuries of Caesaropapism, in the East as in the West. Once again we see how the end of sacrifice in the Temple of Jerusalem brought with it a transformation, deep and durable, both in the nature of worship and its place in the economy of the world. I have dealt here less with transformations in the pagan sacrificial ritual, in par‑ ticular the imperial cult, which imposed its very structure on the oikoumenē, than I have with the avatars of Jewish ritual as celebrated in a small provincial town on the confines of the desert. If I have done so, it is because we have not sufficiently appreciated the weight, in the Mediterranean world of the first centuries of our era, possessed by the suggestive power of marginality in the example of a non-sacrificial ritual, even if it came from a rebellious and foreign people, on the one hand, and communities outside the law, on the other. Treating the status of sacrifices among pagans, Jews, and Christians, I have men‑ tioned a fundamental ambiguity: the practice of sacrifice did not want to die, and thus sacrifice appears at once terminable and interminable. I briefly referred above to the theory of René Girard that Christianity put an end, once and for all, to the sac‑ rificial violence of all the religions of antiquity. One can easily detect the theological echoes, or the pseudo-theological flavor, of such a theory: the religion of the love of men is also that of the blood of Christ. We know the evocative power and terrible force of the blood painted on statues and images – still quite recently. We can imag‑ ine how this power and this force, amplified by today’s cinema, still risks calling for blood, since it is true that the pious evocation of Christ’s sacrifice does not lead to repentance alone. From our perspective, the fact is that the Pauline interpretation, which will win the upper hand in the combat against the docetic interpretation, insists on seeing the crucifixion as a veritable sacrifice that was carried out right to the end. Sacrifices may well have ceased at the Temple of Jerusalem, and three centuries later in all temples of the Empire, but the idea of sacrifice – and with it, of violence – was manifestly far from dying.41

41

  Some of the points in this chapter are further developed in chapter 11, below.

10. Les martyrs chrétiens et l’inversion des émotions «Voici que se leva le jour brillant de leur victoire et ils quittèrent la prison pour se rendre à l’amphithéâtre, comme s’ils allaient au ciel, joyeux, le visage serein; s’ils frémissaient, c’était de joie et non de peur (si forte gaudio pauentes non timore; ptooumenoi ei tuchoi charai mallon e phoboi). Perpétue marchait à leur suite, le visage lumineux et la démarche tranquille, comme une matrone unie au Christ».1

Dans ce passage de la Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité, l’un des plus célèbres Actes des Martyrs dans l’empire romain, le martyr ne s’efforce pas tant de maîtriser ses émotions, comme le sage stoïcien avait appris à dominer ses passions, que de les transformer. Alors que le public s’attendrait à voir frémir de peur celui ou celle qui va consciemment à sa mort, le martyr ne marche pas seulement d’un pas ferme et tranquille, épanoui, comme allant vers la victoire au combat. Pour surmonter sa peur devant le supplice qui l’attend, le martyr ne l’a pas tant supprimée que transformée en l’émotion opposée, la joie. La littérature chrétienne ancienne nous a laissé plu‑ sieurs témoignages similaires décrivant ainsi le martyr. Pour ne citer qu’un exemple, on peut se référer à Irénée, le jeune évêque de Sirmium, en Pannonie, martyrisé en 304. Au préfet Probus, qui lui demande de sacrifier aux dieux, il répond qu’il ne sacri‑ fie qu’au Dieu unique. Soumis à la torture, les femmes présentes le supplient d’agréer à la demande du préfet et de prendre sa jeunesse en pitié. Mais il s’obstine, «emporté par une passion bien plus puissante (meliore cupiditate detentus).»2 Dans ce sens, il s’agit d’une attitude qui est fort éloignée de celle du sage stoï‑ cien, qui a appris à pratiquer l’apatheia, la neutralisation des passions, plutôt que leur absence, dans la conduite de ses affaires dans le monde – la séparation totale entre la passivité du corps et l’activité de l’intellect – qui a réussi à se libérer des émotions et passions. À l’encontre du philosophe, le martyr ne s’efforce pas de supprimer ses émotions, mais se situe, au contraire, dans un paroxysme émotionnel.3 1   Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité, 18.1; je cite d’après l’édition et traduction de J. Amat, Passion de Perpétue et Félicité, suivi des Actes (SC 417; Paris, 1996), 164 – 165. Je tiens à remercier J. Bremmer pour sa lecture critique d’une première version de cet essai. 2   Martyrdom of Irenaeus, dans H. Musurillo (éd. trad.), Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford, 1972), 296 – 297. Voir aussi, en particulier pour l’introduction géné‑ rale et les commentaires, A. A. R. Bastiaensen et al. (éds. trads.), Atti e passioni dei martiri (Bologna, 1987). 3   Pour les influences stoïciennes sur la littérature chrétienne ancienne, voir M. Spanneut, Le stoïcisme des Pères de l’Eglise, de Clément de Rome à Clément d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1969; première édition 1957), ainsi que R. Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford, 2000).

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Certains au moins des martyrs chrétiens des premiers siècles, ceux qu’on appelle les martyrs volontaires, se désignaient eux-mêmes aux autorités romaines comme chrétiens, fièrement, sachant pertinemment qu’une telle attitude les condamnait à une mort certaine. Ils représentent un phénomène étrange, qui était déjà reconnu comme tel à l’époque.4 Dans quelle mesure sont-ils des biothanatoi, ceux dont la mort a été violente (biothanēs), une importante catégorie dans la pensée ancienne, même si sa définition n’est pas toujours claire.5 Les officiels romains, d’ailleurs, res‑ taient parfois pantois devant un tel désir suicidaire. Ainsi, C. Arrius Antoninus, gou‑ verneur d’Asie Mineure sous Commode, était incapable de comprendre pourquoi des gens désirant tant la mort ne se jetaient pas dans un précipice, ou ne se pendaient pas, plutôt que de laisser la tâche ingrate aux autorités romaines.6 À Pionios, marty‑ risé à Smyrne au milieu du iiie siècle, on demande, au milieu des supplices qu’il subit pour s’obstiner dans son refus de sacrifier: «Pourquoi aspires-tu a la mort?» Et lui de répondre: «Non à la mort, mais à la vie.»7 De même, certains parmi les premiers penseurs chrétiens (pas tous, certes), tel Clément d’Alexandrie, vers la fin du second siècle, s’opposent à l’idée du martyre volontaire, et le condamnent comme une perversion de la religion vraie. Le martyr volontaire, un phénomène religieux surtout documenté dans l’empire romain, même s’il se reproduisit ailleurs, comme en Andalousie musulmane, exhibe une violence radicale.8 Malgré la pléthore d’études parues, et continuant à paraître, sur les martyrs dans le christianisme des origines, il reste encore aujourd’hui très mal expliqué. On a récemment essayé de comparer les martyrs volontaires au phénomène contemporain des kamikazes, ou hommes (et femmes) bombes, qui, un peu partout dans le monde, mais surtout dans les sociétés islamiques ou à partir d’elles, se font exploser dans l’espoir de tuer avec eux autant de personnes que possibles, semant ainsi la terreur dans la population. Soulignons que le terme arabe pour un tel ter‑ roriste shahīd (pluriel shuhadā’), littéralement «témoin», «martyr», est un calque du terme chrétien, martys en grec et sahed (plural sahadā’) en syriaque. La question est de toute urgence: l’étude d’un phénomène du monde ancien peutelle nous offrir certaines intuitions sur la nature d’un phénomène grave et préoc‑ 4   Voir en particulier l’étude détaillée de C. Butterweck, ‹Martyriumssucht› in der Alten Kirche? Studien zur Dartellung und Deutung frühchristicher Martyrien (Beiträge zur historischen Theolo‑ gie 87; Tübingen, 1995). Cf. A. Birley, «Voluntary Martyrs in the Early Church: Heroes or Heretics?», Cristianesimo nella Storia 27 (2006), 99 – 127; et aussi A. Falcetta, «From Jesus to Polycarp: Reflec‑ tions on the Origins of Christian Martyrdom», Cristianesimo nella Storia 27 (2006), 67 – 98. Voir aussi G. de Ste. Croix, «Voluntary Martyrdom in the Early Church», 152 – 200, dans G. de Ste. Croix, M. Whitby, J. Streeter (éds.), Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2006). 5  Voir Le martyre de Pionios, Prêtre de Smyrne, L. Robert (éd. trad. comm.), avec G. W. Bower‑ sock, C. P. Jones, J. Robert, A. Vaillant (Washington DC, 1994), notes sur 84 – 85. 6  Tertullien, ad Scap. 5; voir G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 1, n. 1 (traduction française: Rome et le martyre, Paris, 2002). 7   Le martyre de Pionios 20.5; éd. par L. Robert, 44 – 45. 8   Voir Butterweck, ‹Martyriumssucht› in der Alten Kirche?, 221 – 224.

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cupant pour les sociétés contemporaines? Et vice-versa, les exemples actuels de «martyrs» volontaires peuvent-ils nous éclairer sur des phénomènes que nous ne pouvons connaître que grâce aux sources? En d’autres mots, l’histoire et l’anthropo‑ logie peuvent-elles ici se prêter secours?9 Un remarquable film de Hany Abu-Assad, Paradise Now (2002), réussit à représenter de façon convaincante le flux d’émotions différentes, et parfois contraires, qui s’emparent de ces jeunes volontaires palestiniens pour des missions suicides en Israël. Dans un article intitulé «The motivation of martyrs: Perpetua and the Palestinians», Jan Bremmer, un excellent historien de la religion dans le monde ancien, a tenté de comparer les deux phénomènes.10 Ecrivant au plus fort de la «deuxième Intifada», quand les autobus explosaient sans répit dans les rues de Jérusalem et d’autres villes israéliennes, l’auteur insiste, à juste titre, sur les conditions politiques – l’occupation des territoires palestiniens – dans lesquelles s’inscrit l’activité des «martyrs». Les profondes frustrations causées par cette occupa‑ tion et les conditions de vie de nombreux palestiniens ne sont certes pas sans attiser la haine et la soif de revanche. Mais nous savons aujourd’hui (et les interrogatoires des «candidats au suicide» n’ayant pas réussi à accomplir leur mission, pour une rai‑ son ou pour une autre, le confirment) que c’est à d’autres sources qu’il faut aller pour expliquer le phénomène. Bremmer n’a pas assez insisté, me semble-t‑il, sur le fait que seules de profondes motivations religieuses peuvent expliquer une telle volonté de mort, accompagnée par la promesse des délices paradisiaques accordés au «martyr». Les atrocités quotidiennes à Bagdad, par exemple, entre chiites et sunnites, sont là pour nous le rappeler: il s’agit avant tout d’un comportement religieux, alimenté par des passions religieuses. Si tel est le cas, la question des émotions chez les martyrs se doit d’être posée dans le cadre du système religieux dans lequel il s’inscrit. Or, on peut affirmer sans forcer les choses, que l’une des grandes contributions du premier christianisme (une contribution qui n’a pas assez retenu l’attention des historiens) fut justement son affirmation de la puissance du paradoxe dans l’expres‑ sion des émotions, et la transformation dialectique qu’il permit des émotions en leur contraire.11 La souffrance et la mort du Christ, homme-dieu, résument cette puis‑ sance accordée aux expériences paradoxales dans les débuts même de la nouvelle foi, une puissance reconnue, et utilisée, par Paul. Source de vie éternelle, la mort du

 9   Voir à ce sujet G. Nicolas, Du don rituel au sacrifice suprême (Paris, 1996), qui offre une pers‑ pective anthropologique sur les «martyrs-suicides» contemporains et la violence fondatrice des identités politiques. 10   J. Bremmer, «The Motivation of the Martyrs: Perpetua and the Palestinians», dans B. Luchesi, K. von Stuckrad (éds.), Religion im kulturellen Diskurs: Festschrift für Hans G. Kippenberg zu seinem 65. Geburtstag / Religion in Cultural Discourse. Essays in Honor of Hans G. Kippenberg on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Berlin, New York, 2004), 534 – 554. Le texte original de ce chapitre a été publié en 2010. 11   Voir A. Samellas, Alienation: The Experience of the Eastern Mediterranean (50 – 600 a.d.) (Bern, New York, 2010). Je remercie l’auteure pour m’avoir permis de lire cette étude remarquable avant sa publication.

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Christ transforme la tristesse du croyant en joie, et les tribulations présentes ne sont que l’annonce de la joie éternelle à venir, ainsi que l’affirme I Pierre : «C’est là ce qui fait votre joie, quoique maintenant, puisqu’il le faut, vous soyez attristés pour un peu de temps par diverses épreuves, afin que l’épreuve de votre foi, plus précieuse que l’or périssable (qui cependant est éprouvé par le feu), ait pour résultat la louange, la gloire et l’hon‑ neur, lorsque Jésus-Christ apparaîtra.»12

Une telle juxtaposition de tristesse présente et joie future se retrouve certes dans toute la tradition eschatologique hébraïque dont hérite le premier christianisme. Ce der‑ nier, cependant, grâce surtout à la particularité de la personne de Jésus-Christ, et à la réalisation présente de l’attente eschatologique, donne une puissance nouvelle à cette juxtaposition. C’est maintenant hic et nunc, grâce à la foi en la personne de JésusChrist, que la tristesse est transformée en joie. La persécution des premiers chrétiens, perçue par eux comme leur permettant, mutatis mutandis, de revivre la Passion de Jésus, elle-même devient donc, dès les débuts du christianisme, l’occasion pour eux de se réjouir de l’inversion totale des valeurs, de la rupture radicale avec le monde présent. Nietzsche avait bien perçu la force de cette transformation des valeurs, qu’il abhorrait. Dans le monde romain où la nouvelle religion reste jusqu’en 312 religio illicita, choisir la mort équivaut à une mimēsis de la passio Christi. Ainsi, pour Pionus et ses compagnons, accepter le martyre signifie la promesse d’une joie éternelle.13 Dans Rome et le martyre, Glen W. Bowersock proposa de considérer le martyre chrétien comme un phénomène nouveau, ne pouvant être compris que dans le contexte urbain sous l’empire romain, sans véritables antécédents juifs ou païens. Il rejetait ainsi la conception traditionnelle voyant dans le martyre chrétien l’héritier direct de la tradition martyr logique juive depuis la révolte maccabéenne.14 On a pu à juste titre s’étonner d’une telle approche, et penser qu’elle équivaut à dénier au chris‑ tianisme ses racines juives.15 Et pourtant, l’intuition de Bowersock souligne ce que le martyre chrétien, en particulier le martyre volontaire, a d’original. Même si les mar‑ tyrs juifs annoncent les martyrs chrétiens et semblent leur offrir un parallèle naturel, ces derniers agissent dans le cadre d’une théologie bien particulière, et leur effort vers l’imitatio Christi ne trouve pas d’équivalent dans la tradition juive.16 12   I Pierre 1:1 – 6; voir W. Nauck, «Freude im Leiden: zum Problem einer urchristlichen Verfol‑ gungstradition», Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 46 (1955), 68 – 80. 13  Voir Martyre de Pionios, 7.5, 24, 37. Cf. J. Perkins, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era (Londres, New York, 1995), ch. 1: «Death as a Happy Ending», 15 – 40. 14   L’étude classique est W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus (Oxford, 1965). Pour une excellente étude comparative du phénomène, incluant une anthologie, voir J. W. van Henten et F. Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity (Londres, New York, 2002). 15   Voir par exemple le compte rendu de Martyrdom and Rome par J. W. Halporn dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Avril, 1996). 16   Les différences profondes entre traditions martyrologiques juives et chrétiennes n’empêchent certes pas de reconnaitre à la fois l’influence capitale des premières sur les secondes, et aussi leurs relations réciproques. D. Boyarin, dans Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity

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Par ailleurs, on peut comparer les martyrs chrétiens aux quelques excentriques dont nos sources décrivent l’immolation publique, dans une mise en scène théâtrale, tel le faux prophète Pérégrin si bien décrit par Lucien de Samosate.17 De même, Dion Cassius rapporte le cas d’un philosophe indien, arrivé avec une ambassade à Athènes, sous Auguste, et initié aux mystères d’Eleusis, qui, «afin de préserver à son maximum sa joie de vivre» s’étant oint, sauta en riant dans un bûcher funéraire, «selon la coutume de son pays». Malgré le rire du brahmane au moment de son immolation, ce phénomène n’est pas vraiment l’équivalent du martyre chrétien.18 Bowersock a bien mis l’accent sur la nouveauté radicale du martyr volontaire chrétien, mais sans pouvoir vraiment l’expliquer. Cette difficulté vient peut-être du fait qu’il n’a pas assez souligné le contexte religieux des martyrs chrétiens, qui seul permet de mieux comprendre ce phénomène étrange.19 C’est à cela que je vou‑ drais ici accorder mon attention. En se demandant il y a une génération, à propos de certains phénomènes d’encratisme radical dans le premier monachisme chrétien, «d’où pouvait bien provenir toute cette folie?», E. R. Dodds avait noté la nouvelle inten‑ sité du sentiment religieux sous les premiers siècles de l’Empire.20 On peut affirmer que si les chrétiens ne furent pas les premiers, ou les seuls, à exprimer cette nouvelle intensité, il semble bien qu’ils surent, mieux que d’autres, la cultiver. Si les martyrs chrétiens, en particulier, représentent un phénomène sui generis, c’est parce qu’ils représentent, tout simplement, une nouvelle forme de religion. Dans un ouvrage récent, j’ai tenté d’élucider certains aspects de cette nouvelle perception de la reli‑ gion, en proposant de voir dans «la fin des sacrifices», l’abandon, dans l’antiquité tar‑ dive, des sacrifices animaux comme étant au cœur même de toute praxis religieuse. Dans le monde religieux des premiers siècles de notre ère, où les sacrifices repré‑ and Judaism (Stanford, 1999), est conscient de ces relations qu’il exploite, mais la rigueur de son argument laisse à désirer. Voir en particulier son chapitre 4, 93 – 126. Sur la martyrologie dans la littérature rabbinique, voir aussi R. S. Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 112; Tübingen, 2005). Cf. S. Goldstein, Suicide in Rabbinic Literature (Hoboken, NJ, 1989), ch. 6, «Suicide as an Act of Mar‑ tyrdom», 41 – 50. 17   On a beaucoup écrit sur Pérégrin. Voir, tout récemment, J. Bremmer, «Peregrinus’ Christian Career», dans H. Ausloos, B. Lemmelijn, M. Vervenne (éds.), Florilegium Lovaniense: Studies in Septuagint and Textual Criticism in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 224; Louvain, Paris, 2008), avec bibliographie. 18   Dion Cassius 54.9.10; cf. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 66. Pour Lucien, je me réfère à son The Passing of Peregrinus dans Lucian, Works, V (LCL), 1 – 27. Notons que selon la tradition indienne, une veuve qui désire s’immoler sur le bûcher funéraire de son mari afin de devenir sati est censée le faire avec enthousiasme. 19   Voir G. G. Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice: les mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005), 133 sqq. où je suggère que la perception du martyre comme sacrifice (une perception impos‑ sible tant que des sacrifices journaliers étaient offerts au Temple de Jérusalem) renforce l’intuition de Bowersock sur la différence profonde entre martyrs juifs de l’époque maccabéenne et martyrs chrétiens. 20   E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge, 1965).

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sentent encore, à travers l’empire romain, la norme religieuse (même si, dans le cas du judaïsme après la destruction du Temple de Jérusalem en 70, cette norme ne peut être appliquée), la conception chrétienne du sacrifice de Jésus-Christ, avec ses vertus expiatoires, représente une exception. Dès ses débuts, le christianisme représente une religion qui ne peut être appelée sacrificielle que de façon métaphorique. Au cœur de la liturgie chrétienne, on trouve l’anamnesis, la re-présentation, du seul sacrifice véritable, celui du Fils unique de Dieu, mort en assumant les péchés des hommes, et ressuscité, une fois pour toutes, et ayant offert à tous (ou au moins à tous ceux qui croient en lui) la victoire sur la mort et la vie éternelle. La liturgie chrétienne répète donc, même si le sang est vin et la chair est pain, le sacrifice du Fils de Dieu. Or le martyr, qui accepte volontairement la mort, assume ainsi une adéquation au sort de Jésus-Christ, effectue l’imitatio Christi de la façon la plus concrète possible. Il devient donc lui-même, ainsi, le sacrifice.21 Ainsi Irénée, l’évêque de Sirius, auquel référence a déjà été faite: au préfet qui lui ordonne de sacrifier, il répond: «c’est par la confession de ma foi que je sacrifie à Dieu, à qui j’ai toujours sacrifié».22 En refusant de sacrifier à des démons, Irénée est conscient du fait qu’il se condamne à mort, et s’adresse ainsi au préfet: «Je serai heureux si tu me forces à partager les souffrances de mon Seigneur».23 La torture et la mort qui l’attendent, Irénée les voit donc comme l’occasion de pratiquer l’imitatio Christi. À ce sujet, l’historien de l’art Jas Elsner a bien montré comment l’iconographie romaine des premiers siècles présente le martyre comme un sacrifice animal.24 Mais le martyre est un sacrifice humain, pas un sacrifice animal. Or s’il y a dans le monde romain un limes spirituel, séparant civilisation de barbarie, c’est bien le sacrifice humain. Dans le monde romain, le martyr chrétien, acceptant sa mort avec joie, plu‑ tôt qu’avec sérénité, pouvait donc apparaitre comme un scandale. Depuis l’Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice d’Hubert et de Mauss (1899) et la Thémis de Jane Harrison (1912), on reconnait l’importance de l’acquiescement de l’animal sacrificiel dans les systèmes sacrificiels du monde ancien. L’esprit d’une victime non consentante, en effet, chercherait vengeance. Ainsi que l’écrit Jean-Pierre Vernant, «Il ne suffit pas que l’animal soit, d’un bout à l’autre, conduit sans violence, sans lien, sans qu’on la force, de son plein gré; la bête est aussi censée donner par un mouvement de tête ou un frisson du corps son assentiment au coup qui va l’at‑ teindre; à la limite elle se précipite elle-même dans le feu sacrificiel».25 21

  Voir le chapitre précédent pour développements supplémentaires.   Sacrificio per bonam confessionem Deo meo, cui semper sacrificavi, dans Passio Sancti Irenaei 2.4 (éd. Musurillo, 294 – 295). 23   Gaudeo si feceris ut domini mei passionibus particeps inveniar, dans Passio Sancti Irenaei 2.3. 24   J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge, 1995), ch. 2, 157 sq. 25   J.‑P. Vernant, «Théorie générale du sacrifice et mise à mort dans la thusia grecque», dans Le  sacrifice dans l’antiquité (Genève, 1981), 1 – 39, en particulier  7. Voir C. Barton, «Honor and Sacred­ness», dans M. Cormack (éd.), Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion (Oxford, 2002), 38. 22

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La lecture des Actes des martyrs chrétiens dans le contexte des attitudes religieuses du monde ancien s’impose. Ainsi, La Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité nous présente les martyrs «forcés à revêtir un costume, pour les hommes celui des prêtres de Saturne, pour les femmes celui des prêtresses de Cérès».26 Le martyr est ainsi déguisé, un peu comme le pharmakos dans la cité ancienne, un pauvre homme qu’on revêtait de vête‑ ment somptueux, ou sacrés, avant de l’immoler au nom de la cité tout entière – un peu comme Jésus lui-même, roi des juifs, est crucifié avec sa couronne grotesque.27 La force que tire le martyr de son acceptation de la mort provient d’une trans‑ formation profonde des structures psychologiques, qui n’a pas été assez soulignée. Aline Rousselle, à ce sujet, parle des «coupures anthropologiques» de l’antiquité tar‑ dive.28 Dès ses débuts, le christianisme insiste sur le fait que ce qui se passe après la mort est infiniment plus important que les événements de cette vie terrestre. Même si les chrétiens ne sont pas les seuls à affirmer l’importance de la vie post mortem, ils le font de façon plus radicale que tout autre groupe religieux. Il s’agit ici d’une véritable révolution psychologique, peut-être de la plus radicale des révolutions psy‑ chologiques dans l’histoire. C’est cette transformation historique de la psyché qui à la fois permet et souligne l’insistance des chrétiens pour lesquels accepter la mort, c’est choisir la vraie vie. S’il y a une histoire de la psyché, il y a aussi une histoire des émotions. Et c’est dans ce chapitre capital de l’histoire des émotions que nous devons situer le martyr volontaire chrétien. Relisons donc certains textes clefs. Glen Bowersock a insisté, à juste titre, sur la fréquence avec laquelle les récits marty‑ rologiques mentionnent joie rayonnante, sourires, et même rire chez les chrétiens prêts à subir le martyre.29 De même, Jan Bremmer donne plusieurs exemples où les martyrs expriment leur joie face au supplice et à la mort imminente. Ainsi Perpétue et ses com‑ pagnons, martyrisés, très probablement, dans le cirque de Carthage, le 7 mai 203, se réjouissent à l’idée d’obtenir une part des souffrances du Seigneur30. De même, Carpe, probablement martyrisé sous Marc-Aurèle, sourit alors qu’on le cloue à sa croix. Quand 26   Perpétue et Félicité 18.4; voir à ce sujet K. Coleman, «Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments», Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 44 – 73. 27   Sur le pharmakos, voir J. N. Bremmer, «Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece», dans R. Buxton (éd.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (Oxford, 2000), 271 – 293. Isidore de Séville note (Etymologiae VII.11 De Martyribus) qu’Etienne, le Protomartyr, a pour nom couronne: Martyrum primus in Novo Testamento Stephanus fuit, qui Hebraeo sermone interpretature norma . . . Cette étymologie étrange peut être expliquée de la façon suivante: kelal (kaf, lamed, lamed), hébreu pour «norme», s’écrit avec les mêmes consonnes que kalil (kaf, lamed, yod, lamed), «couronne». Je remercie Isabelle Heullant-Donat pour avoir attiré mon attention sur ce texte. 28   A. Rousselle, La  contamination spirituelle: science, droit et religion dans l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 1998), 281 – 295. 29   G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 59 – 60. 30   J. N. Bremmer, «Perpetua and Her Diary: Authenticity, Family and Vision», dans W. Ameling (éd.), Märtyrer und Märtyrerakten (Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium, 6; Stuttgart, 2002), 77 – 120, en particulier 94 – 95. Parmi d’autres études récentes de ce texte fondamental, citons au moins B. D. Shaw, «The Passion of Perpetua», Past and Present 139 (1993), 3 – 45; E. Ronsse, «Rhetoric of Mar‑ tyrs: Listening to Saints Perpetua and Felicitas», Journal of Early Christian Studies 14 (2006), 283 – 327.

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on l’interroge sur le sens de ce rire étrange (Quid risisti?), il répond: «J’ai vu la gloire du Seigneur et en ai été heureux, car maintenant, je suis libre de vous et n’ai plus part à vos péchés».31 De même, Agathonice se jette avec joie (agalliomene) sur le bûcher32. Cette joie de mourir est en fait une joie de vivre – de vivre la vie éternelle. Ainsi, Apollonius répond au proconsul Perennis, qui l’interroge: «Je suis heureux de vivre (hēdeōs men zō), Perennis, mais je n’ai pas peur de la mort, grâce à mon amour de la vie. Il n’y a rien de plus précieux que la vie – la vie éternelle, j’entends – qui est l’im‑ mortalité de l’âme ayant bien vécu sur terre».33 On peut détecter ici l’expression hel‑ lénique de valeurs chrétiennes. Pionios, de même, répond à ceux qui lui demandent de sacrifier, par amour de la vie: «Moi aussi, je dis qu’il est bon de vivre, mais ce que nous désirons est encore meilleur. Oui, la lumière, mais la vraie lumière. Oui, certes, tout cela est bon. Nous n’avons pas le goût de la mort, nous ne détestons pas les œuvres de Dieu, et nous ne fuyons pas; mais c’est la supériorité d’autres grands biens qui nous fait mépriser ceux-ci, qui sont des pièges».34

Comme ce texte le montre, le paradoxe de l’acceptation joyeuse de la mort n’est qu’une illusion: c’est à l’idée de la vie éternelle qui lui est promise que le martyr se réjouit. Sa foi lui permet de voir ce que les païens ne savent pas reconnaître, eux qui, sacrifiant aux idoles, restent pris dans leur rets. Ainsi, c’est la promesse non seule‑ ment de vie éternelle, mais d’une entrée immédiate au paradis céleste, qui permet au martyr de se réjouir en courant à la mort: «. . . c’est avec joie, pas avec peur, qu’ils vinrent au lieu du martyre» ainsi nous sont présentés Montan et Lucius.35 Si la peur est transformée en joie, et la mort terrestre en vie céleste, ne nous éton‑ nons pas si le martyr nous est présenté comme ne souffrant pas lors du martyre. Ainsi, dans ces mêmes Actes de Montan et Lucius (probablement martyrisés à Car‑ thage en 259), Flavien est rempli de joie (exinde iam gaudens) dès la sentence pro‑ noncée, certain maintenant de son martyre. Dans sa joie, il dicte ses visions: «Voici la vision que j’ai eue quand notre évêque Cyprien était notre seul martyr. Je crus avoir demandé à Cyprien si le coup de grâce était douloureux; en tant que futur martyr, je voulais recevoir son conseil sur comment surmonter la douleur. Sa réponse fut: ‹C’est un autre corps qui souffre quand l’âme est aux cieux. Le corps ne ressent absolument rien quand l’esprit est entièrement absorbé par Dieu›.»36

Je propose d’appeler le phénomène remarquable décrit ici un «docétisme inversé». De même que certains parmi les premiers chrétiens, pour échapper au paradoxe du 31

  Acts of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice, 4 (éd. Musurillo, 32 – 33); cf. Bremmer, art. cit., 95.   Acts of Carpus . . . 36 (éd. Musurillo, 28 – 29). 33   Act of Apollonius, 30 (éd. Musurillo, 98 – 99). 34   Pionios, 5.4 – 5 (éd. Robert 24, 36). 35   . . . ad passionis locum cum gaudio et sine pauore venerant, dans Acts of Montanus and Lucius 13 (éd. Musurillo, 226 – 227). 36   Alia caro patitur cum animus in caelo est. nequaquam corpus hoc sentit, cum se Deo tota mens devovit, dans Acts of Montanus and Lucius, 21 (éd. Musurillo, 234 – 235). 32

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Messie (ou d’un Messie divin) ayant souffert, avaient imaginé que Jésus n’avait pas vraiment été crucifié (de même qu’Isaac, attaché sur l’autel par son père, n’avait pas été sacrifié, et qu’un bélier lui avait été substitué: Genèse 22). Les racines et la nature du docétisme, l’une des toutes premières hérésies, ne sont pas de notre propos pré‑ sent. Notons toutefois que les tendances docétismes et gnostiques dans le christia‑ nisme ancien semblent souvent se superposer, et qu’il est pratiquement impossible de tracer une limite nette entre les deux. Chez certains penseurs gnostiques, tel Basi‑ lide, il semble bien que la tendance docétisme ait été liée au rejet du martyre: si JésusChrist lui-même n’a pas vraiment souffert sur la croix, il n’y a pas de raison pour que les chrétiens offrent aux puissances démoniaques qui dominent ce monde le plaisir de leur faire souffrir le martyre. Ainsi, ces penseurs gnostiques recommandent aux chrétiens, quand ils n’ont pas le choix, de renier leur foi aux autorités impériales, ou d’accepter de sacrifier aux idoles, afin de sauver leur vie. Une telle attitude, qui est bien connue, sous le nom de taqqyya, dans la tradition shi‘ite, ne provoqua pas seu‑ lement l’approbation. Plus haut, j’ai étudié divers aspects du docétisme, en essayant de cerner les racines grecques et juives du phénomène.37 Je me suis arrêté, en particulier, à cer‑ tains textes gnostiques décrivant le Christ comme riant aux cieux, en voyant l’erreur des archontes, croyant l’avoir crucifié alors que c’est son sosie, le pauvre Simon de Cyrène, qui souffre à sa place sur la croix. Mon argument portait en partie sur ce rire du Christ, l’identifiant à Isaac (ytzḥaq, il rira). Le rire du Christ, dans ces textes et traditions gnostiques, trouve son écho dans le rire éternel promis par le salut. «Parlant au peuple, Pionios dit: ‹Si je pouvais vous persuader de devenir chrétiens!› Mais eux éclatèrent de rire très fort, en disant: ‹Tu ne peux pas nous faire brûler vivants›. Pionios dit: ‹Il est bien pire de brûler après sa mort›. Comme Sabine souriait, le néocore et ses gens dirent: ‹Tu ris (gelas)?› Elle répondit: ‹Si Dieu le veut, oui; car nous sommes chrétiens; or tous ceux qui croient au Christ sans doute aucun riront dans une joie éternelle (gelasousin en charai aidioi)›. [Ils lui dirent: ‹Toi, tu vas subir ce que tu ne veux pas; car celles qui ne sacrifient pas sont expo‑ sées au bordel›. Elle répondit: ‹Dieu saint y pourvoira›].»38

Une telle attitude ne peut que convaincre les juges (et la majorité du public) que ces candidats au suicide sont des fous. Quand le proconsul qui interroge Pionios apprend que ce dernier enseigne les chrétiens, il lui demande: «Étais-tu maître de folie (tēs mōrias didaskalos es)?» Réponse: «De piété».39 La même insistance sur le mépris des martyrs pour la souffrance physique, un mépris souligné par leur joie et leur rire, se retrouve dans Les martyrs de Palestine, ou Eusèbe de Césarée célèbre les martyrs des persécutions de Dioclétien, au début du ive siècle, juste avant la paix de l’Eglise. Quand on ordonne à Procope de sacrifier, «le saint martyr de Dieu éclata de rire en se moquant de ses paroles». Pour Agapius 37

  Voir chapitres sept et huit ci-dessus.   Pionios, 7.3 – 6 (éd. Robert 24 – 25, 37). 39   Pionios 19.6 – 7 (éd. Robert 31, 43). 38

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de Gaza, de même, c’est «avec un esprit joyeux» qu’il accepte sa sentence.40 Et voici une description de martyrs sur le bûcher: «Et quand ils furent apportés aux flammes, ils se jetèrent dans elles sans peur, se consacrant eux mêmes, comme quelque chose de plus acceptable que tout encens ou oblation, et présen‑ tèrent à Dieu, le roi de tous, leur corps, comme une offre de paix, meilleure que les sacrifices».41

Dans un ouvrage important, Richard Sorabji accorde un chapitre au passage de l’idéal stoïcien de l’apatheia, ou éradication des émotions, aux théologiens chrétiens de l’an‑ tiquité. Il traite, en particulier, de Clément d’Alexandrie, le premier des penseurs patristiques à avoir subi une profonde influence stoïcienne. Pour Clément, la libéra‑ tion totale des émotions n’est possible qu’après la venue du Christ, la seule personne à avoir été complètement étrangère à elles. Clément prêche l’apatheia aux chrétiens, avec toutefois deux exceptions: ni l’amour (en particulier l’amour de Dieu), ni la pitié (un héritage de la théorie aristotélicienne de la catharsis) ne détruisent l’apatheia de principe.42 Si Clément admire les sages stoïciens, c’est parce qu’ils savent que l’âme reste indifférente (il utilise ici le concept stoïcien d’adiaphoron) à ce qui arrive au corps.43 Pour Clément, donc, l’amour est en son essence profondément différent de la peur, une émotion produite par la Loi.44 Dans le quatrième livre de ses Stromata, Clément offre une longue discussion sur le martyre. Pour lui, le véritable martyr chrétien est le Gnostique, qui a appris à se conduire selon les principes de l’Evangile, un texte éta‑ blissant la psyché sur l’amour, plutôt que sur la peur, comme la Torah, et qui permet donc au véritable chrétien, le Gnostique, d’abandonner famille, richesse et posses‑ sions, afin de mener une vie délivrée des passions.45 Si le véritable martyr est le gnostique, qui témoigne dans sa vie libérée des pas‑ sions et des émotions de Jésus-Christ, Clément n’a pas grande sympathie pour ceux qui, s’offrant à la persécution, deviennent ainsi les complices des persécuteurs. Pour lui, Jésus Christ ne commande ni de fuir la persécution, ni de la rechercher – comme s’il s’agissait ici d’appliquer le concept stoïcien des adiaphora.46 Après Clément, c’est une attitude toute différente, vis-à-vis du martyre qu’affiche Origène. N’oublions pas qu’alors que Clément était un converti, le jeune Origène avait été témoin du martyre de son père, et n’avait lui-même échappé du martyre que de près, lors de la persécution de Septime Sévère.47 Pour Origène, les martyrs, 40

  Martyrs de Palestine I.1 et VI.6.   Ibid., XIII.3. 42  Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind, 384 – 391. 43   Strom. IV.5.19.1. Texte dans O. Stählin (éd.), Clemens Alexandrinus, II, Stromata I – VI (GCS; Leipzig, 1906), 256. 44   Oukoun pathos ho phobos hou gennētikos ho nomos, dans Strom. IV.3.11.1 (éd. Stählin, 252, ll. 5 – 6). 45   . . . dia to aprospathos bioun, dans Strom. IV.15.4 – 5 (éd. Stählin, 255). 46   Strom. IV.10.76 – 77 (éd. Stählin, 282). Cf. A. J. Droge et J. D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Jews and Christians in the Ancient World (San Francisco, 1991), 141 – 144. 47  Eusèbe, Histoire Ecclesiastique, VI.2.5. 41

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dans leur mépris serein de la mort, montrent la voie aux plus faibles, pour les aider à maitriser leur anxiété face à la mort.48 C’est surtout dans son Exhortation au martyre qu’il développe ses idées sur le sujet. Ce texte reflète la tension entre un vocabulaire issu de la tradition stoïcienne qui avait marqué Clément. Les martyrs, imitateurs des sept frères de II Maccabées, appartiennent à une race élue, et savent se dénier eux-mêmes en portant leur croix, et en luttant, en public comme en secret, avec le monde. D’autre part, Origène utilise le vocabulaire stoïcien pour parler de la paix profonde et du calme, du repos, dont jouit le martyr.49 Ce vocabulaire stoïcien laisse croire que le martyr est passé au delà des émotions. Origène aborde d’ailleurs direc‑ tement la question des émotions, en écrivant que le martyr réussit à ne sentir aucune honte en souffrant des indignités honteuses.50 Mais cet «au delà de la honte» n’est pas simplement dû à la suppression des émotions. En effet, c’est parce qu’il sait qu’il va être assis à la droite de Dieu au paradis céleste que le martyr conquiert la honte, un sentiment naturel du point de vue terrestre. Citant ici Jean 15:19, Origène ajoute que celui qui est prêt au martyre, se sait être haï et méprisé par «le monde», justement parce qu’il n’est pas de ce monde.51 On retrouve donc ici, me semble-t‑il, l’inversion des émotions décrite plus haut. Cette lecture est renforcée par le langage métapho‑ rique d’Origène, qui fait encore une fois allusion à Jean (5:24; cf. I Jean 3:14): «Si nous sommes passés de la mort à la vie par notre passage de l’incroyance à la foi, ne soyons pas surpris que le monde nous haïsse».52 On voit donc à quel point l’attitude chrétienne, même quand elle s’efforce de se fonder sur des concepts stoïciens, reste éloignée de l’attitude stoïcienne. Il ne s’agit pas tant de séparer, aussi radicalement que possible, l’âme du corps, des émotions et des passions, mais bien de se séparer, âme et corps, de ce bas-monde, afin d’entrer au paradis céleste. De même, l’attitude du martyr chrétien, fondée sur la croyance en Dieu, est profondément différente de celle du gladiateur, ou du héros romain.53 C’est 48

 Origène, Contra Celsum, III.8.  Origène, Exhortation au martyre, 31. Je  cite d’après la traduction d’H. Chadwick dans J. E. L. Oulton et H. Chadwick, Alexandrian Christianity (Philadelphie, 1954), 386 – 429, ici 413. 50   Ibid., 36 (éd. Oulton et Chadwick, 418). 51   Ibid., 39 (éd. Oulton et Chadwick, 420 – 421). 52   Ibid., 41 (éd. Oulton et Chadwick, 422). 53   Voir C. Straw, «A Very Special Death: Christian Martyrdom in its Classical Context», dans M. Cormack (éd.), Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion (Oxford, 2002), 39 – 57. Sur les gladiateurs, voir en particulier G. Ville, La gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien (Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 245; Rome, 1981). Le chapitre IV, qui traite du sujet du point de vue psychologique, n’apporte pas de parallèles signifi‑ catifs avec les martyrs chrétiens. Voir aussi L. L. Thompson, «The Martyrdom of Polycarp: Death at the Roman Games», Journal of Religion 82 (2002), 27 – 52, qui montre, en se fondant sur le récit du martyre de Polycarpe, à Smyrne en 155, à quel point l’exécution du martyr est intégrée aux jeux de gladiateurs dans le stade. Sur l’unité corps-âme dans la personne chrétienne, voir G. G. Stroumsa, «Caro salutis cardo: Shap­ing the Person in Early Christian Thought», History of Religions 30 (1990), 25 – 50, en français dans G. G. Stroumsa, Savoir et salut (Paris, 1992), 199 – 223. 49

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en pratiquant une inversion radicale des émotions que le martyr réussit ce défi, en fondant la possibilité même d’une telle inversion sur les textes néotestamentaires et l’exemple de Jésus-Christ lui-même. Si la mort est la vraie vie, c’est parce que JésusChrist a vraiment souffert et qu’il est ressuscité. Comme nous l’avons vu, la concep‑ tion docétisme prévient l’acceptation du martyre. C’est la violence du sacrifice divin qui libère des attitudes religieuses qu’on peut appeler enthousiastes, ou fanatiques, et dans lesquelles s’exprime la violence des émotions. Dans les systèmes sacrificiels du monde ancien, violence et émotions étaient contenues, canalisées, et s’exprimaient dans des cadres rituels bien précis. Avec la venue du christianisme et la fin des sacri‑ fices animaux, c’est certes une nouvelle conception de la religion, en même temps qu’un nouveau chapitre dans l’histoire des émotions, qui s’annonce. Avec l’effondre‑ ment du système rituel ancien, c’est la vie même, et la vie paroxystique, jusqu’à la mort, qui remplace le rite, et qui se doit de reproduire le mythe central de la nouvelle religion. La formule classique de l’offrande au dieu, do ut des, reçoit un nouveau sens, radical: c’est la vie et la mort mêmes que le dieu et l’homme échangent. La mort du martyr est le nouveau sacrifice. La nature publique, théâtrale, de cette mort implique un rôle nouveau, que le martyr joue avec toute la violence de ses émotions.

Part II

A New Axial Age? Sacrifice, Intolerance, Manichaeism

11. The End of Sacrifice Revisited In The End of Sacrifice, my short monograph on the religious transformations of late antiquity, I sought to highlight the most dramatic change in religious life in the Christianized Roman Empire, namely, the end to public animal sacrifices.1 For the historian of religions, the end of animal sacrifices as the centerpiece of public reli‑ gion is certainly one of the most important problems at the end of the ancient world. Indeed, the early Christian attitudes to animal sacrifices have attracted considerable scholarly attention of late. The main problem with most of these books, however, is their almost exclusive focus upon Christianity, while ignoring Rabbinic Judaism, a religion born concomitantly with Christianity, and from the very same roots, the Second Temple version of the religion of biblical Israel. From a methodological per‑ spective, such an approach is seriously flawed, as what obtains in Judaism may give us some important clue as to the more general trend in late antique religion. In an essay entitled »›The End of Sacrifice‹ and the Absence of ›Religion‹: The Peculiar Case of India,« the Sanskrit scholar Gerald Larson has sought to take my own thesis as its starting point.2 In this essay, Larson pointed out certain puzzling similarities between the way religion and theology, as we traditionally understand these terms, seem to appear in India in the first centuries of the Christian era. Refer‑ ring to the idea of an »Axial Age« (more or less, around the middle of the first mil‑ lennium b.c.e.), Larson expresses doubts about its significance for India. Larson, then, suggests that one might look at late antiquity as a second »Axial Age,« perhaps even one endowed of more significance than the ›first‹ Axial Age, that heralded by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers.3 A series of major political, cultural, and social changes affected all aspects of life in the Near East as well as around the Mediterranean under the Roman Empire. Religious beliefs and attitudes, in particular, underwent some dramatic transforma‑ 1   See G. G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2009). Original publication, La fin du sacrifice: Mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005). 2   See G. J. Larson, »The End of Sacrifice and the Absence of ›Religion‹: The Peculiar Case of India,« in P. Jackson and A.‑P. Sjödin, eds., Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice: Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece and Beyond (The Study of Religion in a Global Context; Sheffield, 2016), 63 – 85. 3   For a discussion of Jaspers’s idea of Achsenzeit and its impact on the contemporary study of religion, see G. G. Stroumsa, Religion as Intellectual Challenge in the Long Twentieth Century: Selected Essays (Tübingen, 2021), ch. 10: »From the Big Bang to a Secular Age: Robert Bellah and American Approaches to Religion.«

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tions.4 Indeed, those scholars who, rejecting Gibbon’s paradigm of decline and fall, have taught us to look at the Roman Empire in the longue durée, as to a time when new cultural frames were developed, have all insisted on the religious dimensions of late antique creativity. Each in his own way, Henri-Irénée Marrou, E. R. Dodds, Peter Brown, and Robin Lane Fox, have been able to speak of the religious revolution of late antiquity.5 One might argue that our period is no less capital for future develop‑ ments than in Jaspers’ Achsenzeit. In order to do justice to the dramatic nature of the transformations in our period, from, say, Jesus to Muhammad, one can also speak of ›religious mutations‹. By borrowing this metaphor from the field of biology, I intend to highlight the fact that we do not only witness the passage from paganism to Chris‑ tianity (to follow the traditional perception), or that of polytheism to monotheism. Rather, I wish to claim that we can observe nothing less than a transformation of the very concept of religion. To encapsulate the nature of this transformation, one may perhaps speak of »the end of sacrifice,« with reference to the fact that at the time of Jesus, religion meant, for Jews and Greeks alike, the offering of sacrifice, while the situation had changed in some radical ways in the sixth century c.e. But the mul‑ tifaceted nature of this revolution encompassed other areas than the ritual and its transformations. One can also observe a series of transformations: of psychological conceptions, of the place and role of books in religious life, and the passage from an essentially civic to a mainly communitarian nature of religion. One question that has often been asked is that of the nature of these transfor‑ mations: are they Christian by nature, or do they rather reflect the Zeitgeist? Such a question, it seems to me, is fundamentally flawed. The kind of Christianity – or, better, Christianities – that emerge from our period are not quite identical to the Christian beliefs of the early church fathers, and themselves reflect the evolution of Christian beliefs and praxis during those centuries.

I. A New Care of the Self To assess the mutations of religion in late antiquity (late antiquity being here under‑ stood in a very broad sense of the word), one should probably focus first on what happened to the self during our period. Following Pierre Hadot, who had offered 4   The following pages seek to highlight some of the salient points of The End of Sacrifice. For a slightly different version of this article, see my »The End of Sacrifice: Religious Mutations of Late Antiquity,« in Empsuchoi Logoi: Festschrift Pieter van der Horst, ed. M. Misset-van der Weg (Leiden, 2008), 29 – 46. 5   See for instance H.‑I. Marrou, Décadence romaine ou antiquité tardive? IIIe – IVe siècle (Paris, 1977). For Marrou, the new religiosity constituted the main originality of late antiquity. Also: E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge, 1965); R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmonds­ worth, 1986); P. Brown, »Brave Old World« (a review of R. Lane Fox’s book), New York Review of Books (12 March 1987), 27.

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subtle analyses of what he called »spiritual exercises« in the practice of philosophy under the Empire, Michel Foucault sought in his later years to analyze »the care of the self« (epimeleia heautou) among ancient intellectuals.6 For Foucault, the radical denigration of the body among early Christian thinkers and ascetics brought this care of the self to an end. It seems to me, however, that this analysis is flawed in various ways. In particular, the corpus from which Foucault drew his evidence was especially limited (he used primarily texts from Cassian’s interpretation of Egyp‑ tian monasticism). It is true, of course, that he did not have the time to broaden and fully develop his analysis. Even if more time had been granted to him, how‑ ever, he probably would not have been able to offer a convincing analysis of the psychological transformations accompanying the passage from paganism to Chris‑ tianity. This is so, I argue, because of Foucault’s attempt (an attempt he shares with many) to understand this passage as an internal transformation of the Greco-Ro‑ man world, thus ignoring the Jewish dimensions of Christianity. Arnaldo Momi‑ gliano would have been a better guide here, as he recognized the triple matrix of intellectual and religious life under the Empire: Jerusalem, together with Athens and Rome.7 Indeed, the oriental nature of early Christianity often seems to remain undervalued. A crucial psychological transformation occurred in our period, with the new rec‑ ognition that what happened after death was so much more important that what hap‑ pened to one in this life. This transformation, of course, was endowed with a religious nature, and would have far-reaching religious consequences. Think, for instance, of the profound differences between Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and Augustine’s Confessions. Personal eschatology would soon change in radical ways both attitudes to the self and the foundations of ethics. Askēsis, through the constant exercising of which one sought to work upon oneself, became endowed with a new meaning. Askēsis now meant an attempt at re-forming, rather than discovering oneself. Chris‑ tian anthropology was built on certain conceptions, both explicit and implicit, which entailed attitudes quite different from those of both Stoic and Platonic philosophies (the two main schools of thought in our period). These conceptions were directly inherited from the Hebrew Bible (and more precisely, from its Greek translation, the Septuagint). One such conception was the idea (Gen. 1:26) that man had been created in the image of God (homo imago Dei). That usually entailed, in contradis‑ tinction to Platonic thought, a recognition of the intrinsic value of the human body,

6   P. Hadot, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris, 2002), 19 – 74, 313 – 19; M. Foucault, L’herméneutique du sujet: cours au Collège de France 1981 – 1982 (Paris, 2001). 7   See, for instance, his »Religion in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem in the First Century b. c.,« in A. Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews and Christians (Middletown, Conn., 1987), 74 – 91. On Momig­ liano on the history of religions, see G. G. Stroumsa, Religion as Intellectual Challenge in the Long Twentieth Century: Selected Essays (Tübingen, 2021), ch. 9: »Arnaldo Momigliano and the History of Religions.«

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as the nature of man, for most Christian thinkers, encompassed both soul and body. Another was the insistence on God’s transcendence: the whole cosmos had been cre‑ ated by Him ex nihilo. This entailed a refusal to accept the Platonist idea of a real par‑ enthood, or suggeneia, between the human soul and the divine. Although Christian intellectuals accepted for a very long time many of the intellectual assumptions of the Platonists, without recognizing that this would lead them into serious self-con‑ tradictions, they usually stopped short of thinking that the human soul could, thanks to its suggeneia with the divine, reach deification (theōsis) at the end of the ascetical praxis. This praxis, rather, was usually conceived in the terms of an imitatio Christi, leading to sanctification, sometimes through martyrdom. In contradistinction to the askēsis of the philosophers, Christian askēsis (as well as Jewish askēsis) sought more a metanoia (Hebrew teshuva) than an epistrophē, a repentance of one’s sins more than a turning from matter to the divine. In the religious world of late antiquity, one can distinguish different Idealtypen of religious virtuosi. While the priest and the prophet seem to have either disappeared or retreated into the background, the stage is mainly left to the sage, the gnostic and the saint. To be sure, all three characters appear at once in the major religious trends. It stands to reason, however, that the various traditions show different constellations between these Idealtypen. It seems to me that while the Jews hesitate mainly between the figures of the sage and the saint, the main figures for the Christians are those of the saint and the gnostic, while »pagans« value mainly the figures of the sage and the gnostic. For Christians and Jews, the revealed Scriptures entailed a ›dialogical‹ way of deciphering the self through a constant reading of the scriptures (and in particular, of the Psalms). The growth of religious conceptions based on a revealed Book, in the centuries between Jesus and Muhammad, reflects indeed a major transformation of religion.

II. The Rise of the Religions of the Book The first centuries of the Roman Empire witnessed what is probably the most radi‑ cal revolution in the history of the book before Gutenberg. This revolution has two sides. On the one side, the passage from scroll to codex – a passage at first slow and gradual, from the first to the fourth century, except among the Christians, who adopt the codex almost instantaneously – transforms the very appearance and circulation of the book. On the other side, the development of silent reading permits a new atti‑ tude to the book and its contents, and introduces a new, reflexive dignity of the single reader. In a sense, both transformations point to a privatization of reading, to a more personal, and less public, relationship between the reader and the text. Such a privat‑ ization would in its turn permit an almost unbounded spectrum of hermeneutical possibilities. Now, when such a new approach to books is linked to the emphasis on

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a single corpus of texts ennobled as revealed Scripture, it is not difficult to see the dramatic implications of this cultural revolution on religion itself.8 In order to identify and highlight the common denominator of a series of reli‑ gious trends from early Christianity to early Islam, the comparative historian of reli‑ gion Wilfred Cantwell Smith has referred to »the scriptural movement« of late antiq‑ uity.9 Indeed, a series of religious movements appeared in late antiquity throughout the Near East and the Mediterranean which were all identified through their scrip‑ tures. While this view of things has much to commend itself, it does not tell the whole story. Indians and Orphic circles, for instance, had had a long tradition of sacred books, while both Jewish and Zoroastrian scriptures had been redacted much earlier. The Gathas seem to have represented, for perhaps as long as a millennium, a very special case of book: a book preserved orally, in a quite fixed form. (Similarly, the Qur’an seems to have existed, at least for some decades, in purely oral form.) The Gathas would be put in writing only much later, after the Muslim conquest of Iran, when the Zoroastrian community was much weakened and fearing for its identity. For the Rabbinic movement, a strong propensity to move away from the written text of the Bible to oral traditions (the Oral Torah, torah she-be-al-peh) can easily be detected in the first centuries of the Christian era.10 The writing phase among the Jews had taken place earlier, under the Second Commonwealth, when a plethora of works, eventually called ›pseudepigraphical‹ and ›apocryphal‹ books of the Hebrew Bible, had been written. Indeed, the library at Qumran seems to have been very significant. One has calcu‑ lated that only in the ninth century would the library in the Sankt Gallen monastery surpass Qumran in the number of the volumes it held. Their relationship to books represents a major difference between Jews and Christians in late antiquity. Rabbinic Judaism seems to have been satisfied with one, revealed book, remaining therefore ignorant of all other books, preferring oral commentaries (in Talmud and Midrash). The Christians read their books mainly so as to follow Jesus Christ, the supreme exemplar, whose life (and death) one sought to imitate. For the Jews, there was no single biblical figure comparable to that of Jesus for the Christians. The Christians had offered a radical simplification of myth, while the Jews proposed a radical sim‑ plification of the notion of holy text. The Christian ideal of imitatio Christi permitted the development of a puzzling phenomenon: the saint, the holy man, would soon be

 8   I have dealt with aspects of this revolution in G. G. Stroumsa, »Early Christianity: A Religion of the Book?« in M. Finkelberg and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World (Leiden, Boston, 2003), 153 – 73.  9   W. C. Smith, What is Scripture? A Comparative Approach (Minneapolis, 1993). See, further, G. G. Stroumsa, »The Scriptural Movement of Late Antiquity: A Reappraisal,« Journal of Early Christian Studies (2008), 61 – 76. 10   See the most thorough study of Y. Sussmann, »Torah she-be-al-peh peshutah ke-mashma‘ah,« in Y. Sussmann, D. Rosenthal, eds., Mehkerei Talmud (Jerusalem, 2005), 209 – 384.

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described in terms of writing. The Christian saint would soon himself be presented as a book to be deciphered, read, commented upon.11 A puzzling parallelism can be observed in the redaction and canonization process of the Mishna and the New Testament. Both seem to have been edited at roughly the same time: in the eighties of the second century. This synchronization has not been explained, and I suggest it reflects the result of the race, between the now distinct communities, throughout the second century, to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Both communities sought to offer the correct interpretation to the same text, a text that the Christians read in (a Jewish) translation: the Hebrew Bible. In a sense, one can claim that Mishna and New Testament represent two different herme‑ neutical keys to the Bible. The Mishna (in Greek deuterōsis, ›repetition‹) represents, just like the New Testament (kainē diathēkē), the way through which the community can read and understand the true religious meaning of the Bible. The respective reg‑ isters of Mishna and New Testament, of course, reflect the deeply different religious structures of the two religions.12 Among the new religious movements of late antiquity, Manichaeism is perhaps the most fascinating. One deals, here, with a strongly dualistic movement perceiving itself, from the start, as a world religion, based upon revealed scriptures. In various ways, Manichaeism appears as a radicalization of several trends already delineated in early Christianity, and at the same time, as a preview of tendencies usually identified with early Islam. When he invented the locution »religions of the book« in 1873, Max Müller was seeking to modernize and generalize an early Islamic conception. While the concept of »people of the book« (ahl al‑kitāb) does not seem to appear before the Qur’an, Mani himself, around the mid-third century, was well aware of the various scriptural traditions of different religious systems. The first of the Manichaean Kephalaia represents, in this regard, an understudied key text. Mani lists various proph‑ ets – Jesus, Zarathustra, Buddha – who each made the mistake of not carefully com‑ mitting his oral teaching to writing. The distortion of their respective teachings by their followers is the unavoidable consequence of such a mistake. Therefore Mani, in contrast to his predecessors in the long chain of prophecy, took great pains to retain a written version of his message. One can clearly see in the Manichaean Kephalaia a deep fear about falsifications of scriptures, a fear which is also expressed in Jew‑ ish-Christian traditions and in the Qur’an (about the Hebrew scriptures). What is peculiar to Manichaeism, of course, is the total rejection of the Jewish claims, a rejec‑ tion reflected in the absence of Moses from the list of prophets.

11   See, for instance, P. Magdalino, »›What we heard in the Lives of the Saints we have Seen with Our Own Eyes‹: The Holy Man as Literary Text in Tenth-Century Constantinople,« in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. J. Howard-Johnston, P. A. Hayward (Oxford, 1999), 83 – 113. 12   Developments in G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Leiden, Boston, 2005; second ed.), 79 – 91.

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Manichaean rejectionism highlights the close connection, to be broken only by Marcionism, between Judaism and Christianity. Throughout their long polemics with the Jews in late antiquity, Christian authors were not able to deny the advan‑ tage of the Jews had over them: only the latter could read their own writings in the original language. The Church Fathers perceived the Jews as librarii nostri,13 as custodes librorum nostrorum (in Augustine’s phrase),14 and when a mob, encouraged by the local bishop, organized a pogrom, plundering Jewish houses and properties in Minorca, in 418, they took great care to salvage from the flames the Torah scrolls in the synagogue.15 But the evidence is here too scarce to permit significant con‑ clusions. Another evidence of the Christians’ deep ambivalence toward the Hebrew Bible is highlighted in Justinian’s Novella 146, dating from 553. Forbidding the cultic reading of the Bible in Hebrew, Novella 146 reflects the Emperor’s perception of the symbolic power that the Jews derived from their knowledge of the revealed scrip‑ tures’ original language.16 The Christians, who were not bound by cultural, religious, or linguistic traditions, offered a new attitude to religious language. For them, the traduttore was no traditore. On the contrary, the idea of translation, from an archaic to a common language, understood by all and sundry, was of the essence of their religion. The ease with which Christians accepted, encouraged, and used translations of their scriptures has no parallel in the ancient world, before the Manichaeans, who would even offer a more radical version of this approach. Their disregard for archaic language and hier‑ atic forms of expression is also reflected in Christian polemics with Hellenic intel‑ lectuals about sublime language versus sermo humilis. Christian intellectuals insisted, against their Hellenic counterparts, that their religion was the same for philosophers and fishermen, a fact that explained and justified the gospels’ low language. While Emperor Julian, in the second half of the fourth century, condemns and derides the Christians for the mediocre literary level of their Scriptures, his very polemics show the extent to which even he was influenced by the Christian conception of scrip‑ tures. To give another example, when Proclus, the leader of the Academy, states that he would seek to retain, on a desert island, only Plato’s Timaeus and the Chaldean Oracles, he too shows the deep influence of the concept of scriptures. Together with its marked lack of emphasis on the power inherent in original language, the Chris‑ 13  Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 56.9 (PL 36, col. 666). As pointed out by H. Cancik-Linde‑ maier, librarii nostri refers to the Jews as to slaves in charge of the Christians’ books. See her »Eras‑ mus von Rotterdam und die christliche ›Judenhass‹ – ein Überblick,« in R. Schöppner, ed., Erasmus von Rotterdam – Humanist nicht Nationalist (Aschaffenburg, 2020), 113 – 151. 14  Augustine, Sermo 5.5 (PL 38, col. 57). 15  See Severus of Minorca, Letter on the Conversion of the Jews, ed. and trans. S. Bradbury (Oxford, 1996). 16   For the text of the Novella, see A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, Jerusalem, 1987), 402 – 411. See, further, L. Rutgers, »Justinian’s Novella 146, between Jews and Chris‑ tians,« in R. Kalmin and S. Schwartz, eds., Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire (Leuven, 2003), 385 – 407.

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tians, more than any other religious movement, were willing to reject the idea of an oral, esoteric tradition existing side by side with their scriptures. This rejection, which fitted the ethos of Christianity as offering salvation equally to all, was cer‑ tainly enhanced by the fight against such esoteric traditions embedded in the gnostic trends.17 The Christianization of the Empire entailed the subtle transformation of the educational system. Before the end of the fourth century, the Christians learned to teach those texts of Greek mythology to which they had hitherto been so vehemently opposed. Hellenic culture would now be transmitted thanks to its former enemies, the Christians. In order to accomplish this, Christian intellectuals were led to apply to the Hellenic tradition a set of hermeneutic rules they had developed in order to appropriate for themselves the Israelite scriptures. To borrow as a metaphor Crick and Watson’s description of the structure of DNA, one could perhaps speak here of a »double helix«. Christian thinkers sought to find a series of similarities and paral‑ lels between the two cultural systems of Athens and Jerusalem. It is this double helix which stands at the root of Christian culture, which was first elaborated in late antiq‑ uity, and which informed European culture to the modern times. Christian culture, then, constituted itself, in both the east and the west, through slipping from biblical to cultural hermeneutics.18 The monasteries are the locus classicus where this work on books was achieved, a complex effort involving reading, writing, and interpreting. The complex cultural system developed in the monasteries was based upon the cen‑ tral figure of Jesus Christ – a figure around which all mythology revolved. Similarly, the libraries were built around the one book of Scripture, a book which contained, if properly understood, all secrets and all wisdom. Similar to the Rabbinic Sages, who, borrowing the Greek concept of paideia, had transformed it into their central religious value, Christian intellectuals of late antiquity succeeded, to a great extent, in applying to the Greek intellectual tradition and to their own scriptures the same set of hermeneutical rules. In both cases, such attitudes entailed quite a new place of, and role for, books in religious life and thought.

III. Transformations of Ritual We have seen so far how certain deep psychological and cultural transformations in the Roman world at once permitted and imposed a radical re-structuring of the very idea of ritual. The rise of Scriptures as the very backbone of religious movements transformed attitudes toward religious stories, or myths. It stands to reason that a similar transformation of ritual should be discerned, as all religions hinge upon the 17

  See Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom, passim.   See G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999), 27 – 43. 18

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two functions of myth making (or telling) and ritual action. To a new conception of historia sacra should correspond a new kind of religious praxis. In chapter 9, above, I argued that the traditional distinction between polytheistic and monotheistic religions is not always particularly useful from a heuristic point of view. In late antiquity, the idea of sacrifice seems to be a more salient category in order to classify religious perceptions. In some sense, Judaism and Christianity reflect here rather different sensibilities, perhaps better characterized by their differ‑ ent perception of sacrifice. While the Rabbis saw themselves, to a great extent, as the inheritors of the prophets’ reluctance toward blood sacrifices, the Church Fathers perceived Christianity as a sacrificial religion, in which Christ’s sacrifice represented an incentive to martyrdom as imitatio Christi. In that sense, Christian martyrdom reflects a radical change in the conception of sacrifice, a fundamental break in the very nature of religion. One also finds in early Christian literature, like in Rabbinic texts, a metaphor‑ ical use of sacrifice: Clement of Rome, already, refers to »a contrite heart« as the true sacrifice, whereas the fourth-century Euchites, or Messalians, will develop, as in Qumran, a theory and practice of continual prayer – one which alludes to »perpetual sacrifice« in the Jerusalem Temple – in order to keep Satan away. More than the Rabbis, the Church Fathers were quite aware of the novelty of their religion and of the originality of their thought. This awareness is reflected, for instance, in their ability to offer what one can call »histories of religion,« theses about the evolution of religious doctrines and practices, especially sacrifice, from the earliest times. Similar conceptions are much rarer among Jewish thinkers, and only Maimonides, in the twelfth century, will develop a full-fledged historical and com‑ parative theory of sacrifice, a theory which retains traces of a Christian influence.19 To conclude these brief reflections on the transformation of ritual, one should perhaps point out once more the deep ambiguity of sacrifice. Transformed, reinter‑ preted, metaphorized, memorized, it seems never to die out quite completely. Late antiquity experienced the end of public sacrifices as the core of religious praxis, but that did not spell the end to the very idea of sacrifice.

IV. From Civic Religion to Communitarian Religion The end of sacrifices as a central, public religious practice, in late antiquity, led to a major crisis in the conception of ritual purity. From the prophets of Israel, through Jesus and then Mani, the value of the ancient ways of re-establishing ritual purity had been seriously questioned.20 The abandonment of the temples, and often their 19   See chapter 13, below; see further G. G. Stroumsa, »John Spencer and the Roots of Idolatry,« History of Religions 40 (2001), 1 – 23. 20   See my Barbarian Philosophy, 268 – 281.

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destruction through fits of iconoclastic violence, raised other questions regarding religious identity, which had usually been centered around the shrines. Traditionally, the temples had been built on central, clearly visible places, either within or without cities. Now the oikoumenē was being emptied its temples, as it were, and in their place, churches were being built. ›In their place‹, but not always in quite the same place. Various studies of the transformation of the urban texture in late antiquity show that churches were much more dispersed, in the different neighborhoods of the cities, and not necessarily at their center. Moreover, in most religious cults of the ancient world, the ritual was usually performed in the open, in public (Mithraic cult represents here a striking exception), while synagogue and church ritual was almost entirely performed inside, for the community of the faithful. A central aspect of this ritual was the reading, singing, translating, and interpreting of scriptural passages, a fact that imposed a closed building, usually of rather limited dimensions. The new forms of ritual entailed, then, new forms of cultic buildings. Such concrete transfor‑ mations of religious life, and the new importance of religious communities, permit a better understanding of the nature of the changes than E. R. Dodds’ talk about a new spirituality. While Christian authors usually insisted with pride upon the novelty of their reli‑ gion, this novelty was precisely what the traditionalists feared most. Thus, Emperor Julian expressed his wish to avoid novelty altogether, but foremost, in the religious domain. This very expression of Julian’s fear reflects the fact that such deep changes were precisely occurring at the time. While civic rituals, by definition open to all, were meant to reaffirm collective identity, the new forms of identity that were becoming prevalent were by nature religious, and open only to the members of a given religious community – in contradistinction to the society at large. As argued by John Scheid, a  deep transformation of religious practice had occurred in Rome since the end of the civil wars, one that was amplified by Roman expansionism, and then by the consolidation of the Empire. With the growth of the cities, the direct participation of all citizens in the cult was eventually made impos‑ sible, and the cult became the business of its representatives. Hence, a more abstract religion, which had not yet changed in nature, became more internalized: for many, religious participation was now intellectual, done through reading. Scheid, who sees here a praeparatio evangelica of sorts, suggests a parallel with the Jewish communi‑ ties from the diaspora, which had learned to function without the Jerusalem Tem‑ ple.21 This is certainly true, although one should be careful not to overemphasize the differences between the Jewish communities in Palestine and in the diaspora. The term, »scriptural communities,« coined by Brian Stock to describe medieval phe‑ nomena, is applicable in the ancient world to philosophers and Jews alike. Such com‑ 21   J. Scheid, »Religione e società,« in E. Gabba, A. Schiavone, eds., Storia di Roma, 4. Caratteri e morfologie (Turin, 1989), 631 – 659. See, further, J. Scheid, Religion et piété à Rome (Paris, 2001; first ed. 1985), 119 ff.

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munities were found in Palestine as well as in the diaspora, around the batei midrash, the synagogues where the scriptures were interpreted. Psycho-sociological analysis, then, can bring us to a better understanding of the nature of the new religiosity emerging in the Roman Empire: the forms of ritual, focusing around scriptures to be read and interpreted, and offering the basis to calls for personal repentance from sin. Already in the second and third centuries, the willingness of urban elites to retain the traditional values of the old civic model began to be questioned. In the fourth century, these elites too often showed no real interest in fulfilling their political duties. Together with the slow depopulation of the cities, this trend helps to explain the growth of religious communities. Such communities, to be sure, had existed for a long time. But under the Empire, particularly since the third century, what John North, using a metaphor borrowed from Peter Berger, has called »the supermarket of religions« offered multiple possibilities for a religious identity freely chosen. Garth Fowden, for his part, argues that the broad acceptance of such conceptions of com‑ munitarian identity became characteristic of late antiquity.22 In Rome, religion had meant, almost exclusively, the observance of the ritual. Questions of truth were quite absent from the religious sphere. In order to under‑ stand the transformation of such a conception into that of Augustine, for whom vera religio represents, first of all, an internalized phenomenon, we must recognize the inversion of the relation of two couples of notions: sacred versus profane, and pub‑ lic versus private. As Cicero tells us, religion, or the sacred, was in Rome essentially a public affair, while what remained private was profane. With the internalization and individualization of religion, the two couples would become inverted. Among both Jews and Christians, the field of the sacred came to be identified with the pri‑ vate domain, while the public domain became essentially profane. This was certainly the case until the fourth century. With the progressive, but rapid, Christianization of the Empire, things changed, and religion (i. e., »orthodox« Christianity) sought to reclaim the public sphere. From Constantine to Theodosius II, religion eventu‑ ally became an affair of state again, and received all the attributes of civic religion in ancient Rome, but with a twist. As the principle of religious authority was now rooted in personal conscience, and religion identified also with truth, the rejection of the right path (i. e., the interpretation of religion adopted by the Emperor) would have immediate and radical consequences. Ever since Gibbon, numerous explanations have been offered of the rise of reli‑ gious intolerance and violence (two different but connected phenomena) in the world of late antiquity. As such violence and intolerance was mainly the work of Christians, it is either in the nature of Christianity (i. e., its origins in Jewish exclu‑ 22

  J. North, »The Development of Religious Pluralism,« in J. Lieu, J. North, T. Rajak, eds., The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London, New York, 1992), 174 – 193. G. Fowden, »Religious Communities,« in G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, O. Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 82 – 106.

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siveness), or in its history (i. e.,  in the collusion, not before the fourth century, between state and church), that the roots of Christian violence and intolerance have been sought. It seems to me that both approaches err in their static character: they are unable to account for the deep transformation of mental patterns within Chris‑ tian communities from the first to the fourth century. Early Christian communi‑ ties, which remained entpolitisiert in the strongest sense of this Weberian expression, could, like the Qumran community, develop freely, upon a radical interpretation of their scriptures, certain violent ideas about the Endzeit and the final eschatological war. The trouble began when they were suddenly put in a position of power. Most were unable to realize, at once, that their new political fortune demanded of them a new hermeneutic. As we know all too well, similar phenomena are known elsewhere, also in contemporary history.23 To understand the growth in religious intolerance and violence in late antiquity, one must recognize the new fact of an identity defined, more than ever before, in religious terms. People now perceived themselves as belonging to a freely chosen community. While Jewish exclusiveness made space for non-Jews (for instance as »God fearers,« fellow travelers of sorts, or as »pious among the nations«), Christian universalism could not so easily tolerate outsiders. Such outsiders were, by definition, heretics, pagans or Jews. Only the latter could be, to a certain extent, tolerated on the fringes of society. With time, these fringes had a tendency to shrink. As we have seen, Justinian cannot tolerate the Jews’ use of Hebrew anymore, and in the early seventh century, forced baptism is demanded in the Byzantine Empire. Jews and Christians knew exactly the stakes of the conflict between them, and the rules of the game (true prophecy and the correct understanding of the common Scriptures). Between Christians and »pagans,« on the other hand, a dialogue de sourds was soon established. On both sides, it seems, there was a total lack of understand‑ ing of the nature of the other side’s religion. Both Christians and »pagans« sought to understand one another in their own terms. From one of the most impressive intel‑ lectual testimonies to this conflict, Origen’s Contra Celsum, at least (a text written around the mid-third century), it would appear that the main argument between them focused around the idea of civic religion, or of the relationship between state and religion.24 To the extent that it claimed to be the sole representative of true prophecy, Islam was similar to Christianity. But its success in transforming the community of the faithful (the umma) into an imperial society – a transformation probably due mainly to the fast pace of the Arab conquests – permitted the Muslims to establish a rela‑ tionship between state and religion that has ever evaded Christian rulers, east and west.

23 24

  See my Barbarian Philosophy, 8 – 26.   Developments in ibid., 44 – 56.

12. Les sages sémitisés Dès les premières pages des Religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, Franz Cumont insistait, en 1906, sur l’importance capitale de l’Orient pour comprendre le monde méditerranéen dans l’antiquité, et en particulier sous l’empire romain. Depuis l’époque archaïque, les civilisations de la Grèce et du Proche Orient avaient eu des relations complexes, économiques et culturelles tout autant que militaires. Cumont avait su reconnaître, mieux que la plupart des antiquisants de sa génération, ce que les frontières cognitives établies par les disciplines traditionnelles entre Méditerra‑ née et Proche Orient avaient de factice et de pernicieux. Plus précisément, il avait su apprécier non seulement l’importance, mais aussi la valeur de ‹l’Orient›, et s’efforçait de retrouver, dans cet Orient, les valeurs qui avaient permis, sous l’Empire, un renou‑ veau spirituel multiforme, dont le christianisme représentait pour lui l’acmé. Dans le domaine de la religion, l’apport de l’Orient à la culture gréco-romaine, insistait Cumont, était dans sa majeure partie positif. À l’approche généreuse, ouverte, de Cumont on peut opposer celle du Père AndréJean Festugière, qui, comme Cumont, mettait l’accent sur la vie spirituelle, sur la ren‑ contre des religions et des cultes. Festugière, cependant, dans le premier volume de La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, publié en 1944 – et dédié à Cumont! – attribuait en grande partie à ce qu’il appelait le «mirage oriental» (une expression empruntée à Salomon Reinach) le déclin du rationalisme observable dans l’empire du second siècle.1 Malgré la différence profonde entre leurs perspectives, à la fois Cumont et Festugière avaient reconnu à juste titre que les profondes transformations religieuses dans l’empire romain ne pouvaient s’expliquer que sous l’impact profond de tradi‑ tions orientales, de provenances diverses. Pour Cumont, helléniste de formation, mais passionné par l’Orient (autant que Reitzenstein, mais de façon bien plus sobre et lucide), l’étude des ‹religions orientales› se devait d’éclairer le cadre de la conquête de Rome par le christianisme, lui aussi venu d’Orient. Rien de tel chez Festugière, qui, n’exprimant pas de véritable intérêt pour l’origine juive, donc orientale, du christia‑ nisme, s’intéressait surtout à la praeparatio evangelica dans la culture hellénistique. Il est peut-être symptomatique que le savant belge ait ici gardé plus de bon sens historique que le dominicain français. Car le schisme entre études classiques et théo‑

1   A.‑J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, I. L’astrologie et les sciences occultes (Paris, 1944), 20. Sur Reinach et le «mirage oriental,» voir G. G. Stroumsa, The Idea of Semitic Monotheism: The Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth (Oxford, 2021), Introduction.

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logiques, consommé dès le début du XIXe siècle, était exacerbé en France par la sup‑ pression des Facultés de Théologie et la séparation de l’Église et de l’État. Le fait est que pour la sensibilité européenne, le christianisme est tout autre chose qu’une ‹religion orientale.› C’est avant tout comme le fondement, avec la culture gréco-romaine, de l’identité européenne, qu’il est perçu. Et bien que le volume 93 d’EPROER, Die orientalischen Religionen im Römerreich, publié en 1981 sous la direction de Maarten J. Vermaseren, fasse place, parmi ses vingt chapitres, au premier christianisme et au judaïsme rabbinique, la collection dans son ensemble laisserait à peine supposer l’existence du christianisme et du judaïsme, religions ayant droit cha‑ cune à ses propres cadres éditoriaux, et par cela même reléguées dans la pénombre, de façon paradoxale, par les savants étudiant l’histoire religieuse de l’empire romain.2 Car n’est-ce pas l’évidence même que la grande mutation religieuse de l’empire romain, c’est sa christianisation? Au quatrième siècle, plus de la moitié des habi‑ tants de l’empire sont convertis au christianisme.3 Cet atavisme intellectuel était bien relevé par Henri-Irénée Marrou, qui se demandait, dans Décadence romaine ou antiquité tardive?, si un certain mépris pour le christianisme n’avait pas partie liée au mépris traditionnel pour le bas empire. «Il est permis de se demander, écrivait‑il, si la dépréciation traditionnelle de l’antiquité tardive n’a pas été, a la base, inspirée par un dédain a priori pour tout ce qui est chrétien.»4 La question des relations entre ethos et mutation religieuse dans l’empire romain revient à se poser le problème, autant philosophique qu’historique, du rapport entre modes de vie et de pensée.5 Il ne peut s’agir ici, bien entendu, de prétendre résoudre ce problème. C’est à bien le poser que ces pages s’efforceront. Pour l’historien des idées ou des religions, il ne fait pas de doute que ces rapports existent, et qu’ils sont étroits. Ethos, toutefois, n’est pas l’équivalent de mode de vie: sous tous climats, de tous temps, on ne vit pas comme on sait devoir vivre. L’ethos, dans ce sens, reflète la vie idéale telle que se la représente une société. Concept condamné à rester vague dans une société aussi complexe que celle de l’empire romain. Notons d’ailleurs, avec Peter Garnsey et Caroline Humfress, que nous en savons d’avantage sur l’ethos, ou les attitudes morales, que sur les rapports humains 2   Sur la question du christianisme comme modèle ou exception de ‹religion orientale›, voir C. Auffarth, «Les religions orientales dans le monde grec et romain», Trivium 4 (2009), mis en ligne le 02 octobre 2009: http://trivium.revues.org / 3370. Consulté le 15 mai 2011. Texte original (en alle‑ mande) dans C. Bonnet, S. Ribichini, D. Steuernagel, eds., Religioni in contatto nel Mediterraneo antico (Rome, 2007), 333 – 356. 3   Voir Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, a.d. 284 – 641 (Malden, Mass., Oxford, 2007). 4   H.‑I. Marrou, Décadence romaine ou antiquité tardive? IIIe – VIe siècle (Paris, 1977), 115. 5   Il faut faire ici référence à l’article classique de l’ethnologue Clifford Geertz, «Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,» in The Antioch Review 17 (1957), 421 – 435, repris dans son The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973), 126 – 141. Geertz définit ainsi l’ethos: «A people’s ethos is the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood; it is the underlying attitude toward themselves and their world that life reflects.»

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concrets.6 La littérature patristique, par exemple, offre de riches développements sur le théâtre et les spectacles, condamnés pour leur dépravation des mœurs. Mais nous en savons beaucoup moins sur l’évolution des mœurs concernant les spectacles, si ce n’est qu’ils devinrent de plus en plus vulgaires.7 L’ouvrage classique de Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist (dont le premier volume fut publié en 1934, après l’exil de son auteur, juif, de l’Allemagne nazie en Palestine britannique), est ici symptomatique. Ce classique était à l’origine une thèse rédigée sous la direction commune du Neutestamentler Rudolph Bultmann et du phi‑ losophe Martin Heidegger – lui-même un personnage pour lequel la question des rapports entre vie et pensée est éminemment pertinente. Jonas insistait sur «l’êtrejeté-au-monde», la Geworfenheit, concept fondamental pour l’existentialisme heideg‑ gérien, qu’il identifiait comme typique des grands courants gnostiques des premiers siècles de notre ère, allant jusqu’à y voir le dénominateur commun des systèmes intellectuels et religieux sous l’empire. Ainsi, par exemple, la pensée de Plotin reflé‑ terait-elle aussi la Geworfenheit, en en faisant l’expression même du Zeitgeist.8 C’était bien sûr ignorer le fait que Plotin avait consacré une bonne part de son enseignement à lutter contre les gnostiques, pour lui des pervertis intellectuels. Pour Jonas, c’était ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui la globalisation, reflétée dans les dimensions œcu‑ méniques, presque, de l’empire romain, qui était à l’origine, au moins chez une toute petite minorité d’intellectuels, exprimant mieux que d’autres le Zeitgeist, ce senti‑ ment d’abandon, de non-sens de l’existence humaine, en particulier dans les systèmes gnostiques. De façon similaire, bien que provenant d’un tout autre milieu intellectuel, E. R. Dodds expliquait en 1965, à l’apogée de la grande peur, en Europe de l’ouest, d’une guerre nucléaire entre les deux superpuissances de l’époque, dans Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, comment le radicalisme religieux du premier anacho‑ rétisme chrétien, par exemple, traduisait les profondes turbulences du troisième siècle. Comment, dans une société donnée, l’ethos se transforme-t‑il? Question essen‑ tielle, et pourtant à laquelle nous ne savons pas vraiment répondre, bien que l’his‑ torien des religions, tout comme l’historien intellectuel, sache le pouvoir des idées, et l’impact que peuvent avoir sur une société de nouvelles conceptions théolo‑ giques. Il y a longtemps, j’ai tenté de montrer comment l’attitude chrétienne face au corps put transformer l’anthropologie sous l’Empire.9 Que se passe-t‑il lorsque une idée inédite, une approche nouvelle, un discours neuf deviennent soudain le 6

  P. Garnsey et C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World (Cambridge, 2001), Conclu‑ sion. 7   Leonardo Lugaresi, Il Teatro di Dio: Il problema degli spettacoli nel cristianesimo antico (II –  IV secolo) (Brescia, 2008). 8   Quelle est la différence entre Zeitgeist et ethos? Peut-être faut‑il voir dans l’ethos l’idéal de conduite éthique promu par le Zeitgeist. 9  «Caro salutis cardo: Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought», History of Religions 30 (1990), 25 – 50. Repris dans G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999), chapitre 10, 168 – 190.

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nouveau langage commun, transformation aussi imprévue, aussi brutale que le feu? On s’est essayé de bien des manières d’expliquer le phénomène de ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui, de préférence à la ‹conversion au christianisme›, la ‹christianisation› du monde romain. Le travail de Ramsey MacMullen, définissant facteurs religieux et non-religieux dans les processus de conversion s’impose ici.10 MacMullen a bien montré la complexité des phénomènes de christianisation et leur impact sur la société. Son approche vient d’être renouvelée et élargie par le riche volume dû aux soins d’Hervé Inglebert, Sylvain Destephen et Bruno Dumézil.11 Inglebert insiste sur ce qu’il appelle «une triple complexité» du terme de christianisation, qui peut dési‑ gner aussi bien la conversion des personnes que la modification d’items sociaux, et à la fois le processus et son résultat.12 Il n’est bien entendu pas question de reprendre ici à frais nouveaux le problème de la christianisation, ni de le traiter sous tous ses aspects. Je voudrais plutôt, par le biais de quelques réflexions sur les rapports entre philosophie et christianisme, mettre l’accent sur la façon dont le christianisme, en se présentant – et se représen‑ tant – comme une école philosophique, mais d’un genre nouveau, réussit à inves‑ tir la culture gréco-romaine, ou plutôt cette contre-culture que représentaient les écoles philosophiques, écoles de vie autant que de pensée, comme tout le monde sait, au moins depuis les travaux innovateurs du regretté Pierre Hadot.13 Ce mode de vie des philosophes, fondé sur les ‹exercices spirituels›, était certes celui d’une toute petite minorité, mais d’une minorité dotée d’un haut prestige, considérée, si l’on veut, comme représentant l’ethos de l’élite culturelle gréco-romaine, l’idéal d’équilibre entre vie et pensée. Pour Werner Jaeger, qui publiait en 1961, l’année même de sa mort, Early Christianity and Greek Culture, le christianisme ancien représentait la rencontre de la philosophie grecque et du judaïsme. Le judaïsme hellénistique avait certes croisé la philosophie avant la naissance du christianisme, ainsi qu’en témoignent les écrits de Philon d’Alexandrie, contemporain de Paul, concluant une longue liste d’auteurs juifs hellénophones. Cependant, ce n’est peut-être pas seulement un hasard de l’his‑ toire si ce sont précisément les auteurs patristiques qui permirent de conserver les textes philoniens, alors que les juifs s’étaient désintéressés totalement sous l’empire de leur propre littérature rédigée en grec, une langue qu’ils avaient cessé d’utiliser comme langue de culture. Jaeger a donc raison de considérer les chefs d’œuvre de la littérature patristique comme le moment décisif de la rencontre entre concepts grecs de la sagesse et conceptions juives de la divinité. En s’adressant aux non-chré‑ 10

  R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, a.d. 100 – 400 (New Haven, Londres, 1984).   H. Inglebert, S. Destephen et B. Dumézil, eds., Le problème de la christianisation du monde antique (Textes, images et monuments de l’Antiquité au Haut Moyen Âge; Paris, 2010). 12   Ibid., 16. 13   Voir par exemple, P. Hadot, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (Paris, 1995). Sur christia‑ nisme et philosophie, voir en particulier Winrich Löhr, «Christianity as Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives of an Ancient Intellectual Project,» Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010), 160 – 188. 11

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tiens, les premiers penseurs chrétiens apprirent à utiliser les instruments intellec‑ tuels développés par les écoles philosophiques grecques, réinterprétant ce faisant l’approche juive du divin en la moulant dans les concepts philosophiques grecs. Or les philosophes grecs étaient depuis longtemps conscients de l’intérêt de diverses tra‑ ditions religieuses chez les peuples barbares. Ils avaient ainsi développé sous l’empire une réflexion sur les philosophies barbares, celle des peuples anciens, possesseurs d’écritures indéchiffrables mais cependant (ou justement pour cela) renfermant de profondes traditions de sagesse. Celle des Juifs, bien sûr, mais aussi des Perses, des Indiens, des Assyriens, des Égyptiens. Pour Porphyre, notamment, les philosophes de toutes ces nations ressemblaient aux philosophes grecs par la nature de leur réflexion sur le divin. Il s’agissait, sous le couvert des différentes mythologies, de la même pensée profonde, à travers les cultures. Un Numénius, au second siècle, ira plus loin, en considérant Platon comme un Moïse hellénophone. Comme Numénius avant lui, Porphyre est à la recherche, au troisième siècle, d’une via universalis, veut créer les conditions d’une véritable pensée universelle. Ainsi, l’approche des philosophes grecs est confrontée au second siècle à celle du christianisme. Il s’agit là, comme le note Jaeger, de la rencontre de deux systèmes universalistes; ce qu’il ne souligne pas, c’est la profonde différence entre ces systèmes, même si tous deux représentent une ‹contre-culture› – terme évident pour parler du christianisme primitif, mais pas moins applicable à l’ascèse caractéristique du mode de vie philosophique. Quoi qu’il en soit, c’est cette rencontre qui permit une transformation de l’ethos dans l’empire romain – et la naissance de l’humanisme chrétien. Alors que l’ethos philosophique gréco-romain mettait l’accent sur l’anthropologie et les principes pre‑ miers, l’ethos religieux judéo-chrétien insistait sur l’origine commune de l’humanité par le fiat divin. Les chrétiens, cependant, membres d’une minorité religieuse sans identité ethnique propre, et donc considérée comme illégitime (religio illicita), se présentaient comme les sectateurs d’une nouvelle sorte d’école philosophique: une école fonctionnant en grec, mais avec des principes issus d’une philosophie bar‑ bare. Hellēnismos avait cessé de signifier pour eux un idéal œcuménique, pour réfé‑ rer au seul polythéisme, indicateur sûr d’une attitude religieuse perverse, à jamais renversée par la sagesse barbare de la révélation divine à Israël. Les premiers théo‑ logiens et apologistes chrétiens avaient ainsi réussi à transformer, ou à récupérer, le vague malaise, l’inquiétude rampante quant aux limites des cadres traditionnels de la sagesse grecque chez de nombreux intellectuels gréco-romains, surtout ceux provenant des marges orientales de l’empire (comme Porphyre de Tyr ou Numenius d’Apamée, par exemple, pratiquement nés sur le limes, au confluent des cultures). Pour retrouver chez les penseurs des peuples barbares les principes mêmes de la sagesse, l’universalisme chrétien utilisait des exercices d’acrobatie mentale différents de ceux qu’effectuaient les philosophes païens. Pour Justin Martyr (qui parlait du sperma pneumatikon diffus dans toutes les nations) et les penseurs paléochrétiens à sa suite, le Dieu ayant créé tous les hommes avait aussi implanté sa sagesse dans tous les peuples, même si seule la révélation à Israël avait été totale, restée immaculée

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par les conceptions païennes. La rétrogradation patristique, si l’on peut dire, de la sagesse grecque, avec sa tache indélébile de paganisme, signifiait aussi la promotion des «sagesses barbares» de tous azimuts. Si l’universalisme était ainsi plus naturel chez les penseurs chrétiens que chez les intellectuels païens de l’empire romain, c’est justement parce qu’il était fondé sur une idée religieuse, celle du monothéisme pro‑ phétique, et qu’il s’agissait d’un monothéisme permettant la fondation d’une morale, allant à l’encontre du monothéisme ‹païen› dont nous savons maintenant qu’il était assez répandu dans le monde romain.14 Mais il s’agissait là d’un monothéisme sans âme, pour ainsi dire, sans mythes et sans rites, et donc incapable de fournir les bases d’une nouvelle éthique universelle. Notons ici que Mani, un contemporain de Por‑ phyre, réussit à créer la première véritable religion aux dimensions universelles, dont les textes fondateurs intégraient dans un nouveau moule les majeures traditions reli‑ gieuses de l’œcoumène, et savaient faire place à Buddha, Zarathoustra et Jésus. Bien que Paul Veyne appartienne à une autre génération que Jaeger, sa formation intellectuelle, son milieu culturel, sont si différents de ceux de l’humaniste allemand exilé aux Etats Unis qu’il n’y a pas de raison de supposer qu’il ait subi une influence directe et profonde sa part. Pourtant, certains des travaux de Veyne, y compris les plus récents, reflètent, par le biais d’une approche tout autre, la progressive infiltra‑ tion des idées lancées il y a une cinquantaine d’années par Jaeger. Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien (312 – 394), a cette singularité (ou cette coquetterie intellectuelle) de vouloir expliquer le christianisme et la conquête chrétienne de Rome par le biais de l’expérience communiste de l’auteur, expliquant au grand public intellectuel pour‑ quoi, et comment, il faut prendre la religion – ou les religions, monothéistes autant que polythéistes – au sérieux.15 Veyne, bien sûr, est avant tout un grand historien de la Rome païenne. Il s’est cependant plusieurs fois attelé à la tâche de comprendre la transformation de l’ethos dominant dans l’empire. Dans son chapitre de l’Histoire de la vie privée, dédié au passage de Rome à Byzance, Veyne commence par remarquer qu’après un siècle de sociologie culturelle, nombreux sont les historiens à admettre leur incapacité à expliquer les mutations culturelles, et leur ignorance même de la forme que puisse prendre une explication causale.16 La nouvelle moralité (ce que nous appelons ici l’ethos), remarque-t‑il, n’est pas due, contrairement à ce que l’on pourrait penser, aux stoïciens. Pour Veyne, si l’institution de l’esclavage se transforma, de l’intérieur, c’est bien parce que tout autour d’elle avait changé, parce que la société 14

  Voir P. Athanassiadi et M. Frede, eds., Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1999) et S. Mitchell et P. van Nuffelen, eds., One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2010). Certaines de ces conceptions monothéistes ‹païennes›, par ailleurs, semblent bien avoir des racines juives ou judéo-chrétiennes. 15   P. Veyne, Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien (312 – 394) (Paris, 2007). Pour une étude moins idiosyncratique, présentant une vision plus complète de la conversion du monde romain, voir M.‑F. Baslez, Comment notre monde est devenu chrétien (Paris, 2008). 16   Je cite l’édition anglaise, P. Veyne, ed., A History of Private Life, I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass., London, 1987), chapitre 1, 5 – 234; voir 43.

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était en pleine transformation.17 Tout comme son ami Michel Foucault, Veyne essaye de comprendre la transformation du «souci de soi» dans la Rome impériale, et en trouve le ressort dans la privatisation de la religion.18 Dans «Culte, piété et morale dans le paganisme gréco-romain», Veyne insiste sur les différences conceptuelles de la moralité chez les païens et les chrétiens.19 Sans pour autant tomber dans la caricature (d’origine chrétienne) traditionnelle de la reli‑ giosité païenne comme froide et figée, Veyne note que le paganisme était incapable de proposer l’amour d’un Dieu vivant, puisqu’il ignorait «toute relation interne des consciences entre dieux et hommes».20 La «chaleur éthique» des chrétiens, groupe marginal dans la société romaine, puisqu’ils «appartenaient à l’Empire, mais sans en avoir les mœurs», leur permit, lorsqu’ils utilisèrent la philosophie, d’opérer «un ren‑ versement décisif de la pensée religieuse», en transformant le divin (à travers la théo‑ logie de la Bible hébraïque) en source de la moralité, en «fondement du Bien».21 Grâce aux penseurs chrétiens, qui allaient ici à l’encontre des sages païens, la religio‑ sité, comme la morale, dont elle partageait la source, était devenue universelle. Reli‑ gion et morale avaient certes déjà eues, déjà dans le stoïcisme, des relations étroites, mais ce que les chrétiens, comme les juifs, possédaient, le zèle religieux et moral, le désir d’aller sans cesse plus avant, jusqu’au sacrifice suprême, aucun philosophe, ni Sénèque, ni Épictète, ne l’avaient eu.22 Ainsi, Veyne explique-t‑il la fin de la gladiature sous les empereurs chrétiens: «c’est bien le christianisme qui a mis fin à la gladiature, mais il l’a fait par des détours compliqués, et auxquels on ne penserait pas spontanément».23 Pour Veyne, l’univer‑ salisme éthique (et établi sur des bases religieuses) des chrétiens «creuse un abime entre la morale chrétienne et les éthiques des sectes philosophiques païennes . . .»24 Idéal d’un cœur sincère envers le Seigneur et souci des pauvres (et donc devoir d’au‑ mône), voilà pour lui les nouveautés révolutionnaires du christianisme. Même s’il n’a pas réussi à changer directement les comportements, il a transformé l’ethos, la fonda‑ tion des mœurs, et a ainsi, progressivement, réussi à transformer les mœurs.25 Pour les chrétiens, morale et religion ne sont plus les conformismes jumeaux qu’ils étaient dans la société païenne.26 17

  Ibid., 69.   Ibid., 214. 19   P. Veyne, L’empire gréco-romain (Paris, 2005), 419 – 543. Ce texte avait été rédigé quelques années plus tôt. 20   Ibid., 440. 21   Ibid., 472, 490. 22   Ibid., 530. 23   «Païens et charité chrétienne devant les gladiateurs», dans Veyne, L’Empire gréco-romain, 545 – 631; ici 573. Sur la gladiature, voir avant tout le grand livre de G. Ville, La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien (Rome, 1981). 24  Veyne, L’Empire gréco-romain, 589. 25   Ibid., 530 – 531. 26   Ibid., 464. 18

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Depuis une génération, les travaux de Peter Brown ont véritablement révolu‑ tionné l’étude de l’antiquité tardive, et en particulier celle de son histoire religieuse.27 Tel un alchimiste, il a réussi à transformer le bronze du bas empire en l’or spirituel de l’antiquité tardive, grâce entre autres à une imagination historique d’une puissance peu commune, et à une langue lumineuse, au pouvoir évocateur sans égal. Plus que d’autres, Peter Brown réussit à faire vibrer pour nous les hommes et les femmes de l’antiquité tardive, les chrétiens avant tout, mais aussi les païens et les juifs, et à les réinsérer, vivants, dans les milieux historiques fort complexes et fluides dans les‑ quels ils évoluent. Citant Robin Lane Fox, Brown nous rappelle que la christiani‑ sation est un effort sans fin, et qu’elle ne put se faire, dans l’antiquité tardive, sans le monothéisme passionné de personnages comme Augustin et Shenoute, montrant par l’exemple ce qu’est une vie engagée, et quelle est la qualité du choix existentiel, et si chargé pour l’avenir, entre deux modes de vie et deux cultures, celle du mundus et celle de l’Église.28 La transformation culturelle, comme l’a bien vu Brown, est un aspect essentiel de la révolution religieuse de l’antiquité tardive. Dans son chapitre sur l’antiquité tardive dans l’Histoire de la vie privée, Brown explique que les chrétiens effectuèrent une démocratisation rapide de la contre-culture des écoles philosophiques.29 La nou‑ velle école de «philosophie barbare» était ouverte à tous, sans limitations de classe sociale. Au souci de soi – et donc à l’angoisse pour le destin de l’âme – s’ajoutait pour les chrétiens le souci du pauvre – et donc la solidarité exceptionnelle à l’intérieur du groupe. Les chrétiens, écrit Brown, ne prêchent pas nécessairement une morale vrai‑ ment nouvelle, mais ils s’efforcent plus que les païens à l’appliquer. Par ailleurs, les chrétiens proposent une nouvelle approche de l’éducation, nulle part plus clairement affirmée que dans le cadre monastique. Quant à la conséquence la plus dramatique, peut-être, de la révolution culturelle chrétienne, c’est ce que Brown n’hésite pas à appeler la révolution sexuelle de l’antiquité tardive, dont le fer de lance est, là aussi, le mouvement monastique. Brown a consacré à cette transformation radicale des mœurs un ouvrage entier, dans lequel il décrit et analyse le refus de s’inscrire, par le mariage et la procréation, dans l’ordre traditionnel des choses dans l’empire romain.30 On voit que l’historien sui generis qu’est Peter Brown s’inscrit la fois dans le sillage de Marrou et dans celui de Jaeger. Comme pour Marrou, le christianisme est pour lui le phénomène le plus fascinant de l’histoire religieuse de l’empire romain. Comme 27

  Sur les origines du concept d’antiquité tardive, voir J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, «The Birth of Late Antiquity,» dans son recueil Decline and Change in Late Antiquity: Religion, Barbarians and Their Historiography (Aldershot, 2006), chapitre XV. 28   P. Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Cam‑ bridge, 1995), 10 – 25. 29   P. Brown, «Late Antiquity,» dans Veyne, ed., A History of Private Life, 235 – 312; voir en parti‑ culier 251. 30   P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988), 260, 292.

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Jaeger, il reconnaît les sources juives de la morale chrétienne, et l’importance capitale de la rencontre avec les écoles philosophiques. Comme Veyne, par ailleurs, il sait apprécier le pouvoir des émotions dans l’histoire religieuse. Dans un ouvrage publié il y a quelques années, j’avais essayé d’identifier cer‑ tains des paramètres de la transformation des cadres de la religiosité sous l’empire romain.31 J’insistais, entre autres, et à côté de l’abandon des sacrifices sanglants (chez les juifs et les chrétiens dès le premier siècle, un peu partout ailleurs avec le temps), ou tout du moins leur profonde perte de prestige, chez les philosophes aussi bien que chez les chrétiens, sur une approche nouvelle du ‹souci de soi›, sur une nouvelle attitude religieuse face aux textes sacrés, et sur la réorganisation des rapports entre religion publique et religion privée. Il ne fait pas de doute que le développement du culte privé dans l’antiquité tardive est lié à la forme nouvelle de religiosité tolérée, puis imposée par la victoire du christianisme. Une telle privatisation du culte et la transformation des espaces sacrés sont confirmées par le témoignage de l’archéolo‑ gie, ainsi que l’a récemment montre Kim Bowes, pour laquelle christianisation de l’aristocratie et rituels privés vont de pair.32 Peter Garnsey et Caroline Humfress ont attiré notre attention sur le fait que les prêtres chrétiens, à l’encontre de leurs ‹collègues› païens, se doivent d’interpréter les textes saints exposant leurs doctrines sacrées.33 Depuis l’anonyme Epître à Diognète, au second siècle, la littérature patristique conçoit le christianisme comme une école de pensée, comparable dans sa structure aux écoles philosophiques grecques mais profondément différente d’elles quant au contenu de son enseignement. Nous sommes ici en face de ce qu’il faut reconnaître comme un paradoxe: plus le christia‑ nisme semble s’intégrer intellectuellement au monde gréco-romain, plus le concept d’hellēnismos s’identifie, pour les auteurs chrétiens, au paganisme ambiant.34 Face à la paideia traditionnelle, fondée sur les épopées homériques, et donc sur les dieux et les mythes païens, bien plutôt que sur l’étude de la philosophie, les chrétiens ne pouvaient que ressentir une aliénation profonde. L’interdiction, faite par l’Empereur Julien, aux maîtres chrétiens d’enseigner dieux et mythes en lesquels ils ne croyaient pas souligne le fait que les païens, eux aussi, reconnaissaient l’existence d’un chasme profond entre leur Weltanschauung et celle des chrétiens, qui s’opposait en principe un système unique d’éducation. Et pourtant, dans une société où païens et chrétiens se côtoyaient, les grandes familles patriciennes chrétiennes, telle celle des Pères Cap‑ padociens (les deux frères Basile de Césarée et Grégoire de Nysse, autant que leur cousin Grégoire de Naziance) décidèrent de ne pas créer de toutes pièces un nou‑

31

  G. G. Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice: les mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005).   K. Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values and Religious Change in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2008), 218. Cf. Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, 226. 33   Garnsey et Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World – je cite la traduction française, L’évolution du monde de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2004), 151. 34   Voir G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990). 32

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veau système d’éducation, indépendant de la paideia gréco-romaine; conservant dans ses grandes lignes la paideia classique, ils se contentèrent d’ajouter, en plus de la réserve mentale à la mention des dieux et des mythes païens, une éducation reli‑ gieuse supplémentaire, fondée sur les Écritures Saintes.35 Cette décision stratégique, qui ne fut peut-être pas totalement prise en pleine conscience de ses conséquences, fut d’une importance capitale pour l’avenir de la culture occidentale, qui dut dès lors apprendre à se présenter comme fondée sur l’herméneutique non pas d’un, mais de deux systèmes de textes fondateurs, totalement différents l’un de l’autre. J’ai pu en ce sens parler, il y a déjà longtemps, de la «double hélice» de l’herméneutique chré‑ tienne, utilisant une métaphore faisant référence à la structure de l’ADN.36 Jusqu’en 1453, l’éducation byzantine restera fondée sur Homère au moins autant que sur la Bible. Ce n’est que dans les écoles liées aux monastères (et le plus souvent réservées aux pauvres) qu’Homère disparaitra du curriculum. En un sens, donc, on peut dire que les racines des systèmes d’éducation qui sont aux sources de l’identité européenne plongent dans l’interaction culturelle de la Grèce et d’Israël. Les rabbins du Talmud, on le sait, avaient fait de l’étude de la Torah le point archimédique de la pratique des commandements éthiques (Talmud Torah ke‑neged kulam). Comme le fit remarquer judicieusement Elias Bickerman, une telle conception de l’étude, de la scholē, comme reflétant l’acmé du rituel est une belle marque de l’influence capitale exercée par la culture hellénistique sur le judaïsme. On peut donc conclure que la rencontre, dans la littérature patristique, de la sagesse grecque et de celle d’Israël représente la forme la plus durable, la plus puis‑ sante de l’interaction entre Occident et Orient, celle qui eut l’impact historique le plus fort. Il s’agit là d’une interaction plus importante, encore, que celle qui eut lieu quelques siècles plus tard entre la Grèce et le Proche Orient islamisé. Les Pères de l’Église insistaient sur le fait que l’«école» philosophique chrétienne était une école d’un genre nouveau, inconnu des philosophes grecs. La sagesse chré‑ tienne, en effet, n’avait rien à voir avec la ‹sagesse› grecque, ou plutôt les sagesses grecques, puisque chaque école philosophique avait sa propre conception de la vérité. Le statut central de l’éthique dans la pensée paléochrétienne la distingue des écoles philosophiques. Ce statut est d’ailleurs admis par les intellectuels païens, qui reconnaissent aux chrétiens, malgré l’irrationalité de leurs conceptions métaphy‑ siques, la force de leurs convictions morales, pour lesquelles ils sont prêts à tous les sacrifices.37 Pour les auteurs patristiques, la différence la plus profonde, peut-être, les séparant des philosophes grecs tient au fait que les chrétiens, à l’encontre des païens, 35   Voir en particulier l’Oratio ad adolescentes de Basile de Césarée – j’utilise l’édition de M. Nal‑ dini, Discorso ai giovani (Florence, 1984). Cf. Jean Chrysostome, Du bon usage des lettres, dans M. L. W. Laistner, Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire (Ithaca, Londres, 1951). 36   G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy, chapitre 2, «The Christian Hermeneutical Revolution and its Double Helix», 27 – 43. 37   Ainsi, par exemple, Alexandre de Lycopolis. Voir A. Viley, Alexandre de Lycopolis, Contre la doctrine de Mani (Paris, 1985).

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pratiquent ce qu’ils enseignent. L’«activisme sapiential» des théologiens chrétiens est effectivement un caractère qu’on ne retrouve pas chez les philosophes grecs. Il pro‑ vient de l’héritage juif du christianisme. Messianisme et eschatologie impliquent le salut de l’individu et du monde comme l’accomplissement final à la fois des pro‑ messes divines et du repentir humain. L’historien ecclésiastique Théodoret de Cyr (son floruit date de la première moitié du cinquième siècle) écrit dans sa Thérapeutique des maladies helléniques que dans la «véritable philosophie» des moines, il s’agit moins de comprendre le monde, comme pour les philosophes grecs, que de le trans‑ former. Une telle conception, marxiste avant la lettre, reflète un atavisme juif: l’idée de tikkun ‘olam be-malkhut Shaddai, d’une «restauration du monde dans le royaume divin», le travail exigé de chacun avant la venue du Messie. Le christianisme hérita du judaïsme, entre autres, le lien entre réforme personnelle spirituelle et éthique, d’une part, et rédemption de l’humanité.38 Ce primat de l’activisme éthique dans la paideia chrétienne («paideia tou Kyriou», représente un élément essentiel de la révolution religieuse de l’antiquité tardive.39 Il faut souligner le fait que d’une telle approche découle une conception de l’éduca‑ tion inconnue dans le monde gréco-romain, puisque son focus est l’éducation reli‑ gieuse, et qu’une telle chose n’avait aucune place dans la paideia traditionnelle de la société païenne. Sous l’Empire romain, judaïsme et christianisme partagent l’originalité d’être ce que l’on appelle, de façon traditionnelle, des «religions du livre». Cela ne veut pas dire, bien entendu, qu’aucune autre forme de religion possède des livres sacrés, mais que seuls juifs et chrétiens aient organisé toute leur religion, y compris le culte, autour de la lecture, de la cantillation rituelle, et de l’étude de ces livres. L’importance religieuse fondamentale de l’étude de la Torah imposa le développement d’un système d’éduca‑ tion unique dans l’antiquité, fondé sur la discussion orale du système juridique établi sur le texte biblique. Comme une telle éducation est partie prenante d’une religiosité qui se veut intellectuelle (ein ‘am ha‑aretz hassid; «l’ignorant ne peut être pieux», dit le Talmud), il n’est point étonnant que les juifs semblent avoir eu un degré d’alphabé‑ tisation inconnu chez d’autres peuples dans l’empire. Après la destruction du Temple de Jérusalem, le rôle des prêtres disparaît dans la société juive. Les rabbins, qui héri‑ tent du pouvoir religieux des prêtres, se définissent par leur savoir, un savoir qui peut en théorie être inculqué à tous les enfants mâles – d’où l’importance de l’éducation. Puisque leur conception du sacrifice (non sanglant) leur permet de se dispenser du Temple, les chrétiens, eux, conservent, de façon paradoxale, leur rôle aux prêtres. 38   Voir G. B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers (Cambridge, Mass., 1959). 39   I Clément 62.3. Cela ne veut pas dire, bien sûr, qu’il n’y ait aucun rapport entre religion et éthique chez les païens. Un tel rapport, d’ailleurs, semble s’être accentué dans les deux premiers siècles de notre ère. Voir par exemple Liebeschuetz, «Religion a.d. 68 – 196», dans son Decline and Change in Late Antiquity, chapitre VI.

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Conséquence directe d’une telle attitude: la connaissance profonde du texte biblique et de son herméneutique est pratiquement réservée à l’élite religieuse, à l’encontre de ce qui se passe à la même époque chez les juifs. Ainsi se développe chez les théolo‑ giens chrétiens l’idée d’une religion à deux niveaux, l’un, fondé sur la connaissance profonde du message divin, la gnōsis, l’autre, ouvert à tous, et ne demandant que la foi (pistis). Une telle théologie double, exotérique et ésotérique, qui se retrouve dans d’autres systèmes religieux de l’antiquité, sera développée, de façon rigoureuse, chez Clément d’Alexandrie, vers la fin du second siècle.40 À la fois chez les chrétiens et chez les juifs, cependant, le progrès intellectuel, comme le progrès moral, reste inti‑ mement lié au progrès spirituel: une compréhension plus profonde de la révélation divine forme un élément essentiel d’une religiosité plus complète. Une telle approche, cependant, si elle est celle de la majorité des théologiens chré‑ tiens, n’est pas universelle. On trouve dans la littérature monastique, par exemple, à côté de cette approche discursive, intellectualiste de la religion, une attitude anti-in‑ tellectuelle, rejetant la gnōsis et la sagesse discursive pour louer le fidéisme, permet‑ tant seul une approche directe, intime, de Dieu. Les Institutions Divines sont le premier ouvrage de théologie chrétienne systéma‑ tique rédigé en latin – dans la première décennie du quatrième siècle par le rhéteur chrétien Lactance (ca. 240 – ca. 320), disciple d’Arnobe de Sicca, et dans ses vieux jours conseiller de Constantin. L’ouvrage représente un effort intellectuel considé‑ rable visant à convaincre les païens de la vérité du christianisme, en utilisant des arguments rationnels. L’Epitomé des Institutions Divines (peut-être un pseudépi‑ graphe) résume bien les grandes thèses de Lactance. Pour l’auteur, la fausse religion (falsa religio) des païens est comparable à la fausse sagesse (falsa sapientia) des phi‑ losophes, qui restent étrangers à la vérité malgré leurs dons intellectuels et leur grand savoir, «car ils n’ont connu ni Dieu, ni la sagesse de Dieu».41 Conséquence directe de l’absence de vérité chez les philosophes: chez eux, pas de concorde. Dans la philosophie, on ne célèbre pas de culte, et dans les cultes, on ne traite pas de philoso‑ phie; et la religion est fausse parce qu’elle est sans sagesse, et la sagesse est fausse parce qu’elle est sans religion. Mais là ou les deux sont conjoints, là se trouve nécessairement la vérité, en sorte que si l’on cherche ce qu’est la vérité elle-même, on peut dire a bon escient que c’est une religion sage ou une sagesse religieuse.42

Ces remarques lapidaires, avec leur conception réflexive de la religion, et celle d’un culte internalisé et d’une sagesse activiste, résument bien ce sur quoi je voulais attirer l’attention ici: la rencontre, dans la pensée chrétienne sous l’empire romain, d’une 40   J’ai étudié ce phénomène dans Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Leiden, Boston, 2005; deuxième édition). 41  Lactance, Epitomé des Institutions Divines 25.1 (SC 335; Paris, 1987), 111. 42   Ibid., 36.4 – 5: . . . Ubi autem utraque conjuncta sunt, ibi esse veritatem necesse est, ut si quae‑ ratur ipsa ueritas quid sit, recte dici possit aut sapiens religio aut religiosa sapientia.

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conception religieuse de la sagesse, et d’une conception intellectualiste de la reli‑ gion, et la naissance de l’humanisme chrétien, selon les termes déjà formulés par les penseurs juifs hellénistiques. C’est en ce sens que je propose d’appeler les penseurs paléochrétiens, des sages sémitisés, hommage en clin d’œil à l’ouvrage classique de Franz Cumont et Joseph Bidez.43 Pour eux, la sagesse, si elle a perdu son autonomie vis-à-vis de la religion, dont elle fait maintenant partie, permet à cette dernière d’élar‑ gir de façon dramatique ses frontières. Cette nouvelle conception de la religion, dans laquelle la théologie tient une place essentielle, va permettre le développement rapide de polémiques sur la nature de la foi vraie, et donc la réorganisation de l’espace reli‑ gieux entre orthodoxie et hérésies. Elle impliquera donc aussi la multiplication des sectes chacune proposant une herméneutique différente du même texte sacré. En conclusion, revenons à la question posée au début de cette réflexion: comment peut-on expliquer les mutations religieuses dans l’empire romain, et leur rapport à la transformation de l’ethos? La réponse à une telle question apparaît maintenant clairement. De telles mutations ne peuvent s’expliquer que par l’interaction de sys‑ tèmes culturels et religieux différents. La christianisation de l’Empire romain ne s’ex‑ plique que par l’impact de la conception juive de la religion, comme ayant la réflex‑ ion théologique pour épicentre – cette conception reflétant elle-même l’impact de la paideia hellénique sur le judaïsme hellénistique. Dans cette dialectique des rapports religieux et des échanges intellectuels entre Ouest et Est, la grande mutation religieuse de l’empire romain ne peut donc se com‑ prendre sans l’impact profond de l’Orient sur l’Occident. La synthèse intellectuelle créée dans la Bagdad du dixième siècle représentera une autre station majeure du grand dialogue Est-Ouest à travers les âges, marquée cette fois par l’impact grec sur la culture arabe. En d’autres mots, on pourrait se représenter la formation de la pen‑ sée chrétienne dans l’antiquité tardive comme une praeparatio islamica, ayant seule permis, grâce aux «sages sémitisés» que furent les Pères de l’Église, la formation du paléo-islam et l’islamisation de très larges populations chrétiennes. Mais il s’agit là d’une autre affaire.

43

  F. Cumont et J. Bidez, Les mages hellénisés (2 vols.; Paris, 1938).

13. Cultural Memory in Early Christianity: Clement of Alexandria on the History of Religions I. When Karl Jaspers launched the concept of Achsenzeit (axial age) he could not pos‑ sibly have imagined how fruitful it would become, from a heuristic point of view. For more than half a century, scholars from different horizons have been coming back, time and again, to the puzzling synchronism highlighted by Jaspers, in various Medi‑ terranean, Near Eastern, and Asian civilizations around the middle of the first millen‑ nium b.c.e.1 As a German humanist sadly musing about the origins of civilization at what certainly appeared to be its deepest nadir, it is upon his own Sitz im Leben that Jaspers was reflecting. He correctly identified something of great importance: the more or less simultaneous mutation of vastly different civilizations, their passage from one level of self-consciousness and reflexivity to another. A succession of studies, many of them from a comparative viewpoint, have sought to analyze and interpret the remark‑ able qualitative jump at the passage from archaic, highly traditional cultures, to the more critical intellectual and religious development of the classical period. These stud‑ ies have done much to render explicit what could only have been suggested by Jaspers. Yet, the very success of the concept of Achsenzeit harbored a real danger: that of considering this mutation as the most significant, in a neo-teleological vision of world cultural history. Other deep transformations, or mutations, have occurred in societ‑ ies, cultures, and religions in different geographic contexts, although not always syn‑ chronically. Renaissances and revolutions do not happen everywhere at the same time. Students of late antiquity have been aware for some time, and have begun to convince scholars working in other periods, that certain dramatic changes occurred in the vari‑ ous civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East under the Roman, Early Byz‑ antine, and Sasanian Empires – or, if one wants to refer more directly to the religious nature of some of these transformations, from the time of Jesus to that of Muhammad. Various strategies have been devised in order to integrate, as  it were, the late antique transformations to those of the »original« axial age. Scholars have for instance 1   For an analysis of Jaspers’s concept, from a comparative perspective, see S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Origin and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (Albany, New York, 1986). Cf. R. N. Bellah and H. Joas, eds., The Axial Age and Its Consequences (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2012). Jan Ass‑ mann has traced the prehistory of the idea of axial age: J. Assmann, Achsenzeit: Eine Archäologie der Moderne (Munich, 2018).

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spoken of »axial trajectories,« or of »primary« versus »secondary« breakthroughs. The obvious methodological drawback of such terms is their implicit hierarchy: the one asserted to be first in time (a highly problematic assertion in itself) would also be higher in value. Under the Roman Empire, identities changed, sometimes dramatically. Param‑ eters of identity, which had originally been essentially cultural, gradually came to emphasize religious identity, belonging to a community. It seems to have been the very notion, function, and perception of religion that were changing fast. In partic‑ ular, a typical characteristic of late antique religions is their radical reinterpretation of traditional religious thought and behavior. This was achieved, especially, through an impressive textual movement, which cut across linguistic, cultural, and religious borders. New sacred texts, and whole series of commentaries and other hermeneuti‑ cal writings – »religious,« historical, and legal – began to circulate. More and more, religious communities developed around new scholarly elites. These new elites were replacing the old priestly classes, which had been in charge of now often obsolete rituals, such as sacrifices. It is precisely in this period, and in particular among the Christians, that the new, revolutionary form of the book, the codex, appeared, which, from the first to the fourth century, was to replace the scroll.2 There is no reason to dispute the view of those historians of the book who consider this transformation even as more important than Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. The dra‑ matic transformation of the written word – its form, and its function – permitted in late antiquity (and not before) the emergence of world religions, religions whose stated goal, and whose methods, entailed conversion on a grand scale, across lin‑ guistic, cultural, and political borders. What Wilfred Cantwell Smith has called »the Age of Scripture« was also »the Age of World Religions,« from Christianity to Islam, through Buddhism and Manichaeism. Such mutations in the very understanding of religion and its relationship to tra‑ ditional cultures and to political frames were felt, in a particularly powerful way, in the early growth of Christianity, a religion which for the first few centuries of its existence remained in search of a culture. To a great extent, Christianity had rejected (or dramatically reinterpreted) the Hebrew culture from which it stemmed, while it remained for a long time unable to accept without drastic emendations Greco-Ro‑ man culture, which could not be easily detached from its polytheistic ground. It is this complex attitude of early Christianity – or, more precisely, of one leading early Christian thinker – that the following pages will seek to analyze. We shall ask, in par‑ ticular, whether the concept of »cultural memory« is helpful in our attempt to better understand the dialectical relationship of Christianity to the past, and hence to the religious achievements of the Achsenzeit. 2   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Early Christianity: A  Religion of the Book?«, in M. Finkelberg and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible, and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in Ancient Societies (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture, 2; Leiden, 2003), 153 – 173.

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II. In the ancient world, becoming a Jew or a Christian meant accepting a new history, namely, the historia sacra established upon the scriptures.3 Conversion to Judaism or Christianity, then, also meant acquiring a new cultural memory. The transformation of cultural memory, which was apparently, but only apparently, a side-issue of reli‑ gious conversion, has not received all the attention it deserves. »Cultural memory« is a concept developed between the two world wars by the Jewish German historian of art Aby Warburg. This concept has close connections with that of »collective memory,« coined at approximately the same time by the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs.4 In their cultural memory, societies sort out from their past what they want to preserve, and how they propose to preserve it, i. e., what status they want to give to the constantly re-fashioned past. Quite naturally, this act of preservation involves an act of negation: as they cultivate elements of their past, societies decide, through a series of complex mechanisms, and with different patterns in each case, what they want to forget, to actively obliterate, or simply to let slip into oblivion. The concept of cultural memory, which originates in a metaphorical use of the biological, individual phenomenon of memory, is very useful for understanding cultural transmission and transformations. It should however be used with care, and one should call attention to the danger of anthropomorphism presented by meta‑ phorical thinking: a society is not a macranthropos, and the patterns and mechanisms through which it evolves may not have much to do with human life.5 Some years ago, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann devoted a sustained effort to the question of cultural memory and its modes in ancient societies.6 In Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, Assmann offered a systematic analysis of the concept, supplemented by three case studies. In the ancient world, the conservation methods (first and fore‑ most committing to writing) were mainly developed and used by intellectual, reli‑ gious, and political elites, but these elites functioned in ways significantly different from one another, which Assmann sought to analyze. It is with societies from the second and first millennium b.c.e. that Assmann dealt in his book, dating from both before (Egypt) and around (Israel and Greece) the dramatic structural transforma‑ tions most clearly discerned around the middle of the first millennium b.c.e., pre‑ cisely the era called Achsenzeit by Karl Jaspers. Following in Assmann’s footsteps, one can ask what happened at a later stage of development, namely in the Roman Empire. Such a study might shed some new light 3   See, for instance, A. Momigliano, »The Fault of the Greeks,« Daedalus 104 (1975), 9 – 19, reprinted in his Sesto Contributo alla storia degli studi clasici e del mondo antico II (Rome, 1980), 509 – 523. 4   M. Halbwachs, La mémoire collective (Paris, 1950). 5   See in particular H. Cancik and H. Mohr, »Erinnerung / Gedächtnis,« in Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, II (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 1988), 299 – 323. 6   J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (Munich, 1992).

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upon the transformations of cultural memory in the ancient world. From a chrono‑ logical point of view, we must remember a fact that our perspective tends to dis‑ tort. Late antiquity was very late indeed: Proclus was as far from Plato, or Augustine from Isaiah, as Marsilio Ficino from Proclus, or Luther from Augustine. A very long and multifaceted past cast its shadow upon the Roman Empire. Under the cumu‑ lative weight of the past, cultural identities in constant (and constantly evolving) contact reached previously unknown levels of complexity. New patterns of thought and behavior were developed, usually referred to as cultural and religious syncretism. As the Neutestamentler, Gerd Theissen, rightly summed up the new conception of cultural memory under the early Empire: »es wird pluralistisch.«7 The »free market« of religions and philosophies, the competing worldviews, the birth of book religions, such as Manichaeism or Mandaeism, and the growth and ultimate victory of Chris‑ tianity, were all phenomena of late antiquity. Patterns of thought and behavior were submitted to radical transformations, throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East. »The sheer energy of late antiquity was breathtaking,« notes Averil Cameron.8 In the Greek and Roman worlds, the construction of collective memory usually remained the domain of historians, and historiography is the first place to look when one searches for its representations. Early Christian historiography, however, is strik‑ ingly different in its form, questions, presuppositions and achievements, from ancient Greek and Latin historiography. This important fact, recently noticed by Hubert Cancik, seems to remain almost universally ignored.9 The huge difference, in both content, approach, and style, between pagan and Christian historiography, seems to stem from the sheer presence of the Bible: for the Christians, as for the Jews, the Bible includes all essential history. The status of memory in ancient Israel was indeed fun‑ damentally different from its status in Greek or Roman society. As Momigliano once remarked, Israel was the only people in antiquity for which memory was a religious duty.10 In post-biblical times, memory became an essential element in the formation of Jewish identity and consciousness. The development of a Christian reflection on memory is an obvious continuation – and a reworking – of this attitude. Even the Christian anamnēsis, the cultic remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, represents a trans‑ formation of Hebrew patterns of religious memory, ever present also in Jewish cultic practices.11 The new Christian historiography establishes itself, then, upon the Bible  7   G. Theissen, »Tradition und Entscheidung: Der Beitrag des biblischen Glaubens zum kulturel‑ len Gedächtnis,« in J. Assmann and J. Hölsch, eds., Kultur und Gedächtnis (Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 170 – 196, esp. 184.  8   In G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, O. Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A  Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 1 – 20.  9   H. Cancik, »Die Funktion der jüdischen Bibel für die Geschichtsschreibung der Christen in der Antike,« in J. Ebach and R. Faber, eds., Bibel und Literatur (Munich, 1995), 19 – 29. 10   A. Momigliano, »Time in Ancient Historiography,« in History and Theory 6 (1966), 1 – 23, reprinted in his Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford, 1977), 179 – 201, see 195. 11   J.‑C. Basset, »L’anamnèse: aux sources de la tradition chrétienne,« in P. Borgeaud, ed., La mémoire des religions (Geneva, 1988), 7 – 20.

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as an inspirational narrative. For late antique Christians, as for the Jews at the same time, memory is essentially religious rather than historical in the usual sense of the word. The rest, being outside the Heilsgeschichte, is adiaphoros, to use a Stoic concept, or of no consequence. In Averil Cameron’s words, »historical time, that is, linear time, was by and large transformed into religious time.«12 Hence we can explain the strong development, both in Rabbinic Judaism and in Patristic Christianity, of new mythical patterns of thought about time. For the Christians, then, as for the Jews, it may not be an exaggeration to say that religious history is not a mere part of history; rather, the reverse is true: political, cultural, and social history is part of the history of God’s revelation, or of the history of religion. In a sense, then, our effort seeks to better understand how early Christian intellectuals, those we call the Church Fathers, suc‑ ceeded in defining the complex Christian attitude to the past.13 Oddly enough, the early Christian conception of cultural memory seems to have never been analyzed. Christianity first grew, mainly, under the Roman Empire, although the new faith reached further South and East, from Ethiopia to Armenia and the Sasanian Empire. Christianity was a novum in the ancient world, a religion that found it hard to argue convincingly that it had historical roots of its own, in a well-defined and obvious past. It was thus brought to assimilate, incorporate, the pasts of others: first Hebrews and Greeks, and then also »barbarians,« the other peoples with which the Christians in the Roman world were in some kind of contact. From the start, Christi‑ anity identified itself as a world religion, as it offered to all, anywhere (and in all lan‑ guages) the same salvation. Its attitude to the past reflects this ecumenical character. In parallel to God’s revelation to Moses and the prophets, early Christian thinkers developed, in various but related ways, ideas about the natural history of religion, which sought to explain how that part of humanity (the great majority) which had not been exposed to biblical revelation could none the less have received, at least dimly, some kind of divine light, in what could be perceived as a progressive revela‑ tion in history. Among early Christian thinkers, we can observe the birth and development of a new kind of cultural memory. As Christians, these thinkers considered themselves the direct spiritual heirs of the Jews. To a certain extent, however, they also sought to reinterpret central elements of Greek culture: mainly philosophy, sometimes also literature – although not of course, Greek religion and mythology. Very soon, Chris‑ tian missionaries reached out beyond the borders of the Empire, emphasizing the ecumenical dimension of Christianity. The »barbarians,« mainly the peoples of the East that for a long time had attracted the attention of the Greeks, such as Egyptians, 12

  A. Cameron, »Remaking the Past,« 12.   See R. Mortley, »The Past in Clement of Alexandria: A Study of An Attempt to Define Christi‑ anity in Socio-Cultural Terms,« in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, I (London, 1980), 186 – 200, 261 – 264. See also W.  Kinzig, Novitas Christiana: Die Idee des Fortschritts in der Alten Kirche bis Eusebius (Göttingen, 1994). 13

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Phoenicians, Persians, Indians, were also brought into the picture. Hence, in a sense, the early Christian thinkers had to recapture the cultural memory of the different civilizations of the known world. This interest in various cultures, however, was not enough to encourage respect for cultural diversity and permit the development of a real anthropological curiosity.14 Indeed, the teleology inherent to Christian percep‑ tion dictated that in the different cultures, the religious (i. e., polytheistic) element, which was the main focus of attention of the Christian thinkers, was rejected out‑ right, while other dimensions of culture always remained secondary.

III. In order to grasp the development of an early Christian cultural memory, i. e., the relationship to the pre-Christian past, we must realize that Christianity offered a new mode of presence of religion in society in the ancient world. The above-mentioned religious revolution under the Roman Empire was directly reflected in the public and political dimensions of religion.15 In particular, both ancient Greco-Roman con‑ ception of »civil religion,« i. e., of the place of religion in the city and as a state reli‑ gion, and the Jewish conception of an ethnic religion centered upon one Temple, were rejected and reconstructed in various early Christian texts. Although there were important continuities, the ancient conceptions underwent serious changes because of substantial differences between polytheistic and monotheistic religions. It would be a serious methodological mistake, however, to overemphasize the dividing line between polytheism and monotheism (or dualism, which is structurally a variant of monotheism) as the main demarcation line between the various conceptions of civil religion. Early Christianity permitted and encouraged the development of quite new conceptions of the very idea of religion. It is this new perception of religion, emerg‑ ing in late antiquity, which is at the root of the modern idea of civil religion. More‑ over, the novel understanding of religion should be understood as stemming from the Jewish background of early Christianity. As a religion of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, Israelite religion shared many patterns and implicit perceptions in common with other ancient religions (and the same holds true for Samaritan religion). The Temple cult, the centrality of Zion, and the patterns of religious authority developed by the »Aaronides« can be easily compared with other contemporary phenomena. Religion was embedded in politics, to the extent that Martin Buber was able to speak of »Theo-politics« in ancient Israel.16 During the Hellenistic period, however, various groups accepted the 14

  See G. G. Stroumsa, »Philosophy of the Barbarians,« in Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999), 57 – 84. 15   See Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy, esp. 1 – 56. 16   See M. Buber, Königtum Gottes (Berlin, 1932), esp. 139 – 182: »Um die Theokratie«.

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prophetic insistence on the chasm between the individual sense of religious duty and royal or priestly authority. In particular, the birth and growth of the Pharisaic movement permitted the development of a new sensitivity to the subjective dimen‑ sion of religious life and to the otherworldly dimension of religious beliefs. With the new insistence on the belief in resurrection, Judaism became a religion of personal salvation, in which purification became moral as much as cultic, and the collective dimension of religion was no longer exclusive or predominant. From Hellenistic times, a complex situation emerged in Judaism, due mainly to the Pharisaic movement, but also to the apocalyptic trends which accentuated the deep break between religion and politics. A new reflection on the public dimension of religion emerged in Hellenistic Judaism, of which we find the traces in both Philo’s and Josephus’ writings. Moses was compared in Hellenistic Judaism to the ancient legislators – Lycurgus and Numa in particular. The new perception of Moses, how‑ ever required a substantial re-adaptation, since ancient Judaism possessed a con‑ cept of revelation foreign to Greek and Roman religions. Whereas in Greco-Roman thought Lycurgus and Numa were perceived as political leaders who used religion to strengthen the social fabric of their societies and foster peace, for Hellenistic Jewish thinkers Moses was first of all a prophet, who attributed to God the ultimate power in the society he had established. To use »the Mosaic distinction,« a phrase coined by Jan Assmann, one can say that Moses (or rather the figure of Moses as preserved in Jewish historical consciousness) inverts the relationship between state and reli‑ gion which was common in the ancient world.17 Philo’s political theory, in particular, focuses upon the Law of Moses.18 Philo’s conception of nomos reflects its double dimension, as both religious and political law. It would be left to Josephus to invent the term theokrateia – a hapax in Greek.19 The definition of religion presented there by Josephus is strikingly different from that of a Livy, for instance. While Josephus insists that Moses‹ role was that of presenting religion, i. e., truth, as a teaching suit‑ able for all, for Livy, the establishment of the sacra and the role of the priests were meant to induce piety and reduce violence, but had little to do with truth.20 17   See J. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cam‑ bridge, Mass, 1997). 18   See H. A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), II, ch. 13, 322 – 441. 19  Josephus, Contra Apionem II.155 ff. On the concept of theokrateia in Josephus, see Y. Amir, »Theokrateia as a Concept of Political Philosophy: Josephus’ Presentation of Moses’ Politeia,« Studia Classica Israelica 8 – 9 (1985 – 86), 83 – 105; C.  Gerber, Ein Bild des Judentums für Nichtjuden von Flavius Josephus (Leiden, New York, Cologne, 1997), 338 – 359; H. Cancik, »Theokratie und Priester‑ harrschaft: die mosaische Verfassung bei Flavius Josephus, c. Apionem 2, 157 – 198,« in J. Taubes, ed., Religionstheorie und Politiesche Theologie, III: Theokratie (Paderborn, 1987), 65 – 77. On the con‑ cept itself, see further B. Lang, »Theokratie,« Handbuch religionswissenschaftliche Grundbegriffe 5, ed. H. Cancik, B. Gladigow, K.‑H. Kohl (Stuttgart, 2001), 178 – 189. 20  Livy, Ab urbe condita I.9 – 21. On the perception of Numa in Western historiography and con‑ sciousness, see in particular M. Silk, »Numa Pompilius and the Idea of Civil Religion in the West,« Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, 4 (2004), 863 – 896.

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It is within the frame of Hellenistic Judaism that the Hebrew concept of berith became perceived as parallel to the Greek politeuma. Such a parallel could – and in time would – go in two opposite directions. On the one hand, it would permit the politicization of the religious community. On the other hand, however, it would also encourage the »disengagement« of the religious community from society, from the polis. Such a disengagement would happen both among Jews and Christians under the Roman Empire. Like the early Church Fathers, the Rabbis created a spiritual and intellectual »enclave« within the surrounding pagan society. This enclave remained marginal to society at large, belonging to it in some ways, retaining its distance from it in others. Later echoes of the early Jewish traditions in rabbinic and Talmudic literature are of particular interest to our theme, as they reflect what happens to the political dimensions of religion after the disappearance of the state and the destruction of the Temple. As is well known, Judaism reconstructed itself upon new bases in the last decades of the first century c.e. Christianity in general – and western Christianity in particular, most clearly under Augustine’s influence – questioned the assumption, shared by all ancient Mediterranean societies, that religion was inherently connected to the well-being of the state. It was profoundly ambivalent about human govern‑ ment. Even the Christianized Roman Empire remained a locus of this-worldly evil, and hence profoundly different from the City of God to which Christians aspired. In contrast to Greco-Roman thought, Christian thinkers did not perceive religion as by definition possessing a socio-political dimension. Indeed, the status of Christian‑ ity as a religio illicita in the first three centuries had encouraged the view that salva‑ tion was fundamentally incompatible with political success. To be sure, the imperial theology represented so well by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth century tried to reverse the pattern, but this attempt was short lived. By and large, Christian thinkers have resisted the idea of a »political theology,« as was convincingly argued by Erik Peterson in his seminal Monotheismus als politisches Problem.21 Peterson sought to understand the decline and final demise of political theology in late antique Christian thought, after the fourth century. As an anti-Nazi theologian (and against the legal scholar and Nazi sympathizer Carl Schmitt, who had intro‑ duced the term politische Theologie), it was important for Peterson to show that clas‑ sical Christianity made no real claims directly supporting political power. In order to do so, Peterson followed the history of the concept of monarcheia from Pseudo 21   E. Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politi­ schen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig, 1935); new edition in Theologische Traktate = Ausgewählte Schriften 1, ed. B. Nichtweiss (Würzburg, 1994), 23 – 81. See A. Schindler, ed., Monotheismus als politisches Problem? Erik Peterson und die Kritik der politischen Theologie (Gütersloh, 1978), which shows that the issue was more complex than claimed by Peterson. Similarly, A. Momigliano has argued that Peterson’s thesis ought to be emended, in »The Disadvantages of Monotheism for a Universal State,« in his On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, Conn., 1987; originally pub‑ lished in Classical Philology 81), 142 – 158.

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Aristotle’s De mundo, through Philo, to the statements of Eusebius and Augustine on divine and human monarchy. While Peterson’s thesis is often cited, it would seem that the problem itself deserves to be reopened. The new religious sensitivity during the last stages of Second Commonwealth Judaism had permitted a strong inward turning and the transformation of Juda‑ ism into a religion of salvation. This trend is reflected for instance in the evangel‑ ical saying of Jesus: »Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God« (Matt. 22:21 and parallels). The same trend would eventually give birth to Paul’s dramatic internalization of religion and indifference towards the polit‑ ical dimensions of religion. This strong tension between the realms of religious and political authority, at the very birth of Christianity, will retain its powerful influence throughout Christian history, and will be reflected in a constant ambivalence toward political power. Such an ambivalence, which is typical of Christianity, is at the core of the political dualism of the Middle Ages, masterfully studied by Ernst Kantorowitz for the West, and, more recently, by Gilbert Dagron for Byzantium.22 Under the Roman Empire there occurred a drastic redrawing of the boundar‑ ies of religious, ethnic, and cultural identity. More and more, the central aspect of identity (both collective and personal) became religious, until this was finally con‑ secrated in imperial legislation from the end of the fourth century on. At that point, Christianity had come to establish itself as a religion with clear political dimensions. Its status in the Christianized Roman Empire, however, remained strikingly different from the status of religion in the ancient city, or in ancient Rome. The exclusiveness of the state religion, and the rejection of all other forms of reli‑ gion, was something quite new, with no equivalent in the pagan world. This fact does not come only from the monotheistic character of Christianity, but also from the new Christian conception of religion, interiorized as never before, and from which the political sphere was conspicuously absent (what Max Weber, and Hans Kippen‑ berg in his wake, have called Entpolitisierung).23 Under such conditions, religion can‑ not avoid a certain radicalization as it re-enters the political sphere. More precisely, a clear dualism of the corpus ecclesiae and the corpus respublicae had developed in early Christianity. It is only after the radical dissociation of religion from the polit‑ ical realm that the idea of civil religion, as opposed to »real,« internalized, personal religion, as we know it in the modern western tradition, could have taken place. To give just one instance: in his De civitate Dei, by far the most important work dealing with our topic, Augustine points out that while Seneca was wise enough to reject the idols as false (in his lost work, De superstitione), he nonetheless accepted the cult of

22

  E. Kantorowitz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957); G. Dagron, Empereur et prêtre: Étude sur le »césaropapisme« byzantin (Paris, 1996). 23   See H. Kippenberg, Die vorderasiatischen Erlösungsreligionen in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der antiken Stadtherrschaft: Heidelberger Max-Weber-Vorlesungen 1988 (Frankfurt a. M., 1991).

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the city (although it was based on the idols), since for him the rites were meant to follow the laws, rather than to be actions pleasing the divinity.24 Although rabbinic Judaism, like patristic Christianity, also attested to a similar dissociation, the formal structures of ancient Judaism, such as the Temple sacrifices, were never officially declared null among the Jews, but only temporarily suspended. For the Christians, on the other hand, these structures had undergone a radical change, which permitted the modern idea of civil religion, to emerge, with Machia‑ velli and Rousseau. The concept of civil religion – as well as that of political theology, i. e., the intel‑ lectual justification of civil religion – should thus be seen in a double perspective. It was a concept first embedded in Greek and Roman thought and practice, which was then transformed from a political reality into an ideological construct through its adaptation to the Jewish and Christian cultures. Such a perspective sheds some new light upon the often recognized, but rarely explained Christian distinction between the sacred and the secular, a distinction born, as Robert Markus reminds us, in late antiquity.25 Moreover, it offers a fresh approach to the understanding of the dialectical relationships between religion and politics in the ancient world, from a comparative perspective.

IV. While Christianity proved unable to accept the idea of a universal state, it had no problem with the idea of universal history. Monotheism might not directly lead to a single emperor, but it certainly fit the idea of a unified history of humankind. It is this (biblical) insistence upon the essential unity of humankind that permitted the development of a new conception of cultural memory, inclusive, at least in theory, of all ethnic identities and cultural traditions of humankind. If men and women were Christians by nature, as Tertullian had said (anima naturaliter Christiana), the cultural memory of Christianity could naturally reflect on the whole past of human‑ kind. Moses could be compared to the most famous among the political and spiritual leaders in different cultures, and could easily be claimed to be the best among them. Clement of Alexandria, in particular, shows a rather original (and quite unexpected) approach to cultural memory. I should like now to evaluate some of its aspects. As a thinker, Clement of Alexandria pales before his follower Origen, a man of a much greater theological genius. Although Clement’s orthodoxy was never ques‑ tioned in the tradition, while violent controversies were soon to rage over Origen’s heretical views, Origen was to leave his imprint on Christian thought in a much more significant way than his predecessor. Yet, the very fact that Clement, a Greek intel‑ 24 25

 Augustine, De civitate Dei VI.10.   R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990), 7 – 13.

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lectual, was a convert to Christianity, while Origen was an insider, who had grown up as a Christian, and a martyr’s son, permitted Clement to ponder the relationships between cultures and religions in a highly original way, too often underestimated. Like other converts and apologists in the second century, Clement seeks to present Christianity as an intellectually respectable school of thought. This often leads him into some rather shallow digressions, where he shows off his knowledge of Greek literature. And yet, it is precisely this lack of theological and philosophical sophistica‑ tion that permits Clement to develop what I consider to be a quite new conception of cultural memory. Clement’s own cultural memory is that of an Alexandrian intellec‑ tual. Rather than shaking it off together with his old religion, he decides to open it up. He perceives Christianity as a religion of a new kind, which gave up the ethnic (and cultural) dimension usually connected to the various religions. Cultural memory is therefore given the ecumenical dimensions of the new religion itself, encompassing all mankind. It is no exaggeration to speak of the explosion of cultural memory in early Christianity. Joining Christianity, in that sense, would be a new kind of con‑ version, utterly different from the conversion to Judaism. Indeed, it cuts through the traditional ethnic and cultural categories of the ancient world. It is not a theory of conversion from ancient culture that Clement develops, but one of converting culture itself. True religion for him is not set against culture, false as this culture may be, but rather it helps purify culture by freeing it from its pagan elements. He insists that Greek culture is far from reflecting an original culture, which would be more powerful, or closer to truth, than other, barbarian cultures. Clement means to collect the highest achievements of these civilizations – not only Judaism, but also other ancient civilizations – and to reinterpret them within the new framework of Christian truth. Clement’s version of conversion does not require cutting all ties with the former cultural world. On the contrary, it would seem that he intends to broaden the bound‑ aries of cultural memory. Clement sought to accommodate Hebrew, Greek, and also barbarian memories, to incorporate them into his own, new, conception of cultural memory. He constructed the new cultural memory from already extant materials, which he sought to transform rather than to reject. It is only the pagan gods who were rejected by this Greek intellectual. In a daring intellectual move, Clement suc‑ ceeds, more clearly than other early Christian intellectuals, in creating a new cultural memory, of a kind hitherto unknown. The new kind of cultural memory is meant to serve the Christians, a people of a new kind, neither Greeks nor Jews, a triton genos (or tertium genus) in the words of the anonymous author of Epistle to Diognetus, in the second century, or »a people from among the peoples« (‘ama de ‘amamei) accord‑ ing to Aphrahat, the fourth-century »Persian sage.« In a study on »the Past in Clement of Alexandria,« Raoul Mortley recognized Clement’s historiography as reflecting his search for Christian identity. Mortley points out that the principles of this historiography, developed mainly in the last chapters of Stromateis I (in particular in chapter 21), have received too little atten‑

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tion. This stems, according to him, from the fact that these principles (which have little convincing historical value) do not belong to the main themes of Clement’s Platonic theology. Noting the importance of law and of the figure of Moses as king in Clement’s discourse, Mortley goes on to analyze the »common culture theory« of the peoples of the oikoumenē developed by Clement. The fact that Greek culture is derivative emphasizes the unity of Mediterranean culture, the idea of progres‑ sive revelation, and the correspondence between Greek and Israelite culture. More broadly, states Mortley, »it is the idea of universal history which gives the clue to the Clementine understanding of the past.«26 Mortley’s study has the great merit of calling attention to Clement’s conception of history. Yet, I think that Clement’s view of the centrality of religions in universal history, and of Moses as a lawgiver, call for further clarification. It is to these two themes that I want to devote the remaining pages of this article. More clearly than any other early Christian writer, perhaps, Clement of Alexan‑ dria offers a new reflection on the history of religions. More precisely, he proposes what one can call a comparative history of religions, inscribing himself in the long ethnological tradition dealing with the religious beliefs and cults of various peoples, from Herodotus to Lucian, through Varro and Tacitus.27 A much more sustained intellectual and scholarly interest has been devoted to Clement’s view of the history of Greek philosophy than to his view of the history of religions. For Clement, how‑ ever, philosophy is part of religion. In Stromateis V, in particular, he develops the idea that Greek philosophy is a lower sort of wisdom, useful only temporarily, while true wisdom (i. e., the Gospel) is eternal. True wisdom, of which philosophy is but a pale reflection, is the solid knowledge of divine and human realities. The Greeks bor‑ rowed not only from the Israelites, but also from Indian and Egyptian »philosophy,« i. e., religious thought.28 Philosophers are intellectuals steeped in their own tradition, and able to reach, understand, and express the highest truths, each in his own voice and language. For the Platonist Clement, philosophy is a preparation for death, and hence cannot be separated from true religiosity, which is the drive toward the sepa‑ ration of the body from the mind, a separation conceived by Clement as a sacrifice. The main task of a philosopher is to formulate ideas about God, and also to discuss the nature of the proper cult to be offered to Him. Hence, all nations, all religious

26   Mortley, »The Past in Clement of Alexandria,« in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, I (London, 1980), 186 – 200, here 198. 27   See H. Cancik, »The History of Culture, Religion, and Institutions in Ancient Historiogra‑ phy: Philological Observations concerning Luke’s History,« Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997), 673 – 695; and H. Cancik, »Historisierung von Religion: Religionsgeschichtsschreibung in der Antike (Varro – Tacitus – Walahfrid Strabo),« in Aporemata: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte, V, Historicization – Historisierung (Göttingen, 2001), 1 – 13. On the historiographical context of Luke, see G. E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography (Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 64; Leiden, New York, Cologne, 1992). 28  Clement, Strom. V.35 – 38.

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and cultural traditions, possess their own philosophers, not only the Greeks, but also the Egyptians, or the Indians, and in particular the Jews. Just as philosophy is part of religion, the history of philosophy is thus part of the history of religions. In order to explain the presence of bits of truth and wisdom outside God’s reve‑ lation, Clement seems to hesitate between two models. The first model, based upon the idea of the spermatikos logos, or divine wisdom distributed by God among the nations, is not his own invention. The concept was already developed in Justin Mar‑ tyr’s Apology (around 150). Side by side with His Revelation to Israel, God took care of implanting within mankind some natural ways to know Him. Thus, the presence of a divine spermatikos logos is reflected in Plato’s doctrines, for instance, as well as in those of various wise men from different societies. This spermatikos logos explains the existence of truth particles throughout the world. In Protrepticus VII.74.7, for instance, Clement notes that the Greeks have collected some sparks form the divine Logos. In Justin’s Platonic perception, however, there is no chronological dimension to the action of the spermatikos logos. More precisely, while some Christian writ‑ ers before Clement could grant the pagans a natural knowledge of God, they were unable to conceive of a history of the religions of mankind as a unified history of revelation. Clement interprets universal history in a new, integrated way, seeing the different cultures as so many parts of one single story. The second model used by Clement to explain the presence of wisdom in Greece (and elsewhere) is his own, and is better known. It is usually called the theft theory, or the theory of plagiarism: the Greeks would have stolen wisdom, or rather parts of it, from the Hebrews, probably through the Egyptian priests with whom they had been in contact. The idea of plagiarism is recurrent in various places in Clement’s writings, but it is developed in great detail in Stromateis VI. The Greeks plagiarized from one another, from the various barbarian peoples with whom they had been in contact, and which are at the origin of most elements of intellectual as well as mate‑ rial culture. Most of all, they plagiarized the sublime ideas about God first developed by the Hebrews, the oldest of all peoples.29 According to this theory, the bits of truth found in different societies can all be explained as borrowings, usually unrecognized, by various thinkers from different societies, from the doctrines of Moses. The model is developed at length in the Stromateis, in particular in book V. Such a conception is established upon a clear chrono‑ logical precedence (and hence preeminence) of the Law of Moses on other religions and philosophies. Elsewhere, Clement announces his intention to demonstrate the precedence of Moses to the Greek philosophers. This antecedence of Hebrew lan‑ guage and thought also explains some of the traits of Greek philosophical writ‑ 29

 Clement, Strom. I.15.72.4. On the theft theory, see for instance A. Méhat, Etude sur les »Stromates« de Clément d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1966), 356 – 361. See, further, D. Ridings, The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 59; Göteborg, 1995), esp. 36 – 50.

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ing, for instance its enigmatic or esoteric character.30 The Mosaic antecedence also implies a clear unity of universal history, with a single concept of causality through influence. Such a conception, which represents a clear departure from Clement’s oth‑ erwise Platonic patterns of thought, reflects his profound interest in the historical contacts and relationships between peoples – an interest not shared by Justin, for instance. Clement’s recognition of the multifaceted nature of human cultures and history is unique in ancient Christian literature, and permits him, despite the obvi‑ ous apologetic character of his work, to offer rather useful, detailed, and »objective« observations on various cults and beliefs, with what one could almost call an anthro‑ pological approach.

V. The theft theory permits Clement to offer a reflection on the history of religions that is quite original and interesting. In his Protrepticus, or Exhortation to the Greeks, Clement seeks to convince enlightened pagans of the value of Christianity, juxtapos‑ ing it to both traditional religions and philosophical tradition. Before the appeal of the Logos to conversion, in the last chapters of the work, Clement offers a reasoned criticism of pagan beliefs and cults. He intends to show that the history of (pagan) religions represents a succession of errors and mistaken perceptions, both of the Divinity and of ethical demands of true religiosity. The worst of all pagan religions, of course, are those that practice human sacrifices. For Clement, they are simply beyond the pale of humanity.31 As is well known, Clement’s references to the Greek mystery cults represent one of the few significant sources of our meager knowledge about these cults. Follow‑ ing Plato and Philo, he uses mystery vocabulary in a metaphorical sense, in bonam partem, in order to describe Christian spiritual life.32 Like Plutarch, Clement claims that the two worst enemies of true religion are impiety and superstition.33 He sin‑ gles out Euhemerus of Agrigente, Nicanor of Cyprus, Diagoras, and Hippo of Melos, as exceptionally wise men, who, more than anyone else, had been able to detect the errors concerning the gods. To be sure, they did not identify truth, but at least they criticized erroneous religious conceptions. Fighting superstition is an excellent intro‑ duction to the search for truth.34 30

 Clement, Strom. I.14.60.1.  Clement, Protr. III. 32  Clement, Strom. II.12 – 23; XII.120.1. See C. Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon, und Klemens von Alexandrien (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 26; Berlin, New York, 1987). 33   Ibid., II.25.1: atheotēs kai deisidaimonia; I am using here Les Stromates, I, intro. by C. Mon­ désert, trans. by M. Caster (SC 30; Paris, 1951), 79. 34   Ibid., II.24.2 (ed. Mondésert, trans. Caster, 79). 31

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Greek philosophers, says Clement, have sometimes been able to guess truth, at least dimly, as in a dream, in particular when they attributed a divine nature to some marvelous phenomena.35 While philosophers who adore matter are actually atheists, Clement takes a real anthropological interest in various reports about beliefs and cults of barbarian peoples, such as the Persians and the Chaldeans.36 Both philoso‑ phers and poets have sometimes testified to the truth, thanks to certain sparks of the divine Logos, or interior master, that illuminated them, at least partially revealing truth. But it is only to the prophets of Israel, those »thiasos companions« of Moses that one should turn for truth about God.37 For Clement, as for Philo and Numenius of Apamea, if Plato expresses some views similar to those of Moses, this shows that the Greek learned them from the Hebrew.38 By far the most interesting feature of the Protrepticus from our perspective, how‑ ever, is the concise history of (pagan) religion, in seven stages, not necessarily con‑ secutive, developed by Clement.39 This highly original conception of historiography, would in itself have been enough to offer Clement a place among the few historians and observers of religion in the ancient world, such as Herodotus, and his contempo‑ rary Lucian. Oddly enough, it remains usually ignored, despite the excellent analysis of Arthur J. Droge.40 Clement begins with the oldest form of religion, i. e., natural religion (»a certain alliance between men and heaven«), later lost in the darkness of ignorance, which gave birth to a succession of mistaken conceptions.41 The first of those mistakes was to transform the stars into gods. In this way, people worship the sun, like the Indians, or the moon, like the Phrygians. For others, it is the fruits of the earth that became divinized, such as wheat, called Deo by the Athenians and vine, becoming Dionysus among the Thebans. Others again have divinized evils, such as the Erinyes and the Eumenides, the divinities of vengeance and punishment in the works of the poets. Fourthly, some philosophers, following the poets, have transformed passions into idols: Fear, Love, Joy, Hope. Other abstract ideas, such as Dikē (justice) or Heimarmenē (destiny) also became gods and received the appear‑ ance of a human body. A sixth way of creating false gods is that of Hesiod, who counts twelve gods in his Theogony. It is upon these gods that Homer’s theology is established. The seventh and final way of inventing false gods has been to imagine savior and helping gods or semi-gods, such as Heracles, the Dioscuri, or Asclepius. In sum, all these human inventions intended to make sense of the world have been 35

  Ibid., V.64.1 (ed. Mondésert, trans. Caster, 128).   Ibid., V.65.1 – 4. 37   Ibid., VII.79.2. 38   See M. J. Edwards, »Atticizing Moses? Numenius, the Fathers, and the Jews,« Vigiliae Christianae 44 (1990), 64 – 75. Edwards shows that Numenius’ knowledge of Judaism must have been rather meagre. 39  Clement, Protr. II.26.1 – 8. 40   A. J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübin‑ gen, 1989), 129 – 138. 41  Clement, Protr. II.25.3. 36

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ways of slipping away from the road leading to truth and heaven. Indeed, almost all that concerns the pagan gods is invention and fiction.42 As Droge, after Paul Wendland a century ago, has shown, it  is probable that Clement took this taxonomy of the different kinds of divinities from Stoic placita. In particular, a similar scheme is found in Cicero’s De natura deorum.43 As Droge points out, Clement’s analysis of religion as a human phenomenon comes close to the theory of the antiquarian Varro (first century b.c.e.), who is mentioned by Clem‑ ent, and who described three types of religion, the natural (physicum), the mythical (mythicum), and the civic (gentile).44 A similar conception is propounded in Dio Chrysostom’s Oration 12 (»On Man’s First Conception of God,« delivered at Olym‑ pia in 105 c.e.). Despite the parallels and probable sources of Clement’s views here, his presentation of religion as a human phenomenon, to be explained by passions and etiological reasoning, is unique in early Christian literature, and reflects the orig‑ inality of his effort as a historian of culture and of religion. This, however, is due not only to the fact that Clement is still closely connected to Greek culture, but also to his desire to understand the plurality of religious viewpoints, beliefs, and prac‑ tices, among foreign nations as well as among Greeks. As has already been noted, the degree of accuracy in his ethnological observations (for instance on Egyptian religion or on the Greek mysteries) is remarkable. In Stromateis VI, Clement develops at length the theme of Greek borrowing from the Egyptians and from the Indians. In doing so, he devotes much attention to Egyp‑ tian and Indian religion. His description of Egyptian festivals, in particular Egyp‑ tian processions and Indian religious philosophy, for which India was well known in the ancient world, represents an important part of Stromateis VI.45 In Stromateis V, Clement presents a theory of Egyptian religious esotericism, as reflected in the Egyp‑ tians’ enigmatic forms of expression, and their symbols. Through their cultural bor‑ rowings from Egyptian wisdom, it is not only philosophy that the Greeks were able to develop. Their borrowings also had a religious character, reflected in the fact that the Greeks, too, had prophets.46 While their philosophy, however, is useful only tem‑ porarily, the value of true wisdom is eternal. Clement insists that there is no differ‑ ence between cult and philosophy in ancient Egypt.47 As is well known, there is no single Greek word equivalent to the Latin religio. Indeed, it  is notoriously difficult to define religion in the Greek world. Various words, such as thrēskeia and eusebeia, carry connotations of piety, of correct reli‑ gious behavior. What is clear, in any case, is that any religion is, first of all, a religious law, a nomos. While not all nomoi are of a religious nature, religion requires practice, 42

 Clement, Protr. II.27.4.  Cicero, De natura deorum III.49 – 65. 44   Apud Augustine, De civitate Dei VI.5; Droge, Homer or Moses, 135. 45  Clement, Strom. VI.4.35.1 – 4.38.12. On Egyptian religion, see Strom. VI.4.35.1 – 3. 46   Ibid., V.42.2. 47   Ibid., VI.4.37.3. 43

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following traditional rules, set perhaps from time immemorial, but eventually going back to a lawgiver, a nomothetēs. Each people has its own lawgiver. And a religion is, first of all, a set of laws given by the often mythical »national« leader who gave the corpus of laws to the nation at the dawn of its history. Hence, the reflection upon the nature of religion would necessarily touch upon the question of the lawgiver, his identity, and the qualities required from him. It will remain the topic of another study to show how, for Clement and other early Christian intellectuals, the figures of Numa Pompilius, the mythical king from Roman origins, who had given the Romans their religion, and of Moses came to be joined in the new paradigm of the lawgiver, political leader, and religious figure.48 Both Greek, Roman, and Jewish thinkers had reflected on the figure of the nomothetēs. The integration of the two figures of Numa and Moses in Christian literature would eventually be fully accomplished with the success of Christianity. The first Roman emperor to become a Christian, indeed, would be presented by his clerical admirers, like Eusebius of Casesarea, as a new Moses, rather than as Numa redivivus.

48

  See chapter 14, below.

14. Moses the Lawgiver: The Idea of Civil Religion in Patristic Thought I. In his lost book Against Superstition (De Superstitione), Seneca expressed his disgust with various aspects of pagan cults. The terms Seneca used are reminiscent of the portrayals of pagan, cultic violence in both the prophets of Israel and the Church Fathers. Augustine, who quotes him at some length on this issue, shows his disap‑ pointment with Seneca, who, despite the »cruel obscenity« of some of the ceremo‑ nies he was describing, »lacked the frankness and courage to criticize the theology of the city (theologia civilis) with the same freedom he showed towards the theology of the theatre, which resembled it so closely.« Thus Seneca, a philosopher, but also a Roman citizen (and a contemporary of the Apostle Paul), ended up venerated what he was condemning. Seneca, then, remained unable to distance himself from Roman civil religion.1 The Roman polyhistor Varro, as we know from the City of God, had proposed in the preceding century a threefold division of theology, into »mythi‑ cal« (or »fabulous« in Latin), »physical« (or »natural«), and »political« (or »civil«).2 There was no way in which Christian thinkers could accept the Roman public cult, or civil religion. As Tertullian had claimed in his Apology: Deos uestros colere desinimus (»Your gods, we have ceased to honor them . . .«).3 They could not any more agree with its intellectual basis, with what Varro had called political theology. Augustine, of course, objected most strongly to any kind of traditional civil reli‑ gion or political theology, i. e., to the public cult offered by the citizens and of its theological basis. That does not mean, however, that he was not influenced, in some serious way, by the principles of Varro’s political theology. Indeed, Hubert Cancik has produced some serious arguments for seeing him as a theologus civilis in the Varronian sense – with Christianity as the new official religion.4 To some extent, 1

 Augustine, De civitate Dei VI.10.  Augustine, De civitate Dei VI.5. On Varro’s theology, much has been written. See for instance G. Lieberg, »Die ›theologia tripertita‹ in Forschung und Bezeugung,« ANRW 1.4 (1973), 63 – 115. On Augustine’s attitude to Varro, see A. Dihle, »Die Theologia tripertita bei Augustin,« in H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger, P. Schäfer, eds., Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion, Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, III (Tübingen, 1996), 183 – 202. 3  Tertullian, Apologeticum X.2. 4   See H. Cancik, »Augustinus als konstantinischer Theologe,« in J. Taubes, ed., Der Fürst dieser Welt: Carl Schmitt und die Folgen (Munich, 1985), 136 – 152. Cf. M. J. Hollerich, »Augustine as a Civil 2

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Augustine criticizes Varro’s system for not being systematic enough.5 Yet, the central idea of the City of God reflects Augustine’s deep ambivalence towards political order, and hence political theology. Augustine can neither deny its necessity nor accept it as the obvious expression of true religion. Between the attitudes of a Tertullian and a Eusebius, a new, complex stance had been emerging in patristic thought, and crys‑ tallized with Augustine. In order to understand more precisely the transformation of the concept of civil religion in late antiquity, we have to recognize the fact that Christianity was not only a new religion, whose theology proposed a new conception of the divinity and of salvation. It also taught a radically new attitude of the citizens themselves toward their city and the conception of their duties. In a sense, this was the subject matter of the City of God: for the Christians, Augustine argued, the various political entities were only temporary sites. Their real identity belonged elsewhere. For the Chris‑ tians, the religious sphere did not coincide with the political sphere, even if there was, of necessity, a certain overlap. Fundamentally, religion belonged elsewhere, and focused upon both the individual and the community of believers, rather than upon the whole of society. In a sense, early Christianity reflects a semantic transformation of the Latin terms religio and superstitio: what had been religio became superstitio, and vice versa, both terms moving between the personal and the public sphere. We observe here nothing less than a watershed in the religious history of humankind, the emergence of a new relationship between religion and the public sphere. Some dramatic consequences resulted from such a transformation, which became the backbone of (western) medieval political thought. The following pages will seek to tackle this problem through patristic approaches of the figure of Moses, the law‑ maker of the Jewish polity, and hence the model leader for the Christian polity.

II. In his first book on political theology, published in 1922, the German legal scholar Carl Schmitt argued, inter alia, that all the central concepts of modern political thought were actually secularized avatars of originally theological concepts.6 For him, the correspondence between theological and political concepts is not only genetic, but also structural, in the sense that there is a similar relationship between Theologian?« in J. T. Lienhard, S. J., E. C. Muller, S. J., and R. J. Teske, S. J., eds., Collectanea Augustiniana (Augustinian Historical Institute; New York, 1993), 57 – 69, which argues against Cancik’s thesis. 5   See G. O’Daly, »Augustine’s Critique of Varro on Roman Religion,« reprinted in his Platonism Pagan and Christian: Studies in Plotinus and Augustine (Ashgate, 2001), ch. XIII. 6   C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souverainität (Munich, Leipzig, 1922), 49. On the modern discussion on political theology, see K.‑M. Kodalle, Politik als Macht und Mythos: Carl Schmitts ›Politische Theologie‹ (Stuttgart, 1973); and L. Sartori and M. Nicoletti, eds., Teologia politica (Bologna, 1991).

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the constitutive elements of the theological and those of the political realm. Among the various reactions to Schmitt’s thesis among German thinkers and theologians, that of Erik Peterson was by far the most important. Peterson was a Protestant theo‑ logian, who eventually converted to Catholicism and left Nazi Germany (while Schmitt became a fellow traveler of sorts of the regime). In 1935, Peterson published a powerful refutation of Schmitt’s thesis.7 In Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem, Peterson argued that the very idea of political theology, which he followed from Pseudo-Aristotle’s De mundo and from Philo’s concept of God’s monarcheia, did not quite succeed, despite various attempts, to grow roots in Greek and Latin patristic lit‑ erature, and was eventually rejected. The emergence of Trinitarian thought, accord‑ ing to him, put an end to the early Christian flirtation with political theology, and Trinitarian doctrine liberated Christianity from political instrumentalization. For Peterson, no one could legitimately claim that the modern cult of the state found its roots in Christian theology. Peterson had concluded his analysis with the claim that »only on the ground of Judaism or Paganism could a ›political theology‹ have appeared.«8 Much attention has been devoted to this study in the last twenty years or so. In particular, a rich vol‑ ume edited by Alfred Schindler has offered a fresh analysis of the texts and a critical review of Peterson’s arguments.9 Arnaldo Momigliano, for his part, has argued in an insightful article that Peterson’s interpretation of the decline of political theology in the Roman Empire had been »too unilateral.«10 It seems to me that while Peterson was able to put his finger on a very significant fact, when he argued that Christian thought eventually retreated from the attempt to develop a political theology, neither he nor Momigliano were able to explain this fact quite satisfactorily. If political theology is predicated upon the parallelism between God’s monar‑ chy and the ruling of the empire, a Jewish background might be easier to under‑ stand than a pagan one. But we know that in the ancient world, political theology flourished both among Jews and pagans. Although many Greco-Roman thinkers were, to a great extent, monotheists, philosophical monotheism is deeply different from Jewish monotheism. There is a discrepancy here that Peterson could not easily explain. The solution to this problem lies in the recognition of the fact that political theology is not established upon the parallelism between divine cult and ruler cult. Rather, political theology represents the intellectual reflection on civil religion, i. e.,  7

  E. Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der poli­ tischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig, 1935). I am using the text in E. Peterson, Theologische Traktate = Ausgewählte Schriften 1, ed. B. Nichtweiss (Würzburg, 1994), 23 – 81.  8  Peterson, Monotheismus als politisches Problem, 59.  9   A. Schindler, ed., Monotheismus als politisches Problem? Erik Peterson und die Kritik der politischen Theologie (Gütersloh, 1978). 10   A. Momigliano, »The Disadvantages of Monotheism for a Universal State,« in his On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, Conn., 1987; originally published in Classical Philology  81), 142 – 158, see 153.

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on the public cult, or the public aspects of cult, in ancient societies. In that sense, civil religion existed (in different ways, to be sure) among both Jews and Romans. More precisely, there was no clear-cut boundary between »religion« and »civil religion« in ancient societies, among pagans and monotheists alike, just as the fields of religion and politics, and of sacred and profane, were organized quite differently than they would be in a Christianized world. The concept of religion as we know it, actually, emerged from the deep transfor‑ mation of categories which resulted from the growth and success of Christianity in the Roman world.11 For a variety of reasons much too complex to be analyzed here, early Christianity propounded what amounts to a real mutation of the very concept of religion in late antiquity. Historians have only recently begun to recog‑ nize this fact, which has always been self-evident for Christian theologians. For the early Christians, adherents for a long time to a religio illicita, the public space of the city could no longer be the obvious locus of cult. The very notion of Temple had undergone a radical transformation – one could use the Hegelian term of Aufhebung – in the earliest strata of Christian literature. Christian cult, then, could not function as an integral and official part of society. For the first time, perhaps, a clear division appeared between »sacred« and »profane,« which distinguished between an »internalized« sacred and the public, or »civil« aspects of life, as Robert Markus has pointed out.12 For the early Christians, »civil religion« could mean either the sacri‑ fices in the Jerusalem Temple, which were obsolete, or those of the pagans, which were absurd (as they were offered to idols, not to the one and only true God). Later, when the various patterns of behavior involving, at least in theory, the whole society, would be recognized as »civil religion,« they would be clearly distinguished from, if not opposed to, those of »true religion.« Since society, in its political framework, could not be for Christians the locus of religion, other collective dimensions had to be developed. The most obvious one, it seems, would be the community. While the growth of religious communities in late antiquity, throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East, was far from being only, or essentially, a Christian phenomenon, it was a particularly congenial form of identity for the Christians. Communities cut through political boundaries, and high‑ lighted the religious dimensions of identity.13 The religious revolution of late antiquity was reflected in many areas, but perhaps nowhere as clearly as in the mutation of ancient civil religion. The movement of religious Scriptures that spread throughout the Near East, in particular, reflects one of its main aspects. With it, and dependent upon it, new religions claimed to offer 11   For a suggestive analysis of this transformation of the very concept of religion in the Roman world, see M. Sachot, L’invention du Christ: genèse d’une religion (Paris, 1998). 12   R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990), 7. 13  See in particular G. Fowden, »Religious Communities,« in G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, O. Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 82 – 106.

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salvation to all, across ethnic, political, and cultural borders. The new world religions, from Christianity to Islam, through Manichaeism, were established upon both the communities, sometimes very far apart, and upon the Scriptures which were the obvious form of contact and communication between these communities, permit‑ ting the establishment of a network of religious identity hitherto unknown. The weakening of civil religion in late antiquity, then, seems to have mainly been activated by Christianity. As a world religion, it could not be identified with any sin‑ gle political entity, not even one of imperial dimensions. A world religion, precisely, entailed a clear distancing from any political power; in other words, God’s kingdom was not »of this world.« Now the new emphasis upon Scriptures (which of course the Christians had car‑ ried over from the Jews) entailed stressing the author of those Scriptures, which were the real Law of the community (in contradistinction to the law of the state). Hence, the early Christian thinkers were brought to offer some reflections on the Lawgiver, the original or mythical leader of the community. In this, they followed an already respectable Jewish literary tradition on Moses the Lawgiver, or nomothetès. The early Christian attitude to Law, however, retained the Paulinian ambivalence to Nomos, the Torah. In a sense, the Logos, the oral Word of God, had replaced the Nomos, the written revelation. The deep, early Christian ambivalence towards the political authority of the Roman Empire is thus paralleled by its ambivalence toward the legal authority of the Mosaic Law. Like the Jews, the early Christians tended to withdraw from civic duties and honors, while strengthening the bonds of the reli‑ gious community. Unlike the Jews, however, they could not simply rely upon the Divine Legal Book written by Moses, in order to define their bond, or berith, with God. The Christians’ own politeuma had to be established upon quite different foun‑ dations. The complex attitudes delineated above suggest that the patristic reflection on the figure of Moses may shed some light upon the early Christian attitudes to civil religion. Before focusing upon this figure, however, we must deal, at least briefly, with the Jewish background of patristic thought.

III. As a religion of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, Israelite religion (and Samaritan religion as well) shared many patterns and implicit perceptions with other ancient religions. Religion was embedded in politics, to the extent that Martin Buber was able to speak of »Theo-politics« in ancient Israel.14 A new reflection on the pub‑ lic dimension of religion emerged in Hellenistic Judaism, of which we find the traces in both Philo’s and Josephus’ writings. The ancient adequation of religion and civil 14

  See M. Buber, Königtum Gottes (Berlin, 1932), esp. 139 – 182: »Um die Theokratie«.

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society underwent a transformation. The models were now those of the Hellenistic world. Moses was compared in Hellenistic Judaism to the ancient legislators – Lycur‑ gus and Numa in particular. This however required a substantial re-adaptation, since ancient Judaism possessed a concept of revelation foreign to Greek and Roman reli‑ gions. Whereas in Greco-Roman thought Lycurgus and Numa were perceived as political leaders who used religion to strengthen the social fabric in their own soci‑ eties and foster peace, for Hellenistic Jewish thinkers Moses was predominantly a prophet, who attributed to God the ultimate power in the society he had established. To use »the Mosaic distinction,« a phrase coined by Jan Assmann, one can say that Moses (or rather the figure of Moses as preserved in Jewish historical consciousness) inverts the relationship between state and religion common in the ancient world.15 Philo’s political theory, in particular, focuses upon the Law of Moses.16 Philo’s con‑ ception of nomos reflects its double dimension, as both religious and political law. It would be left to Josephus to invent the term theokrateia – a hapax that occurs in his Contra Apionem.17 The definition of religion presented there by Josephus is strik‑ ingly different from that of a Livy, for instance. While Josephus insists that Moses’ role was that of presenting religion, i. e., truth, as a teaching suitable for all, Livy depicts Numa Pompilius as someone who had to inculcate fear of heaven in the uncouth (rudem) Roman populace.18 For Livy, the establishment of the sacra and the role of the priests were meant to induce piety and reduce violence, but had little to do with truth. It is significant that false, »marvelous« stories, such as Numa’s nightly meeting with the goddess Egeria, were needed in order to justify Numa’s achieve‑ ments. In addition, one should note that in order to suit monotheistic conceptions of religious truth, the figures of the great »pagan« legislators were stripped of their ethnic and municipal connotations according to both Christian and Jewish sources. 15   See J. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cam‑ bridge, Mass., 1997). 16   See H. A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), II, ch. 13, 322 – 441. See further P. Bergen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (Suppl. to Novum Testamentum, 86; Leiden, 1997), 243 – 260: »Philanthropia and the Laws of Moses.« For perceptions of Moses as a wise and as a deficient lawgiver, see J. G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series, 16; Nashville, 1972), chs. 1 – 2. For the texts, see M. Stern, Greek and Roman Authors on Jews and Judaism, vols.  1 – 2 (Jeru‑ salem, 1974, 1980). 17  Josephus, Contra Apionem II.155 ff. On the concept of theokrateia in Josephus, see Y. Amir, »Theokrateia as a Concept of Political Philosophy: Josephus’ Presentation of Moses’ Politeia,« Studia Classica Israelica 8 – 9 (1985 – 86), 83 – 105; C.  Gerber, Ein Bild des Judentums für Nichtjuden von Flavius Josephus (Leiden, New York, Cologne, 1997), 338 – 359; H. Cancik, »Theokratie und Priester‑ herrschaft: die mosaische Verfassung bei Flavius Josephus, c. Apionem 2, 157 – 198,« in J. Taubes, ed., Religionstheorie und Politische Theologie, III: Theokratie (Paderborn, 1987), 65 – 77. On the concept itself, see further B. Lang, »Theokratie,« Handbuch religionswissenschaftlische Grundbegriffe 5 (2001), 178 – 189. 18  Livy, Ab urbe condita I.9 – 21. On the perception of Numa in Western historiography and con‑ sciousness, see in particular M. Silk, »Numa Pompilius and the Idea of Civil Religion in the West,« Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, 4 (2004), 863 – 896.

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Christianity in general  – and western Christianity in particular, most clearly under Augustine’s influence – questioned the assumption, shared by all ancient Med‑ iterranean societies, that religion was inherently connected to the well-being of the state. It was profoundly ambivalent about human government. Even the Christian‑ ized Roman Empire remained a locus of this-worldly evil, and hence profoundly different from the City of God to which Christians aspired. In contrast to Greco-Ro‑ man thinkers, Christian thinkers did not perceive religion as possessing by definition a socio-political dimension. Indeed, the status of Christianity as a religio illicita in the first three centuries had encouraged the view that salvation was fundamentally incompatible with political success. To be sure, the imperial theology so well repre‑ sented by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth century tried to reverse the pat‑ tern, but this attempt was short lived. By and large, Christian thinkers resisted the idea of a »political theology,« as was well shown by Erik Peterson in his above-men‑ tioned study.19 Under the Roman Empire there occurred a drastic redrawing of the boundaries of religious, ethnic, and cultural identity. More and more, the central aspect of iden‑ tity (both collective and personal) became religious, until this was finally consecrated in imperial legislation from the end of the fourth century onwards (see in particular Codex Theodosianus, book XVI). At that point, after the Constantinian revolution, Christianity had come a full circle to establish itself as a religion with clear political dimensions. Its status in the Christianized Roman Empire, however, remained strik‑ ingly different from the status of religion in the ancient city, or in ancient Rome.20

IV. Clement of Alexandria, like other Christian thinkers, was convinced that Moses’ pre‑ eminence over Greek and other pagan national and religious leaders was based upon his antecedence: the Jewish leader came first, just as the Hebrew language is older than Greek. A highly complex theory about the history of religions and cultures fol‑ lows from Clement’s conception of Mosaic legislation. Clement appears, thus, also as a quite interesting, even original historian of religions and cultures. I have dealt in chapter 13 above with his conception of cultural memory, within which one must understand his perception of national and religious leaders of the past. In the pres‑ ent context, a case of special interest is provided by the figure of Numa. The mythical first king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, had been a paradigmatic figure in Roman and 19  Peterson, Monotheismus als politisches Problem (originally published in 1935; new ed. in 1994). Compare Schindler, ed., Monotheismus als politisches Problem?, which shows that the issue was more complex than claimed by Peterson. Similarly, Momigliano has argued, in »The Disadvan‑ tages of Monotheism for a Universal State«, that Peterson’s thesis ought to be emended. 20   See chapter 13 above for a more developed argument.

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Hellenistic historiography. In the first century b.c.e., in particular, Varro had devoted much attention to him, as the true creator of Roman religion and of its relationship with the state. Clement espoused this tradition, which he sought to reinterpret from his own peculiar viewpoint: for him, Numa was a Pythagorean philosopher, who was strongly influenced by Mosaic conceptions. (Pythagoras himself was a disciple of Zarathustra.)21 The clearest trace of this influence is the aniconic character of Numa’s religion. During the first one hundred and seventy years of Rome, indeed, Roman temples were devoid of any painting or sculpture.22 This perception of Numa as having been under the influence of Moses is remarkable on various counts: it reck‑ ons that Roman archaic religion, or at least some of its aspects, came from the East, it insists on the non-political side of this religion (aniconism), and it emphasizes the comparison between Numa and Moses. True to Christian tradition since Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Clement insists that monotheism came first, polytheism later. He sharpens the view of original monotheism, however, by seeking to demonstrate that even Moses was anterior not only to the Greek sages and poets, but even to most of their gods. Thus, for instance, Moses was anterior to Dionysus.23 Clement’s perception of Numa as a Pythagorean philosopher under Mosaic influ‑ ence is quite exceptional. In the ancient world, as well as in modern political thought, from Machiavelli onwards, Numa has usually been remembered for having estab‑ lished Roman religion as a state institution. Religion in the ancient world, both in Greece and Rome, but also in Israel and elsewhere, had as a rule a major politi‑ cal dimension, as it was one of the primary ways of expressing collective identity. In other words, ancient religion remained, to some extent, civil religion. Numa, in this regard, was the founder of a religious law – a lawgiver, or nomothetēs. Clem‑ ent notes that barbarian peoples so greatly respect their lawgivers and teachers that they call them »gods.«24 Quoting Plato’s Timaeus (47a – b), Clement explains that these wise men are noble souls who have left the super-celestial regions in order to help humankind. The various peoples – Brahmans, Odryses, Getes, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Arabs, Palestinians, Persians, and many others – have revered these men, transformed their philosophy into a state institution, and studied their writings as if they were sacred scriptures.25 This passage shows quite clearly that for Clement, who claims to merely be following Plato, a nomothetēs is at the same time a religious thinker and a political leader. His teaching has at once religious (as well as legal) and political aspects. For a Jew or a Christian, Moses was the best model of such a figure. Indeed, Philo had already depicted Moses as the perfect example of Plato’s philos‑ 21  Clement, Strom. I.15.69.2. For Numa as a Pythagorean philosopher in ancient literature, see A. Willi, »Numa’s Dangerous Books: The Exegetic History of a Roman Forgery,« Museum Helveticum 55 (1998), 139 – 172, esp. 144 – 145. 22   Strom. I.15.71.1 = Eusebius, Praep. Evang. IX.6. 23   Strom. I.21.105; cf. I.21.108. 24   Strom. I.15.67.3. 25  Clement, Strom. I.15.68.1.

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opher-king. In his Life of Moses, on which Clement is evidently directly dependent in his discussion of Moses, as demonstrated by Annewies van den Hoek, Philo had presented Moses as the best of all lawgivers in all countries (»better in fact than have ever arisen among either the Greeks or the barbarians«), and as having combined the qualities of a king and a philosopher, but also those of a lawgiver, a high priest, and a prophet.26 Philo had transformed Moses into the ideal Hellenistic king. One can find a similar picture of Moses, exalted above all other lawgivers, in Josephus.27 Philo describes Moses as a nomos empsychos, an animated nomos, using a term usually reserved for Hellenistic kings. Clement takes over from Philo his description of Moses. For him, however, it is the only-begotten Son, the incarnated Logos who is the best and true lawgiver, the perfect man even higher than Moses.28 The political theory of Philo, representing the Jewish version of Hellenistic political thought, thus becomes the basis of a Christian political philosophy. The Hebrew polity instituted by Moses becomes the model for a perfect society, far better than the other societies of the oikoumenè: »Moses furnished a good polity, which is the right discipline of men in social life.«29 Yet the Christian thinker does not forget that Moses is but a figure of Christ, who alone represents perfection. Hence, if the Greek polity is brass, the Jewish polity is silver, and the Christian polity is gold.30 To be sure, Clement’s view of Moses is calqued upon that of Philo. Yet, Clement had specific reasons of his own to see Moses as the perfect Lawgiver. Clement was a contemporary of Celsus, a Platonic philosopher who is known to us through his anti-Christian tractate, Alēthēs Logos – or, more precisely, through what remains of it in Origen’s quotations in his Contra Celsum, written some seventy years later. Celsus had accused the Christians of having given up the patrioi nomoi of the Jews, while claiming to retain their holy books. In a sense, then, Clement’s description of Moses as the perfect nomothetēs reflects the polemics about the legitimacy of Christianity 26  Philo, De vita Mosis II.1 – 2. See A. van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and his Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Suppl. to Vigiliae Christianae 3; Leiden, New York, Cologne, 1988). 27  Josephus, Contra Apionem II.161 – 162. On the Hellenistic conception of the ideal king, see E. R. Goodenough, »The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,« Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928), 56 – 101; see also W. Meeks, »The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology,« New Testament Studies 14 (1967), 100 – 131; Y. Amir, »Moses als Verfasser der Tora bei Philon,« in his Die hellenistische Gestalt des Judentums bei Philon von Alexandrien (Neukirchen, 1983), 77 – 105; D. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature (Assen, Minneapolis, 1993), 137 – 143. 28   See S. Fletcher Harding, »Christ as Greater than Moses in Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis  I – II,« Studia Patristica XXXI (Leuven, 1997), 397 – 400. Cf.  »Moses and Jesus in Contra Celsum 7.1 – 25: Ethics, History and Jewish-Christian Eirenics in Origen’s Theology,« in C. Kan‑ nengiesser, W. L. Petersen, eds., Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy (South Bend, Ind., 1988), 313 – 336. For other examples of Christ as nomothetēs, see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, 919 B ff. See further L. Perronne, »Die Verfassung der Juden: Das biblische Judentum als politisches Modell in Origenes’ Contra Celsum,« Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 7 (2003), 310 – 328. 29  Clement, Strom. I.26. 30  Clement, Strom. I.14.

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around the middle of the second century. In order to be recognized as a religio licita, it should show itself to be established upon an ancestral religious law. As Christian thinkers in general, and Platonists in particular, insist on their allegorical reading of the Hebrew scriptures, which are supposed to be their religious law, a Celsus can present a strong case against Christianity. It is in this context that one should see Clement’s perception of Moses as both religious and political leader: he needs to defend Christianity from an overall allegorical reading of biblical history. In an arti‑ cle on Clement’s view of the past, Raoul Mortley had pointed out a noticeable lack of scholarly interest in Clement’s ideas on history – and hence on Moses as lawgiver and political leader.31 For Mortley, this stemmed from the discrepancy between these views and the overall spirit of Clement’s Platonic thought. It is precisely this discrep‑ ancy, correctly detected by Mortley, which highlights the significance of Clement’s argument concerning Moses. Clement’s perception of Moses is thus parallel to his view of Numa: both are at once religious and political leaders. In the ancient world, religion has an inherent public dimension, and is then, essentially, civil religion.

V. Now Clement’s argument on Moses as lawgiver does not seem to have been very influential in later patristic literature. In fact, the Nachleben of Clement, although it still requires a serious study, does not seem to have been very important. As a theolo‑ gian, Clement was soon overshadowed by Origen. Those writers who were influenced by Platonic patterns of thought found it more congenial to appeal to the Origenian tradition, which also offered much richer biblical hermeneutics than Clement’s writ‑ ings. Moreover, the broader issue of the justification of Christianity as a religio licita, still very much an issue in Origen’s Contra Celsum, would become obsolete even before the Constantinian revolution. This fact goes a long way in explaining the small number of serious discussions of Moses as a lawgiver in later patristic literature. One major instance in this regard is Gregory of Nyssa’s De vita Moysis, which, while deeply influenced by Philo, including in its dual structure, historical and spiritual, totally ignores the political side of Moses’ leadership. For Gregory, the figure of Moses is first of all that of a mystic, who could reach, at the end of his spiritual ascent, if not God, then at least the divine obscurity in which God hides. This Moses has nothing left from his political dimension in Stromateis I: his mystical experience, individual by definition, has totally eclipsed his former perception as a political leader. Only a few patristic authors show in a significant way the influence of Clement’s views of Moses as the earliest lawgiver. One of these is the anonymous author of the Cohortatio ad Graecos, a text attributed to Justin, but which probably stems from the 31   See R. Mortley, »The Past in Clement of Alexandria,« in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, I (London, 1980), 186 – 200, 261 – 264. Cf. chapter 13, above.

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fourth century.32 According to this text, the Christian religious teachers, i. e., Moses and the prophets, are older than any of the Greek poets and philosophers. Moses had been taught by Egyptian priests, and it is through them that the Greeks were able to learn about Moses’ views. In particular, Greek legislators, poets, and philosophers, were intellectually dependent upon Moses. Plato, in particular, displayed Moses’ teaching, but only in a veiled, »mystical« way. This tradition, also found in Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos,33 ultimately comes from Alexandrian Jewish thinkers such as Aristobulus and Philo. It would later be picked up in by patristic writers. The main exponent of this pattern of thought in the fourth century, however, would be Eusebius of Caesarea, almost a century after Clement, the most important ancient Christian historiographer, and the semi-official representative of Constan‑ tine’s new imperial theology. This is true, in particular, in his monumental anthology, the Praeparatio Evangelica. Eusebius devotes the whole eighth book of this work to the question of the Mosaic religious polity. Most of the evidence collected by Eusebius comes from Hellenistic Jewish literature, the Letter of Aristeas, Philo, and Josephus. Moreover, the figure of Moses plays a central role in the Vita Constantini, a fact that has been recognized, but not fully analyzed. For Eusebius, Moses is the most obvious figure to which the new Christian Emperor can be compared.34 As Averil Cameron and Stuart Hall note in the introduction to their translation of this text, »a key element in Eusebius’ thought is the idea of mimesis, whereby the Christian ruler and his Empire are held to mirror or imitate God in heaven,« adding that Euse‑ bius’ »most obvious device in order to bring home his ideological message [i. e., his political theology of Empire] is the patterning of Constantine on Moses.«35 Cam‑ 32   See M. Marcovich, ed., Ps.-Justinus, Cohortatio ad Graecos, De monarchia, Oratio ad Graecos (Patristische Texte und Studien 32; Berlin, New York, 1990), esp. chs. 14 – 34: Orpheus, Homer, and Plato sometimes reveal true religion since they had come into contact with the teachings of Moses in Egypt. Plato was afraid to proclaim this openly because of his fear of the Athenians after what they had done to Socrates: C. Riedweg, Ps.-Justin (Markell von Ankyra?) ad Graecos de vera religione (bisher ›Cohortatio ad Graecos‹). Einleitung und Kommentar (Schweizerische Beiträge zum Alter‑ tumswissenschaft, 15.1 – 2; Basel, 1994). See, further, D. Ridings, The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 59; Göteborg, 1995), 231 – 238. 33  Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 40.1; 41.1 – 2. 34   See M. J. Hollerich, »The Comparison of Moses and Constantine in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Life of Constantine,« Studia Patristica 19 (1989), 80 – 95. See further T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 271. Barnes notes that in his conception of the Laws of Moses (as in much else), Eusebius follows Origen. For a similar viewpoint: G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), 91. See, further, C. Rapp, »Imperial Ideology in the Making: Eusebius of Caesarea on Constantine as ›Bishop‹,« JTS 49 (1998), 685 – 695; as well as her »Comparison, Paradigm, and the Case of Moses,« in M. Whitby, ed., Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 1997), non vidi. The figure of Moses would remain central in representations of the Byzantine emperor, from Theodosius II to Justinian; see S. G. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1981), 231 and 365, n. 333. 35  Eusebius, Life of Constantine, trans., intro., comm. by A. Cameron and S. G. Hall (Oxford, 1999), 35 – 37.

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eron and Hall emphasize »the deliberateness of the sustained Moses image,« without really explaining it. Moses is not only a prophet, not only a bringer of culture and learning, as well as of piety, and not only a persecutor of tyrants. One may ask with them why Eusebius patterned Constantine upon Moses rather than, say, David or Solomon.36 The answer to this question seems to me to lie in the recognition of the figure of Moses as a lawgiver. Better than any other Old Testament figure, Moses can express the political theology of Eusebius, which justifies the new unity of reli‑ gion and empire. There is no doubt that his perception of Moses as a political leader comes straight from Clement. Eusebius, who was in many ways a follower of Origen, also retained a deep respect for Clement, whose works he knew well.37 What should be underlined here is the fact that this perception of Moses, empha‑ sizing his political as well as religious leadership, or more precisely recognizing the close interdependence of these two dimensions of the prophetic figure, would more or less disappear after Eusebius. This fact offers a new support to the thesis of Erik Peterson, who had noted the disappearance of the ancient idea of God’s monarchy, and hence of political theology, after Eusebius. What Hegel called die List der Vernunft seems to have been at work here. It is thanks to a conception of the essentially political dimension of religion, inherited from the ancient world, that Eusebius was able to offer a theological justification for the new frame of the relationship between religion and politics in Constantine’s Empire. Such a justification, one should note, would no longer be needed afterwards. Another study, of large dimensions, would be required in order to study the dramatic implications of this fact, both in the East and in the West.38 »Caesaropa‑ pism« took rather different forms in Byzantium and in the Latin Middle Ages. But in both cases, the political dimensions of religion remained colored by ambivalence. Throughout its history, Christian thought fully overgrew neither the deep suspicion towards the political world, nor the essential chasm between spiritual and political power which had been expressed both in the New Testament and in its earliest his‑ tory, as a religio illicita in the Roman Empire.

36

  Byzantine emperors would later be patterned upon these Hebrew kings. See G. Dagron, Empereur et prêtre: Étude sur le »césaropapisme« byzantin (Paris, 1996). 37   On Eusebius’ knowledge and use of Clement, see J. Coman, »Utilisation des Stromates de Clé‑ ment d’Alexandrie par Eusèbe de Césarée dans la Préparation Evangélique,« in F. Paschke, ed., Überlieferungsgeschichtlische Untersuchungen (TU 125; Berlin, 1981), 115 – 134. Cf. J. Edgar Bruns, »The ›Agreement of Moses and Jesus‹ in the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius,« Vigiliae Christianae 31 (1977), 117 – 125. 38   See L. L. Field, Jr., Liberty, Dominion, and the Two Swords: On the Origins of Western Political Theology (180 – 398), (South Bend, Ind., 2000).

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VI. To conclude, I should like to call attention to a striking isomorphism between the views of Clement and of Eusebius concerning Moses and that of the late twelfth-cen‑ tury Jewish thinker Maimonides. For Maimonides, as for the two Church Fathers, Moses is the model of the perfect political and religious leader.39 For him, the prophet is also a philosopher and a king: intellectual, religious, and political dimen‑ sions in his personality complement one another. It is assumed by scholarly consen‑ sus that Maimonides is here the heir of a conception first developed by Al‑Farabi, and then refined by Avicenna, who applied to the Prophet Muhammad what Plato had argued about the philosopher: that he is also the best political leader of his soci‑ ety.40 Here, the Arabic philosophical tradition seems to have rediscovered the appli‑ cation of Platonic political philosophy to the prophet of its religious tradition, an application that Philo and other Jewish Hellenistic thinkers had discovered about Moses. This is a striking fact, though not an implausible one. In theory, one could look for traces of Philo, or of Clement and Eusebius, in the Syriac or Arabic Christian tradition, which could have offered a clear genetic explanation of the phenomenon. Such solid textual evidence, however, does not appear to exist.41 Without a textual »objective« link between the two parallel phenomena, we can at least point out that we cannot find in the Islamic medieval polity, as well as in the Jewish intellectual tra‑ dition that developed in the Islamic realm, the deep ambivalence about the religious value of the political world, or the political dimension of religion, which is present in Christian thought. If Eusebius had been the last exponent of the old conception of civil religion, Augustine would usher in the new approach, which permitted the creation of new structures between religion and politics.42 The perception of the figure of Moses reflects that re-interpretation of civil religion in patristic thought, or, more precisely, the attempt to build a new, Christian, civil religion. This attempt, as shown by the eventual waning of the figure of Moses the Lawgiver, did not succeed. This fact cor‑ roborates Peterson’s original intuition. 39   See J. Levinger, »Moses’ Prophecy in the Teaching of Maimonides,« Proceedings of the Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies, II (Jerusalem, 1969), 335 – 339 (in Hebrew). See further R. Lerner and M. Mahdi, eds., Medieval Political Philosophy (Ithaca, New York, 1963), 199 – 225 (from Maimon‑ ides, Guide of the Perplexed II.32 – 45; III.27, 28, 34). 40   For Al‑Farabi and Avicenna on the Prophet as political leader, see Lerner and Mahdi, Medieval Political Philosophy, 22 – 94 (Farabi), 95 – 121 (various excerpts). 41   At least from the testimony of A. Baumstarck, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922), and G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabische Literatur (Vatican City, 1949), 5 vols. On the ques‑ tion of Philo’s penetration into medieval Jewish thought, see B. Chiesa, Filologia storica della Bibbia ebraica, I (Brescia, 2000), 196 – 197. 42   In modern times, new trends in European political thought will insist upon Moses’ political leadership. See for instance J. H. Geerker, »Machiavelli’s Moses and Renaissance Politics,« Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), 570 – 595.

15. Axial Religion in the Late Antique Scriptural Galaxy I. The Axial Age Theory and its Problems Seventy years after Karl Jaspers published his Origin and Goal of History, it is time to re-examine the idea of the Achsenzeit, or »axial age,« as he developed it in that book.1 As is well known, and as pointed out in chapter 11 above, the term Achsenzeit was coined by Jaspers in order to describe major transformations in approaches to thought and salvation in archaic societies, from Greece to China, around the middle of the first millennium b.c.e.2 The current trendiness of the axial age is perhaps best highlighted by the publication of a book on that topic by Karen Armstrong.3 While much of the work done in the last generation basically tends to support the idea of the Achsenzeit, Jaspers’ conception has come under serious criticism. It seems fair to say that it has not been unanimously accepted, and scholarly consensus still evades us. As has often been remarked, it is striking that the birth and early development of Christianity, Manichaeism or Islam do not fit, even roughly, the dating of Jas‑ pers’ axial age. The fact that the philosopher Jaspers was more interested in leading individuals than in religious movements and social groups does not provide an ade‑ quate explanation of the strange fact that Jesus, Mani, and Muhammad do not belong to the canonical list of great axial figures. This fact, however, is enough to awake suspicion as to the concept’s heuristic power. Proponents of the axial age theory have of course been quite aware of this nagging problem. It has been proposed, for instance, to speak of »secondary breakthroughs« in order to describe the birth and early growth of Christianity, and even of Islam.4 But in many ways, Islam reflects a reaction of sorts to both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, religions established centuries previously, and in which earliest Islam is embedded. Should, then, earli‑ est Islam be called a »tertiary« breakthrough? Would we then add a »quaternary« breakthrough to describe the post-Reformatory Modern world, and the new modes 1

  K. Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Munich, Zurich, 1949).   See R. N. Bellah and H. Joas, eds., The Axial Age and Its Consequences (Cambridge, Mass., 2012). Several of the chapters in this volume provide ample bibliographical details on the history of schol‑ arship after Jaspers, which there is no need to reproduce here. 3   K. Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginnings of Our Religious Traditions (New York, 2006). 4   See J. P. Arnason, S. N. Eisenstadt, and B. Wittrock, »Introduction: Late Antiquity as a Sequel and Counterpoint to the Axial Age,« in their edited volume, Axial Civilizations and World History (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 4; Leiden, Boston, Cologne, 2004), 287 – 293. 2

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of thought and behavioral patterns that it established? The multiplication of such »breakthroughs« seriously weakens their explanatory power. The longer late antiquity, in particular  – broadly, the centuries from the early growth of Christianity to the emergence of Islam – represents, for the cultures of the Near East and the Mediterranean, a period of dramatic religious transformations. Actually, this period has already been considered to be a sequel, or counterpoint, to the Axial Age. I shall not deal here anew with the idea of the axial age. Rather, I shall discuss the religious transformations of late antiquity and their »axial« character. Rather than one single axial age, therefore, various scholars have learned to speak of a number of axial periods and also of a rather mysterious »axiality,« in a number of cultural eco-system. This approach does not preclude, of course, identifying some synchronic similarities between different cultural eco-systems.

II. The Religious and Cultural Revolution of Late Antiquity In The End of Sacrifice, a book originally published in French in 2005, I suggested that one could approach the long late antiquity (from the second to the eighth cen‑ tury) as a new »axial age« of sorts.5 My claim was that, while both political and social transformations in that period had been well studied, those pertaining to religion in the Mediterranean and the Near East had been analyzed much less precisely. I pro‑ posed to identify four of these transformations: a »new care of the self,« the rise of the religions of the Book, the end of blood sacrifices, and the shift from civic to communitarian religion. To be sure, I was dealing there only with the religions of the Mediterranean world and the Near East, while the idea of the axial age entails, of course, a number of civilizations, in which those major shifts happen more or less simultaneously. No religion without a community, and no community without communication between its members. This is true both at any given moment, at the synchronic level and between the present members and their forefathers, the deceased leaders of the community, at the diachronic level. In that last sense, communication across the gen‑ erations, within a religious community, is equivalent to religious memory, i. e., to a particular kind of cultural memory.6 I wish to insist on the major role played by patterns of transmission of religion (both rituals and narratives) within a given community (between different subgroups, between male and female members, between old and young members, between religious specialists and the religious group at large, and so on . . .). Such 5  See The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations of Late Antiquity, trans. S. Emanuel (Chi‑ cago, 2009), 108 – 109. On long late antiquity, see G. Fowden, Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused (Princeton, London, 2013). For Fowden, late antiquity ends even later. 6   On religious memory, see G. G. Stroumsa, The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., London, 2017), 29 – 39.

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transmission happens primarily through hermeneutics, homiletics, and education.7 More precisely, one of the central aspects of communication is its dynamic potential, meaning the ways in which communication is an instrument of change, transforma‑ tion, even revolution in the history of religions. I shall also try to understand how religious patterns, i. e., both logoi (or mythoi) and praxeis (stories and rituals) circu‑ late from one religious community to the other. In late antiquity took place a double paradigm shift which is reflected in both religious and cultural transformations.8 It permitted the inter-societal transmission of religious and cultural trends and ideas, crossing the East-West divide on the east‑ ern limes of the Roman Empire. Means of communication underwent some major changes. The Roman world had been gradually transformed, since the days of the Respublica, probably more by the increase of written communication than by the concentration of power in the hands of the Emperor.9 Ritual, preaching, education, polemics, and so on, represent modes of such com‑ municating, or transmission of religion, both within a given religious community and across its borderlines, between religious communities. Cognitive approaches to religion are fashionable today; they are the dernier cri, as it were. Yet, my impression is that they do not usually help us very much in identifying changes, evolution, trans‑ formations, even mutations of religion in different cultural contexts, as they tend to ignore historical and cultural differences. The theory of cultural epidemiology, pro‑ poned by the French anthropologist Dan Sperber and the British linguist Deirdre Wilson, represents here a notable exception.10 This theory, also called »epidemiology of representations,« seeks to understand the transformation of mental representa‑ tions in historical contexts in ways similar to the development of an epidemic in the field of public health – hence the medical metaphor. »Epidemiology« is thus useful to explain both behavioral patterns and cognitive representations; it works for ritual as well as for myths. Through most of our period, until the coming of Islam, a number of religious attitudes were confronting one another throughout the Mediterranean and Near East: pagan followers of the traditional polytheistic religions, such as the Greek and Roman gods, but also those of Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, side by side with Jews and Christians, the latter belonging to different denominations. At the same time, however, all these different communities partook in what can be called a koinos bios,  7   On homiletics as a major means of communication in late ancient Christianity, see in partic‑ ular J. I. Maxwell, Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge, 2006).  8   See Stroumsa, Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity, 1 – 9.  9   This fact was recently demonstrated anew by C. Moatti; see her »Translation, Migration and Communication in the Roman Empire: Three Aspects of Movement in History,« Classical Antiquity 25 (2006), 109 – 140, esp. 135. 10   See, for instance, D. Sperber, »Conceptual Tools for a Natural Science of Society and Cul‑ ture« (Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology 1999), Proceedings of the British Academy 11 (2001), 297 – 317.

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which included sharing certain basic religious practices and beliefs.11 This koinos bios, a product of epidemiology, remained however a far cry from real convivencia, in the sense the term has acquired in the study of medieval al‑Andalus.12 The religious revolution of late antiquity has been traditionally perceived as that represented by the victory of Christianity over paganism, or of monotheism over polytheism. Although there is no doubt about the existence of this revolution, recent studies have shown that the insistence on the unity of the divine may not be as clearly singularizing Christianity (or even Judaism) as previously thought. To a great extent, many »pagan« intellectuals were clearly adepts of a monotheism that owed nothing to that of their Christian enemies. In that sense, at least, Christianity seems to represent more a consequence than the root of the religious revolution of late antiquity. One of the major aspects of this religious revolution was predicated upon the deep transformation of religion from essentially a set of rituals to a core of spe‑ cial knowledge, to be imparted to all members of the community (and usually only to them, hence creating some kind of esotericism) or of the net of communities – often constituting a diaspora. Communication between the different communities of a diaspora can be analyzed through network analysis.13 Side by side with the victory of monotheism, we witness in late antiquity the emergence of sacred scriptures in a number of religions, from the canonization of the Mishnah and the New Testament to that of the Qur’an. Canonization is an import‑ ant concept, which is useful in order to understand more than one of the religious mutations in our period. It remains, however, only part of what one can call »the scriptural universe.« We also witness the birth and growth of world religions, such as Christianity, Manichaeism (the first religion to define itself as a world religion from its very beginning), and Islam. One has also noticed a new care of the self, and a fresh attitude to the body, mainly expressed in asceticism.14 The importance of eschatol‑ ogy is another key element in understanding the late ancient path to Islam. The birth and growth of new empires forms the political context of the birth of world religions. All these assertions represent various aspects of an essentially multifaceted revolu‑ 11   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Religious Dynamics between Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity (312 – 640),« in A. M. Casiday and F. Norris, eds., The Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 2: Constantine to c. 600 (Cambridge, 2007), 151 – 172. 12   In medieval Andalusia, too, there was usually less than perfect harmony between the commu‑ nities, and convivencia should not be romanticized. 13   For a discussion of communication in diasporic context, see S. Menache, »The Pre-History of Communication,« the introduction to her edited volume, Communication in the Jewish Diaspora: The Pre-Modern World (Leiden, 1996), 1 – 12. This method has been fruitfully applied to the study of the Greek colonies in the Mediterranean by the ancient historian Irad Malkin. See, for instance, his A Small Greek Worlds: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean (Oxford, New York, 2011). 14   See in particular P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988). Compare M. Foucault, Les aveux de la chair (Histoire de la ­sexualité, 4; Paris, 2018). The draft of this last book dates from Foucault’s last years (he died in 1984). It stands to reason that Brown and Foucault would have discussed these topics in their numerous conversations at Berkeley in the 1970s.

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tion. They all reflect, indeed, the »dis-embedment« of religion from social, linguistic, ethnic and political structures. This process of dis-embedding is perhaps the main characteristic of the new nature of religion emerging in late antiquity.15 Like religion, culture too was radically transformed in late antiquity. To a signif‑ icant degree, the cultural transformation reflected the dramatic increase in the use of the codex rather than the scroll as a support for texts. As a number of important studies have recently shown, the passage from scroll to codex is far from having been only a technical affair. In a number of ways, the codex permitted the circulation of written texts much more easily, and it also permitted much greater ease in their study, through cross-references from page to page, chapter to chapter, with a facility unknown before. Last but not least, codices, which used for writing the two sides of a page, were twice cheaper to produce than scrolls, and hence permitted what one may call a huge »demotization« of the written word. What is true in general had obvious, dramatic implications for religious texts in general, and Holy Scriptures in particular. It is obvious, then, that cultural and religious transformations went hand in hand, or, more precisely, that their parallel development reflects a dialectical pro‑ cess between them. The codex permitted the easier circulation of texts, as well as a better transmis‑ sion of their content. Texts, however, did not circulate by themselves. It was travelling men (and sometimes women) who were carrying them. With the codices, they also carried oral stories, which they were eager to tell. When focusing on religious scrip‑ tures, these stories complemented the texts. They functioned like commentaries of sorts, and their oral nature gave them a supple quality that written texts did not have. In other words, they could, and did, evolve and transform themselves in a constant process which one may call the »midrashic« principle, with reference to the Hebrew stories so typical of late antique Judaism, which freely embroidered on the biblical text, mixing hermeneutical traditions, folklore and legend. Translation of sacred scriptures, a phenomenon already observable in the case of the Septuagint, now becomes the norm in order to overcome linguistic boundaries. The various Targums render the biblical text easily understandable to many Arama‑ ic-speaking Jews, who were not fully conversant with Hebrew. Very soon after the emergence of Christianity as an independent religion, the New Testament would be translated into the languages of the various Christian communities, first of all Latin, Syriac, and Armenian; while the Manichaean texts were translated from the original Aramaic, very soon after Mani’s apostolate, into Pahlavi, Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and later into other Iranian languages, such as Parthian, Uyghur, and Chinese.16 At the same time, the existence of international languages renders communicating religion rather easy, spreading across all borders. 15   The same concept of »dis-embedment« of religion is central to Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass., 2007). 16   Only Mani’s Shapuragan seems to have been written directly in Pahlavi.

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I have just mentioned commentaries. Commentary is a literary genre, one among others, such as the scientific, philosophical or theological treatise, the polemical work, poetry (lyric or epic), the sermon, etc. The complex question of the social sta‑ tus and political function of literary genres in the transmission of knowledge should remain an important aspect of our study. Certain genres entail communicating religion within the community (for instance, homiletics, commentaries or polem‑ ics not written or directed against heretics). Others argue mainly about outsiders to the community in its broad sense (for instance Christian polemics against Jews or pagans, etc.). One must not forget that in some cases, the true aim of the written work is not necessarily its stated target. Religious language may well be one of codes, expressed in rituals, but stories must be told in natural languages. Hence, communication of religion demands one of two conditions: either translations (oral or written) or a common language, a lingua franca, used by different religious or ethnic communities. Beginning with the Septuagint, both Jews and Christians translated their own scriptures, and the Zoroastrians in the Sasanian Empire did the same with the Gathas, the language of which, Avestan, they no longer understood. In the late ancient Mediterranean and Near East, three lan‑ guages functioned as linguae francae: Latin and Greek in the West, Greek and Aramaic in the East. Eventually, after the seventh century, Arabic would replace these last two. Pointing out major religious transformations in our period, however, is not in itself enough to permit us to speak about an »axial age.« In order to argue that late antiquity may be considered as an »axial age,« we must be able to identify similar or comparable phenomena in other broad cultural areas, such as India and China. In this regard, it is highly significant that, in contradistinction to the middle of the first millennium b.c.e., for which our documentation is very poor, the late antique period is characterized by the development of contacts between large cultural and political areas organized in empires. These contacts, which occurred mainly through the silk roads, can be witnessed. The major increase of communications between the Near East, the Indian subcontinent and China may have had a significant impact upon religious worldviews and practices, throughout Asia.

III. Explaining Religious Change Like religions, religious worldviews circulate in a number of ways. In the search for an explanation to the various attempts at explaining religious change and innovation in late antiquity, two central themes are recurrent. The first of these themes is the crucial role played by sacred, canonized texts, their hermeneutics and translations, in religious innovation.17 In many ways, texts move in late antiquity to the core of reli‑ 17   See for instance G. Woolf, »Empires, Diasporas and the Emergence of Religions,« in J. Car‑ leton Paget and J. Lieu, eds., Christianity in the Second Century: Themes and Developments (Cam‑ bridge, 2017), 25 – 38.

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gious life. This core, which is expressed primarily in ritual, is also present in domains as different as religious education, theology, commentaries, homiletics, polemics, spirit, spiritual life and mystical experience. The main impact of sacred texts and the ›secondary‹ literature built around them happens within a religious community (broadly defined), all across its diaspora. The second central theme is the transfer of knowledge between different com‑ munities, in a world in which a number of religious diasporas interact. To use the vocabulary of epidemiological theory, it is by contagion that religious change occurs. It is obvious that new forms of circulation and communication across large regions of Asia also permit the transmission of religious knowledge between East and West, hence fostering religious innovation. Innovation happens through the contact between religious practices, conceptions, and master narratives. With the travel of individuals, both written texts and oral stories circulate. Religious communication, then, may be identified as the overarching principle underlying both texts and the transfer of knowledge. Religious innovation, which stems from a process either inherent to a community or exterior to it, seems to happen simultaneously in a number of late ancient reli‑ gious worldviews.18 To a certain extent, the growth of the urban environment offers the start of an explanation to this convergent evolution. Indeed, urban environment fosters religious pluralism, and the koinos bios between the different emigrant com‑ munities, and religious change (as well as conversion), always entails some kind of mimetism between them, which remains often unconscious. Religious communication, it has been suggested here, is the overarching principle that explains that reli‑ gious innovation happens more or less simultaneously in a number of societies and religious groups. Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s idea of a »Scriptural movement« to describe late antiq‑ uity, although seductive at first glance, is not quite convincing. It ignores, for instance, the fact that for both Judaism and Zoroastrianism, old religions with important liter‑ ary traditions, late antiquity appears to have been a period of clear preference for oral teachings. Oral teachings, indeed, have a great advantage over written texts, as they can function in societies and religious groups that value esoteric teachings, and may remain the privilege of a small minority. Throughout late antiquity, numerous sects vied with one another for the true interpretation of the biblical prophecies. These sects can be found all along the mov‑ ing borders between Judaism and Christianity (Jewish Christians, Gnostics, Man‑ daeans, etc.). With time, the authorities in both camps sought to either ignore them, killing them by silence (the usual approach of the Rabbis), or else to reject them as violently as they could (the preferred approach of the Church Fathers). In time, the breadth of hermeneutical freedom shrank, and all voices which dissented from the leading, winning party were deemed heretical, and, wherever possible, suppressed. Is 18

 Ibid.

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it possible, beyond the moving sands of these heresies, to identify some parameters pointing to a single trajectory? Judaism and Christianity soon became sworn ene‑ mies – to the extent that Jews and Christians usually remained unable to appreciate the extent to which their respective worldviews were close to one another – certainly when compared to all other religions in the Roman world. For the common assumption, the evolution of religion in antiquity follows the path towards greater and greater complexity: as societies grow more complex with time, so do religious worldviews and rituals. There is no real reason to accept the truth of this assumption. In late antiquity, rather, one observes a dramatic simplification of religious conceptions, obviously within the divine realm, but also in society. There is now only one God, and the many heavenly beings all remain under his authority. Against the one God stands his one main enemy, Satan, together with Satan’s hosts. Similarly, there is one single orthodox Church, side by side with the numerous her‑ esies. The social role and status of the Christian Church in the Roman world are relatively simple. The fact that Christian theology gets more and more abstruse rep‑ resents the counterpoint of the clear-cut rejection of all heresies, i. e., of all diverging opinions. I may add that dualism, even of a radical nature, as in Manichaeism, should be seen as a particular twist on an essentially monotheistic worldview. The mention of the »Abrahamic religions« usually refers to Judaism, Christian‑ ity and Islam – implying that the concept does not apply before the seventh cen‑ tury c.e. Actually, the Christians positioned themselves very soon, before even the middle of the second century, as the true inheritors of Abraham, in contradistinction with the Jews, who had abandoned the path of Abraham. The Christians understood the biblical promises, to which the Jews were remaining blind. This is clearly stated, for instance, in the writings of Justin Martyr.19 In a sense, the Auseinandersetzung between Jews and Christians throughout late antiquity is the story of the polemics between them concerning who is the true son of Abraham. The argument between Jews and Christians is presented directly in Jewish and (mainly) Christian polemical texts, and reflected in other literary genres (Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry for instance), as well as in oral exegetical traditions such as Midrash among the Jews, and in a number of Christian traditions, often couched in Syriac. Christian collec‑ tive and religious memory is here conflated with the Jewish collective memory. The Qur’an itself, as is well known since the early scholarly works of the first half of the nineteenth century, and as shown more and more clearly in contemporary research, reflects in many ways these exegetical and polemical traditions. In The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity, I have argued that when one looks at late ancient religious traditions from the point of view of Islam, one may be permitted to speak about a praeparatio coranica, just as Eusebius could treat the Greek philo‑ sophical tradition as a praeparatio evangelica.20 With the Qur’an, religious memory 19 20

  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.   See G. G. Stroumsa, The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2015).

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was broadened, when yet another possible heir of Abraham appeared on the scene of history. Some of the most striking characteristics of late ancient religiosity deal with the person (asceticism) or with the cosmos (eschatology), rather than with the divine. These characteristics, to be found in most religious communities of the late ancient Near East, will reappear, barely transformed, in the Qur’an. In the past, studies of late antiquity usually assumed that it was contiguous with the Roman Empire, East and West. Today, there is a growing recognition of the fact that the cultures and religions of the Near East should be seen as struggling to define themselves between the two hostile empires of Christianized Rome and Sasanian Persia.21 The Islamic caliphate was born by carving its territory from both of those empires. Each one of these huge political entities was identified with a religious faith – and, of course, the orthodox version of that faith was that accepted by the emperor or shah (or caliph).

IV. Communicating Religion At this point, I wish to reflect on the complex role of writing and books in the late antique mutation of religion. In doing so, I shall make some preliminary forays into what I propose to call, borrowing from Marshall McLuhan, a leading scholar of media from the previous generation, »the scriptural galaxy« of late antiquity.22 All aspects of communicating religion in late antiquity should be understood within this broad framework. The notion of a »scriptural galaxy« offers a twofold advantage: first, it implies the vast dimensions and complex dynamics of the patterns involved; and second, it allows us to approach these patterns as indicative of a single, superordinate phenomenon. This phenomenon was that the transformation of religious life in late antiquity was to a great extent achieved through the dramatic success of Christianity. Traditional approaches to early Christianity (studied, almost, as if it had grown in a vacuum) are fraught with theological preconceptions and methodological mispercep‑ tions. The approach of the historian of religion cannot be that of the church historian. I shall not deal here separately with the scriptural systems (scriptures, canonization process, development of hermeneutical rules, etc.) within Rabbinic Judaism, Patristic Christianity, Sasanian Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism – or among the Neoplatonists. Many such descriptive studies, both broad and detailed, can already be found.23 This 21   For a comparison between the Roman Empire and the Indian Maurya Empire, see S. Pollock, »Axialism and Empire,« in Arnason, Eisenstadt and Wittrock, eds., Axial Civilizations and World History, 397 – 450. For the late antique conflicts between empires, see G. W. Bowersock, Empires in Collision in Late Antiquity (Waltham, Mass., 2013); and P. Sarris, Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500 – 700 (Oxford, New York, 2011). 22   M. McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man (Toronto, 1962). 23   The bibliography is huge, and constantly growing. It would be futile to even attempt to offer updated references. I opt, therefore, to refer to the classical article of C. Colpe, »Heilige Schriften,«

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research, however, too frequently privileges the cognitive aspects of books, while neglecting their performative and emotional aspects in late antique religions – aspects that have only recently started to receive the attention they deserve. The Christianization of the Roman world promoted the growth of new modes of religiosity, in different cultural traditions and among various ethnic groups.24 Books, including sacred books, had of course existed in archaic and ancient societies. Now, however, they were invested with a new status as they took the place previously held by sacrifice. The growth of Christianity also transformed attitudes toward Hel‑ lenic culture, just as it had offered a radical reinterpretation of the religion of Israel. Excepting Marcion and certain gnostic thinkers, the early Christian theologians did not strive to blot out the biblical tradition.25 They sought, rather, to reinterpret and appropriate it. Likewise, most church fathers never wished to eliminate the Greek cultural traditions, and were content to adopt them instead. More precisely, they took from those traditions what they deemed valuable and compatible with the new faith, such as philosophical koinē, mainly Platonic and Stoic thought, but not mythology and the Homeric epics. The new cultura christiana that was forming in late antiquity would eventually become the backbone of European cultural identity. The salvaging of the Greek cultural tradition (or at least those parts of it – mainly philosophy – deemed worthy) in the Christianized Roman Empire demonstrated a historical paradox. Among the late antique Christian religious elites, bishops and monks, in different ways, functioned as carriers of a culture they despised (let us not forget that the designator »Greek,« for Christian authors writing in Greek, usually meant »pagan«). In like manner, these persons were also the carriers of Jewish texts, while despising contemporary Jews, whom they deemed incapable of grasping the true meaning of their own prophets. The early monks, in particular, were strikingly negative toward Greek culture. For them, Hellenism was at once cognitively false and ethically wrong. That these revolutionaries transmitted cultural patterns and texts that they vigorously repudiated is quite intriguing. Precisely herein lies the historical paradox in the transmission of paideia in early Christianity: it was accomplished by marginal groups of »outsiders« rather than by the mainstream intellectual elites. Indeed, it was precisely their alienation from Greco-Roman paideia that made it pos‑ sible for the monks to introduce hitherto unknown forms of reading and writing.26 Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 14 (1987), 184 – 223. For a less technical study, in English, see for instance J. F. A. Sawyer, Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts (New York, 1999). 24   On modes of religiosity in late antiquity, see Stroumsa, Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity, 50 – 55. 25   On Marcion, see for instance J. M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge, 2015). 26   On patristic ambivalence toward Greek paideia, see the fine analysis of M. Alexandre, »La cul‑ ture grecque, servante de la foi: de Philon d’Alexandrie aux Pères grecs,« in A. Perrot, ed., Les chrétiens et l’hellénisme: identités religieuses et culture grecque dans l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2012); see also, in the same volume, O. Munnich, »La place de l’Hellénisme dans l’autodéfinition du christian‑ isme,« 61 – 122.

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We are groping here for a grammar of cultural communication and transmission. Salvaging pagan culture meant, in a sense, its sacralization, just as the Christianiza‑ tion of the Empire entailed the acculturation of religion. To a great extent, both reli‑ gious and cultural transmission in late antiquity are directly linked to mobility.27 Dif‑ ferent webs connected people and communities, throughout the Roman Empire, and also across political boundaries, as Syriac and Talmudic literatures abundantly show. The late ancient transformation of modes of culture parallels the transformation in the modes of religion. Religion transformed the status of cultural heritage, just as cultural heritage left a deep imprint on religious identities. Books would now move to the front and center of the religious stage. This is true both for ritual and theol‑ ogy – the latter term being defined at once as an intellectual reflection on religion and as a hermeneutical effort to interpret the scriptures. Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and the »pagan« religions, on the other, are typically considered to diverge at the point of monotheism.28 Yet, I propose that it is the idea of a single Book, at least as much as that of a single God, that distinguishes Judaism and Chris‑ tianity from their competitors in the ancient world. This book, starting with Abra‑ ham, was translated and interpreted to the extent that it created a whole new field of knowledge. One may say that the hermeneutical mind is the forma mentis specific of the Abrahamic religions. In such a mindset, knowledge is a major dimension of religion, on a par with ritual and religious experience. As mentioned above, the consequences of the double paradigm shift of late antiq‑ uity were dramatic enough for one to even speak, tentatively, of a new »axial age.« In order to understand the meeting between religions, the converging evolution that can easily be noted between them, one should use concepts created for that pur‑ pose. »Connected religious history,« or the French »histoire religieuse croisée,« are in this respect useful expressions, adapting to the history of religions terms coined to describe phenomena of historical interface between two or more cultural or eth‑ nic groups. The early modern historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam has suggested the term »connected history« to describe the complex interchange between East and West, and more precisely between Portugal and India, in the age of the great discov‑ eries.29 A similar approach might be fruitfully applied to late antiquity. The age of religious empires was also the age of great missionary movements: Christianity, Bud‑ dhism, and Manichaeism before Islam, which helped, each in its own way, to carry 27   On religious mobility in the Roman Empire, see for instance S. Price, »Religious Mobility in the Roman Empire,« Journal of Roman Studies 102 (2012), 1 – 19. 28   See the introduction to Stroumsa, Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity. On the complex problems related to monotheism in late antiquity, see for instance P. Athanassiadi, »The Gods are God: Polytheistic Cult and Monotheistic Theology in the World of Late Antiquity,« chap‑ ter IV in her Mutations of Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Variorum Collected Studies Series; New York, 2016). 29   See for instance S. Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History: From the Tagus to the Ganges (Delhi, Oxford, 2004); and idem, Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks (Delhi, Oxford, 2004).

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and transform theologoumena and rituals across Asia, along the Silk Road. The limes culture was a cultural koinē shared by people with different linguistic, ethnic, and religious identities, as well as political allegiances. It is in this limes culture that what I propose to call »connected religious history« can be best studied. As we have seen, the world of late antiquity witnessed the birth of what we now call »world religions,« that is, mass religions of salvation that can be adopted inde‑ pendently of one’s ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity. Christianity, then Man‑ ichaeism, and eventually Islam, are the main examples of world religions within the scope of our current purview. (Buddhism, which is a global religious movement, started earlier, and lies outside our present scope.) These religions traveled by and with books. Within an imperial context, and even more so when crossing imperial borders, books drove the engine of religion. From Paul to Mani and beyond, religious leaders leveraged writings, which announced and advanced their mission to remote locales. These writings did not replace scriptures; rather, they affirmed them. Naturally, it was not only ecclesiasti‑ cal persons who put books to use, but also, among many others, missionaries, holy men, merchants, and prisoners of war. The authority of a book highlights that of its carrier, who, in its turn, reinforces the book’s status. Scriptures, copied by holy men, may be said to reflect, like them, the divine presence in the world. In late antique Christianity, the codex of the Gospels, the Logos incarnating the presence of Christ, is often the vestibule to contemplation. The scriptural codex and the holy man repre‑ sent the two most striking icons of religious authority in late antiquity.30 It is in the Valentinian Gospel of Truth that we find, perhaps, the most arresting representation of scriptural strength: Christ on the cross is covered not by a tunic, but by a scroll of the scriptures.31 Thus, as books permitted a breadth of contact that would have been otherwise impossible in late antiquity, they constitute the key to the religious transformations of this period. Books were the vehicle of communication between like-minded com‑ munities as well as across religious boundaries. Here, the advantage of Christianity, Manichaeism, and eventually Islam over other religions and the Oriental cults in the Roman Empire (excepting Judaism) was quite clear: through their books, those mis‑ sionary religions held the upper hand over their competitors.32 Scriptural hermeneutics were based on written texts, but they also received var‑ ious oral developments. The new interest in scriptures and books aside, late antique 30   C. Rapp, »Holy Texts, Holy Men, and Holy Scribes: Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity,« in W. E. Klingshirn and L. Safran, eds., The Early Christian Book (Washington, D. C., 2007), 194 – 222. 31   A. S. Kreps, The Crucified Book: Textual Authority and the Gospel of Truth (Doctoral Thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2013). Cf. Chagall’s paintings of the crucified Jew with scrolls. 32   J. Rüpke, Von Jupiter zu Christus: Religionsgeschichte in römischer Zeit (Darmstadt, 2011), ch. 9: »Buchreligionen als Reichsreligionen? Lokale Grenzen überregionaler religiöser Kommunikation,« 133 – 141.

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society was not, as such, a literate society. Communication remained essentially oral in late antiquity. Stories circulated between religious groups and communities and were transformed, sometimes slightly, at other times considerably.33 In this sense, one may speak of a hybrid society, where orality and script functioned as twin engines of the formation and transformation of collective, cultural, and religious memory. In late antiquity, literacy had ceased to be the privilege of scribes, and had become the woof and warp of general society. The reliance on texts, particularly revealed scriptures, as well as on a rich body of hermeneutical works on these scriptures, was growing apace. This reality has given rise to the idea of a late antique »scriptural movement.« Implicit to this proposal is that more than in other periods, there was in the long late antiquity (roughly from the New Testament to the Qur’an) a preoc‑ cupation with heavenly or revealed texts offering the foundation or legitimation of new religious communities.34 At first sight, the notion of a »scriptural movement« as a new pattern of commu‑ nicating religion is quite appealing, as it provides a vector in the religious history of the Mediterranean and the Near East that would highlight the trajectory from Jesus to Muhammad, from the New Testament to the Qur’an. However, its heuristic valid‑ ity appears to be severely limited. First and foremost, in some cases the notion simply does not seem to apply. In Judaism and Zoroastrianism, for instance, we can observe almost the opposite phenomenon, namely a dramatic turn toward oral transmission within traditions that had already developed significant written literatures. How can one account for this? It seems that at some point, people became reluctant to commit religious traditions to writing. While we do not know precisely why this happened, a desire to maintain the singularity of existing scriptures might have played a cru‑ cial role here. The Jews developed a copious literature during the Second Temple period, using Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic. Like the Jews, the Zoroastrians were heirs to a very old religious literature (which their priests had preserved in oral form). In late antiquity, the Rabbis, who had become for all practical purposes the sole representatives of Judaism, proudly presented their discussions as »Oral Torah,« in contradistinction to Moses’ »Written Torah.« For them, the revealed scripture was considered to be so singular that there was, alongside the Torah, no room for any other book. For the Rabbis, then, there could be only one Book, the divine and revealed one. The heuristic usefulness of a »scriptural movement« is also limited in a second way. During our period, the movement of intensive codification was by no means restricted to religious texts. Thus, we see the sustained effort on the part of the Roman authorities to integrate legal codification, as reflected first in the Theodosian 33   See for instance L. Garcia Urena, »The Book of Revelation: A Written Text Towards the Oral Performance,« in R. Scodel, ed., Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity: Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World, vol. 10 (Mnemosyne Supplements 367; Leiden, 2014), 308 – 330. 34   W. C. Smith, What Is Scripture? A Comparative Approach (Minneapolis, 1993).

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Codex and then, in the sixth century, in the Justinian Codex, or Corpus Iuris Civilis. A further example is the compilation of the Talmud (both the Babylonian and the Palestinian versions of the Talmud date approximately from the late fifth or early sixth century).35 This second limitation, that it was not only religious texts that were subject to intensive codification, brings us to the next point. Up to the end of the Middle Ages, religion and law were still quite fused, much more so than they are in the modern world. In other words, there was a very broad interface between these two fields. It was the Reformation that wedded religion with faith, in the process excluding the sphere of law from the marriage. With the accumulation of available texts, and as the religious communities interacted (even though this contact remained, more often than not, polemical), the urge increased to collect, organize, and summarize the ever-growing number of texts. Thus arose the idea of a religious or legal summa, reflected for instance in the two versions of the Talmud, the Roman legal codices, and even the Christian heresiological treatises. All such major theological and exe‑ getical corpora constitute secondary scriptural canons. In the Near East on the eve of Islam, a mosaic of »midrashic communities« were telling a number of different stories. These tales were constructed from the same nar‑ rative kernels, organized slightly differently each time, in kaleidoscope fashion. The Semitist John Wansbrough demonstrated definitively that the midrashic, oral mode of scriptural hermeneutics, which permitted scriptural authority to be »naturally« channeled through charismatic authority, was central to the communities that would come to constitute the cradle of the Qur’an.36 With the early development of Islam, the late antique triangle formed by pagans, Jews, and Christians would be trans‑ formed into a new hermeneutical triangle formed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Throughout the long Middle Ages, important Jewish communities lived (and some‑ times even thrived) in the two theologico-political realms of the Islamicate world and Christendom, east and west. Together, and including these Jewish communities, they formed what may be called the »Abrahamic ecosystem.« It is mainly within this ecosystem that cultural transmittal and religious interchange would take place from then on. It is in late antiquity, before the birth of Islam, that the idea of the Abrahamic reli‑ gions was born. In a world in which books had acquired a heightened status, and in which religion and knowledge were strongly associated with one another, the com‑ munication of religion and the communication of culture were strongly dependent upon one another. The epistemic character of religion, and the religious framework 35   The Talmudic texts, however, are a complicated instance, as they may well reflect a legal as well as a religious codification. Despite some older works, the comparative study of the redaction of the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmudim and the Roman legal codices remains to a great extent a desideratum. 36   J. Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (London Oriental Series 34; Oxford, 1978).

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of culture, would from now on remain closely related, until the modern times. This strong relationship between the communication of religion and the communication of knowledge – mainly, although not only, through education – would be equally strong, in highly diverse ways, among Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.

V. A New Axial Age? In a striking paper, the Sanskritist Gerald Larson has some deep transformations of thought and behavior identified in South Asia, in the period corresponding to late antiquity. Larson added that these patterns are similar or comparable to those I had described in The End of Sacrifice.37 Larson was struck by my argument according to which a radically new significance of religion emerges in the late antique Medi‑ terranean world. According to him, a similar phenomenon happened in India from the fourth to the eighth centuries c.e. The development of Samkhya, Yoga and Bud‑ dhism, in particular, which happened mainly in the first centuries of our era, are, in his words, »roughly coterminous with Late Antiquity in the Mediterranean world.« Larson prefers to speak of ›world views‹ rather than of religions in order to describe adequately the various Indian schools of thought and behavior. The synchrony between the new meaning of religion in the Mediterranean and the rise of ›world views‹ in India brings Larson to refer to »a possible second ›axial age‹.« Finally, Lar‑ son adds that the existence of contacts between the Mediterranean and India, which was well known in late antiquity, provides an easy and reasonable explanation of such isomorphism between East and West. The Roman historian Greg Woolf has recently sought to understand more pre‑ cisely religious innovation in the Empire. He offers what he calls »an evolutionary approach to religious change,« and speaks convincingly of a »convergent evolu‑ tion,« and calls attention to the various empires in the Near East in our period.38 These multi-cultural and multi-ethnic empires, which had had as their precursors the Assyrian and Achaemenid empires, then the Mauryan and Macedonian empires, were roughly contemporaneous with the Han dynasty in China. Woolf points out that these empires »formed the background for the emergence of a series of enti‑ ties that bear some resemblance to what we today call ›religions,‹ Buddhism, dias‑ pora Judaism, Christianity, Manichaeism and Islam« being the main representatives 37   See G. J. Larson, »The End of Sacrifice and the Absence of ›Religion‹: The Peculiar Case of India,« in P. Jackson and A.‑P. Sjödin, eds., Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice: Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece and Beyond (The Study of Religion in a Global Context; Sheffield, 2016), 63 – 85. The book represents the proceedings of a conference organized in 2011 in Stockholm around The End of Sacrifice. See chapter 11, above. 38   See G. Woolf, »Empires, Diasporas and the Emergence of Religions.« See further, idem, »Only Connect? Network Analysis and Religious Change in the Roman Period,« Hélade 2 (2016), 43 – 58; and J. Rüpke, Pantheon: Eine Geschichte der antiken Religionen (Munich, 2017).

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of those ›religions.‹« In this context, he also speaks of »emergent religions.« It has recently become fashionable in certain circles to argue that religion dates from the first centuries of the Common Era, and that previous to that era, both rituals and narratives (usually myths) in various societies should not be perceived as pointing to religion. Such a position strikes me as particularly problematic, reflecting a rather limited understanding of religion, an understanding reflecting our own tradition of thought, heavily influenced by Protestant thought patterns, with ›faith‹ as the major, central component of religion. What is true, rather – and this is what Woolf argues – is that the religious systems and communities that appear in that period are a new phenomenon, akin to our perception of religion in our own societies. In the third-century Near East, Man‑ ichaeism presents the first full form of a religion established purposefully as a world religion, embracing the whole ecumene and replacing all former religions. Religio migrans, to use the apt title of an important article of Christoph Auffarth, becomes a key form of religion in a world in which people, books, ideas, beliefs and rituals circulate more than at any time before.39 Soldiers and merchants represent the most common examples of such transmitters across political, cultural and religious bor‑ ders, communicating, inter alia, their religion to faraway countries. More and more, religious communities become diaspora networks, through which religious patterns of life and of thought circulate freely. In late antiquity, religion insists more and more on belief and knowledge, in contradistinction with the previous emphasis, essentially on ritual. This faith and this knowledge are expressed in sacred, revealed scriptures, i. e., in books, eminently portable artifacts, which both define religious communica‑ tion and render it easier. In a very broad comparative study of three key periods in antiquity, Michael Scott has sought recently to identify convergent evolutions between three major cultural areas in antiquity: the Mediterranean, India, and China.40 He proposes to study such synchronicities in politics in the sixth century b.c.e., in warfare in the third and second centuries b.c.e., and in religion in the fourth century c.e. The fundamental importance of the fourth century c.e. for all that concerns religious developments in the Roman Empire is obvious, from Constantine’s conversion in 312 to the Edict of Salonica (Cunctos populos) promulgated by Theodosius I in 380, which trans‑ formed the Nicene version of Christianity into the state religion. In India, the Gupta dynasty, which rose to power on the back of religious change motivated by the inter‑ action of Hinduism and Buddhism, started a period which has been called an Indian Golden Age, epitomized, in the first decades of fourth century c.e., by the Gupta Empire under Chandragupta I and his wife Kumaradevi. In China, finally, the same 39

  C. Auffahrt, »Religio migrans: die orientalischen Religionen im Kontext antiker Religion. Ein theoretisches Modell,« Mediterranea IV (Rome, Pisa, 2007). 40   M. Scott, Ancient Worlds: An Epic History of East and West (London, 2016). For our purpose here, see part III: »Religious Change in a Connected World,« 233 – 347.

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period saw a major influx of Buddhism. It is mainly through the silk roads that the Buddhist monks reached China. Beginning in the third century c.e., some Chinese intellectuals seeking Buddhist texts travelled to India. Moreover, the Han emperors embraced Confucianism. In other terms, religious innovation happened both from within and from without. In those different contexts, one can observe the differ‑ ent ways in which old and new were mixing and being molded in new patterns of religious innovation. As to the different ways of interaction between religion and political power, Scott summarizes them thus: In the Roman Empire, there is one religion, but two rulers; in India, many religions, and one ruler; in China, many religions, and many rulers. What is particularly interesting in Scott’s approach from our viewpoint is that while he discerns some isomorphism in »man’s relationship to man« in the three different cultural areas at the time of the »axial age,« a similar isomorphism in religions is for him a product of late antiquity.

VI. Conclusion Deconstructing the axial age theory has left us without a valid explanatory principle for a number of deeply significant phenomena. Can one remedy this uncomfortable situation, and is an alternative integrative interpretation for these phenomena possi‑ ble? Let us summarize what we have seen so far. I argued that in the field of religion in the Mediterranean and in the Near East, late antiquity marks a real watershed. Woolf concurs to this view, with a different set of arguments. In his turn, Larson shows that something similar to the late ancient transformation of religion in the Mediterranean happens at the same time in India. Finally, Scott stretches the horizon even further east, pointing to religious similarities and parallels in the fourth cen‑ tury c.e. in the Mediterranean, Indian, and Chinese worlds. The ways in which the different arguments of Larson, Woolf, and Scott reinforce one another are remarkable. They do much to bolster the idea that late antiquity represents in a number of highly different societies a period of capital transforma‑ tions, at least in the field of religion. If this is the case, one is entitled to refer to late antiquity as another axial age. Moreover, we can point to the existence of links and contacts between these societies, which was not the case at the time of the »first« axial age of the mid first millennium b.c.e., when the synchrony between the trans‑ formations in the different areas remained somewhat mysterious. We have seen how the story of religion in late antiquity is to a great extent one of innovation, and how the basic shape of medieval religion – in Latin Europe, in Byz‑ antium, or in the realm of Islam – as well as religion’s status vis-à-vis political author‑ ity were molded then. One might be tempted, then, to qualify late ancient religion as ›axial.‹ I claim, however, that the concept of a second axial age, or that of »multiple axialities« are not very useful from a heuristic viewpoint.

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On various accounts, then, the concept of axial age seems to be problematic, per‑ haps even misleading. Fascination with it reflects the similarity of intellectual and spiritual trends and culture heroes, across civilizations seemingly unrelated. This concept is a perfect antidote to accusations of eurocentrism in an age of global‑ ization. The problem is that the axial age could be a fata morgana.41 Rather than focusing on one epoch when everything, everywhere, tipped over, it may be wiser to identify major cultural changes, whenever they happen. New configurations of culture and their social consequences are just as interesting as one single revolution. If the axial age proves to be an illusion, that does not mean that religions, like societ‑ ies, do not undergo at certain turning points in history some major transformations, or even mutations. In order to insist on the radical character of the transformations observed, ›mutation‹ seems to be an adequate metaphor, one that can be duplicated, as it is in the biological realm. Analyzing such mutations in comparative perspective, dismantling their inner mechanisms, is not merely possible – it is the key to a better understanding of the very nature of religious revolutions, past and present. As we now know, the French orientalist Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil Duperron was the first to suggest the idea of synchronic major transformations among differ‑ ent peoples. In his translation of the Zend-Avesta, published in 1771, Anquetil Dup‑ erron called attention to the fact that both Pythagoras and the Brahmans had been Zarathustra’s pupils, and that Confucius also belonged to the same generation. For him, that represented what he called a world revolution of sorts.42 Hans Joas has argued that the axial age debate also reflects a religious discourse. This is certainly true in the sense that it assumes an essential singularity of truth as well as the unity of humanity. But Jaspers’ argument about the axial age is also con‑ sidered to be a rejection of both a traditional Christian and European traditional perspective of centrality. The idea of an axial age certainly goes against an unin‑ hibited sense of European centrality and superiority in world history. But the same cannot be said about Christianity, as revealed by the example of Anquetil Duperron, whose insight about an »axial age« avant la lettre was deeply fed by his own intense Christian religiosity. And Christianity, a religion born in the Near East, is certainly a universal religion, not a European one.

41

  For a similar critique of the concept, see J. Assmann, »Cultural Memory and the Myth of the Axial Age,« in Bellah and Joas, eds., Axial Age and Its Consequences, 366 – 407. Cf. Assmann, »Axial ›Breakthroughs‹ and Semantic ›Relocations‹ in Ancient Egypt and Israel,« in Arnason, Eisenstadt, and Wittrock, eds., Axial Civilizations and World History, 132 – 156. 42  On Anquetil, see J. Assmann, Achsenzeit: Eine Archäologie der Moderne (Munich, 2020), 28 – 41; G. G. Stroumsa, »L’orientalisme est un humanisme: Anquetil Duperron et les origines de la philologie orientale,« Asdiwal. Revue genevoise d’anthropologie et d’histoire des religions 13 (2018), 128 – 140; and idem, The Idea of Semitic Monotheism: The Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth (Oxford, 2021), ch. 4.

16. On the Roots of Christian Intolerance Odia religionum sunt acerbissima Thomas Gage, A Duall between a Iesuite and a Dominican (London, 1651)

No great imagination is needed to understand the current interest in religious intol‑ erance and violence.1 We had naively thought, until quite recently, to have left behind us the curses of past religious hatred and bigotry. Yet, as denizens of an intolerant and violent world, we are confronted anew, everywhere, with religious conflicts bear‑ ing upon political life, or with political conflicts retaining, or growing strong over‑ tones of religious fanaticism. As historians of religion, we seek to discover in the past some of the roots and mechanisms of religious intolerance and its violent paroxysms, which threaten today our civilization and cultural heritage. In an obvious sense, then, such a search reflects the civic duty of the historian. A better understanding of how such phenomena happened in the past could perhaps be of some help in our present predicament. To recognize that it is the questions of the hic et nunc which inform our his‑ torical quest is the beginning of intellectual honesty. This is not enough, however, to ensure the success of the quest. One should first be aware of a serious danger of anachronism. John Locke’s De Tolerantia, where we find the first occurrence of the word, was first published in 1689. In antiquity, and much beyond, the absence of the concept does not reflect only a linguistic limitation. For men and women of past societies, questions about the religion of other people were asked in rather different terms. In many ways, the very idea of tolerance, for a long time, was not an ideal worth striving for. This does not mean, of course, that there was no tolerance at all in the ancient world. Such a conclusion would be improbable, even far-fetched. But it does suggest that in searching for the roots of Christian intolerance, various pitfalls should be avoided. In the western, Christian world, then, the emergence of the concept of tolerance appears to be a late achievement, reflecting in great part to the shock created by the wars of religion in the wake of the Reformation, and grew in power since the 1

  This essay is dedicated to Philippe Borgeaud.

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Enlightenment and the fight against Christian traditional orthodoxies. In some obvi‑ ous ways, the modern concept of religious tolerance was born in opposition to the traditional Christian positions. At the same time, however, one could easily argue that it was established, precisely, upon Christian roots, such as the idea of one single God, father of all men and women, created in his own image, and the idea of univer‑ sal love. As we shall see, monotheism, universalism and love can also be construed as the roots of Christian intolerance. The apparent paradox of radically different atti‑ tudes finding support in the very same religious concepts and texts reflects the fact that tolerance and intolerance are not religious by nature.

I. Religious Intolerance in the Roman Empire There is no argument about the fact that in 395, at the death of Theodosius I, the level of religious freedom in the empire was dramatically more limited than it had been for centuries. It stands to reason to assume that this limitation of religious tolerance, or growth in religious intolerance, was directly or indirectly connected to the victory of Christianity. Hence, Gibbon could simply identify the rise of Christianity in late antiquity to the growth in religious intolerance in the Roman empire, and attribute the latter to the barbarian role of the monks in the transmission of cultural patterns of thought and behavior. Gibbon’s influence has been both multiform and persistent. In his monumental Pagans and Christians, Robin Lane Fox states that the rise of Christianity let to a much sharper rise in religious intolerance and in open coercion of religious belief than had been the case until then. Lane Fox suggests that this fact can be explained as the result of the passage from paganism to Christianity, which brought to a change in people’s view of themselves and of others.2 On the other hand, the ancient philosopher A. H. Armstrong has argued that the undeniable growth of intolerance throughout the fourth century far from being a historical necessity, was due to a sad concourse of circumstances, to be found only in the field of politics.3 To a great extent, the fine and meticulous analysis of the his‑ torian Harold Drake follows a similar pattern.4 The causes for the rise of intolerance must be searched for in the realm of political decision-making, not in the history of religious ideas. Peter Brown, with his usual acumen and delicate hand, does not take a clear stand on this issue, but insists that we should seek to identify the main vectors of transformation in a reality ever more complex than the most sophisticated theories.5 2

  R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth, 1986), 23.   A. H. Armstrong, »The Way and the Ways: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in the Fourth Century a.d.,« Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984), 1 – 17. 4   H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore, London, 2000). 5   P. Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Cam‑ bridge, 1995), ch. 2: »The Limits of Intolerance,« 27 – 54. 3

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These various attitudes do not necessarily contradict one another more than do events and deep structures. Indeed, they address different levels of analysis. The com‑ parative historian of religions, naturally enough, will seek to understand how deep religious conceptions can foster or bring about transformations of sociological, legal, or even psychological categories. Two conditions, at least, are necessary in order for such an analysis: it must be clearly understood that we are dealing with vectors, and vectors only, without attempting to integrate all phenomena within one single epis‑ temological frame. The second condition, stemming from the search for vectors, is the necessity to work within the longue durée, and also across the Mediterranean world, from Jesus to Constantine – or from Qumran to Milan. The analysis will fol‑ low patterns from the first to the fourth century, in order to detect transformations of discourse, or even mutations of concepts. Such an analysis assumes a dialectical relationship between discourse and behavior. That means, both, that transformations of theological discourse – which belongs to the elites – do have a significant impact on religious behavior, also that of the masses, but at the same time, that this impact is not always direct or obvious – and of course, vice versa, that changes of religious behavior bear upon religious discourse. Religious tolerance and intolerance in the Roman Empire and in early Christian‑ ity has attracted much attention.6 The historical paradox – and theological scandal – of a religion of love, harshly persecuted for a long time, then becoming persecutor in its turn, retains much of its fascination. I shall seek here to deal (rather briefly) with the theological, social, cultural and psychological dimensions of early Christian exclusion of Jews, ›heretics‹ (particularly Gnostics and Manichaeans), pagans, and philosophers. ›Exclusion‹, is perhaps more precise – and more drastic in its social implications – than ›intolerance‹. Christian authorities, much before they reached the corridors of power, had made it their business to define the proper understand‑ ing of the new faith, and to exclude, reject, despise and curse anyone who did not fit into their increasingly rigid definitions of orthodoxy. The final outcome of this process became fully visible before the end of the fourth century, in the persecution of heretics and schismatics, the destruction of temples, the occasional murder of philosophers or burning of synagogues.7 It was also reflected in the new legislation, preserved in the Theodosian Codex, which further limited the rights of dissenters to the new spiritual order, or rather, in most cases, suppressed them altogether.

6   There is no point in even attempting to be exhaustive here, but I wish to refer, at least, to L. Cracco Ruggini, »Intolerance: Equal and less Equal in the Roman World,« Classical Philology 82 (1987), 187 – 205. 7   For an analysis of Christian violence in late antiquity, see M. Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2005). On the inheritance of late antique religious violence in early Islam, see T. Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia, 2009).

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In late antiquity one can observe the end of the long tradition, extant since the Hellenistic times, of religious choice, and also of the definition of identity mainly in cultural terms. Jews, heretics, pagans: the main categories of enemies of Christian orthodoxy in the making are well known. Of these, only the Jews survived in social reality, as they had been tolerated, more than other outsiders, in legislation. In the Christian empire, the Jews remained in a limbo of sorts, between total tolerance and total exclusion. In a sense, the fate of the Jews in the Christianized Roman Empire of late antiquity was heralding that of the Christians themselves in the Islamic realm: the ahl al‑kitāb had become dhimmis. As far as I know, no study has ever inves‑ tigated the possibility that the Islamic concept of tolerated religious minority, ahl al‑dhimma, might find its roots in the early Byzantine attitudes toward the Jews.8 Under Justinian’s legislation, for instance, the Jews lost most of their previous privi‑ leges as Roman citizens. Neither they nor their cult, however, was outlawed, as they were the keepers, despite all their errors, of the Book of Divine revelation. I suggest to check, as a working hypothesis for further research, whether the concept of ahl al‑dhimma could not be an extension, first to the Christians, and then to the Zoro‑ astrians and to some other religious minorities in the Islamic realm, of the legal and religious position of the Jews in the Byzantine realm. For the early Muslims, the Christians, like the Jews, possessed a Book of Divine revelation. They could thus share with them a status of somewhat humiliated toleration. Christianity, the religio illicita of the first three centuries succeeded in the fourth to outlaw all its various competitors. Of all those competitors, only the Jews, who had seemed to be the weakest, survived. In a sense, their rejection was less total than that of pagans or heretics. But their survival also gave rise to Christian antisemitism. I hope to shed some new light on the roots and early context of that phenomenon. Despite many excellent studies on aspects of Christian intolerance, historians of religions do not seem to have devoted enough efforts to understand this phenome‑ non, which was to have radical consequences on European history. In the following pages, I shall try to show that a better understanding has to take into account the specific character of the period, late antiquity, which in many ways witnessed dra‑ matic transformations of patterns of religious behavior. In a sense, one can speak of a full-fledged religious revolution in late antiquity, both in the Mediterranean and in the Near East, a period of no less seminal changes than that around the middle of the first millennium b.c.e., which Karl Jaspers had called the Achenzeit.9 My approach is that of the longue durée, in order to follow the dynamics, evolution and crystalli‑ 8   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Religious Dynamics between Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity,« A. M. Casiday and F. Norris, eds., Cambridge History of Christianity, 300 – 600 (Cambridge, 2007), 151 – 172. As the argument in the following pages depends to a great extent upon previous studies of mine, I must apologize for the number of my references to my own work, where one can find a more detailed discussion of some of the themes dealt with here. 9   See G. G. Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice: les mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive (Paris, 2005).

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zation of Christian attitudes towards outsiders during the first four centuries. I shall seek not only to analyze theological ideas or social transformations, but also to focus on the dialectical relationships between theology and society.

II. From Jewish Exclusivism to Christian Intolerance Searching for the origins of religious intolerance, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann sin‑ gles out what he calls the ›Mosaic distinction‹ as the major element responsible in the ancient world for the introduction of a Weltanschauung intolerant of alternate concep‑ tions. The ›Mosaic distinction‹ refers to the Israelite conception of religion as identical with truth. Such a conception entails the view of other religions, in particular polythe‑ istic systems, as reflecting error. According to Assmann, the ›Mosaic distinction‹ is the most important source of religious intolerance as we know it in the Western world.10 In a sense, Assmann reaches conclusions rather similar to those who contrast the monotheistic intolerance of ancient Israel with Greek and Roman polytheistic tolerance. According to this view, traditional since the Enlightenment, Christian intolerance is but a byproduct of Israelite and Jewish particularism. To some extent, as shown, for instance, by Voltaire’s case, such a view can lead to intellectual attitudes rather dangerously close to anti-Semitic conceptions, in which contemporary Jews are perceived, as the heirs of the ancient Israelites, as ultimately responsible for reli‑ gious (i. e., Christian) violence and intolerance. Whatever conclusion we may reach about the degree to which Judaism informed the early Christian perception of other religious views, there can be no doubt about the importance of the Jewish heritage in early Christianity, and one must therefore start with some remarks on the possible Jewish roots of early Christian intolerance. The God of Israel is a jealous God. He hates the false gods, the idols, and those who render cult to them. More generally, He also hates any false religious attitude, and any wrongdoing, as ethical behavior is considered in the Hebrew Bible, more clearly than in most other religious systems of the ancient world, to play a central role in religious life. Thus the priest Pinhas follows religious duty when he kills Nadav and Avihu, the two priests who had offered »a strange fire.« Throughout both the Jewish and the Christian exegetical tradition, Pinhas’s behavior would be praised as showing zeal for the Lord (zèlos translates Hebrew kin’a, jealousy, in LXX), thus imitating a divine quality. Religious zeal, later to become enthusiasm, and then fanat‑ icism, was indeed for a long time a leading religious value in the Biblical tradition. Such zeal is found in particular, in the Hebrew Bible itself, in the behavior of the prophets. Even when they strike against official and traditional religion, it is in the name of the Lord that they do it, passionately arguing for a return to God’s original 10   See in particular J. Assmann, The Price of Monotheism (Stanford, 2010), originally published as Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Monotheismus (Munich, Vienna, 2003).

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ethical and cultic demands from His people. For the prophets, the history of Israel reflects constant betrayal of its Beruf, followed, time and again, by repentance. At the public level, the demand for the restoration of the true cult against all usurpations may become a call for combat, or for a »holy war« (note that the concept itself does not appear in the Bible). In any case, the Maccabean revolt against both the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes IV and the Jewish elites in Palestine, who supported his cultural and religious policy, clearly reflects the demand of a collective zeal for God, and the absolute intolerance of idolatry. During the second Commonwealth, the call for »holy war« was echoed mainly in the transformation of prophecy into apocalyp‑ ticism. At the end of times, the eschatological war would end in the final victory of the forces of good and the defeat of the forces of evil. In the language of the Qumran scrolls, this war will be fought between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. The religious trends reflected in apocalyptic literature are, as is well-known, very close to the original milieu in which Christianity was born and first developed, as a Jewish sect in the first century. Traces of the eschatological war and of apocalyptic patterns of thought are still visible in both the synoptic Gospels and in John’s Apoc‑ alypse. As all sectarian milieus, which strive on a combination of violent internal strife and radical rejection of the other, it was a milieu in which there was, manifestly, little room for religious tolerance. In many ways, then, the Jewish heritage of early Christianity was one of rejection and intolerance. Like all outlawed and persecuted sects, and in particular as it thought the end of days was near, earliest Christianity was expressing radical views with great intensity. Such an atmosphere left little room for the development of any notion of religious tolerance. Yet, unlike the Essenes, the Christians did not remain Jewish sectarians for a long time. Christianity emerged as a type of religion which one may call ›secondary‹, i. e. a religion born out of another religion, in contrast with it and opposition to it. (Juda‑ ism, in this sense, would be called a ›primary‹ religion.) It is usually assumed that the monotheistic roots of Christianity are responsible for its intolerance of other reli‑ gious ideas and the later persecution of their proponents. There is no doubt that early Christian patterns of behavior toward outsiders and patterns of thought about out‑ siders are deeply imbedded in earlier Israelite and Jewish attitudes and ideas. Chris‑ tianity owed to its biblical background the establishment of identity on religion, the centrality of the concept of a single religious truth as opposed to error, polyvalent by nature, (Irenaeus can speak about the hydra« of heresy), and hence the development of both religious thought and ethics as central to religion. Yet, the differences between the two religions under the Empire are as significant as the similarities between them. In its rejection of the Law and of the centrality of Jewish ethnicity, mainstream Christianity believed it had suppressed religious exclu‑ sivism. The religious structures of Christianity were significantly different from those of Judaism; to the clearly defined collective boundaries was substituted the ambigu‑ ity of a dogma meant for all. Meant for all, but which of course excluded the many who did not know or accept it.

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The fact that Christianity shared with Judaism a deep denial of religious toler‑ ance for false religions, offering a cult to false gods, i. e., idols (or demons), does not explain the fact that Christians, more than Jews, developed strong patterns of religious intolerance in late antiquity. In a study of early Christianity as a radical religion, I referred to the Weberian concept of Entpolitisierung, which refers to those literati pushed aside from political activity or responsibility, enabling them to play freely with conceptions artificially detached from their natural social applicability.11 So, did I argue, radical ideas, often presented as hermeneutics of the sacred texts, were developed, without the need to show their concrete applicability. When, all of a sudden, the conditions had changed radically, and the literati found themselves politisiert, the simplest, easiest, and laziest way was to apply literally the corpus of her‑ meneutical texts to the new reality. Visions of the end, for instance, stemming from apocalyptic literature, could now be presented as concrete political programs, with their dreams of a cosmic war between sons of light and sons of darkness.

III. Personal and Social Identity: Transformation and Impact From Paul to Constantine and Augustine, two radical changes occurred in the per‑ ception of identity. The new parameters of personal identity emphasized the inte‑ gration of soul and body into the definition of the human person as a composite. In the emerging conception, the person was not quite a harmonious one. Instead of the divide between soul and body typical of Platonism, the idea of an original sin brought with it a new break, this time within the soul itself. This break was due to a sense of guilt, inescapable because sin was inherited and ever present. This state of affairs strengthened the need for a salvation that went far beyond the individual and his or her behavior. Repentance for one’s sins, indeed, expressed this need of salvation only in part. Christian salvation entailed a total removal of sin. Such an attitude was bound to enhance a tension within the soul unknown among Greek philosophers. In this framework, faith became not only the sine qua non of salvation but also almost equivalent to it. Faith in Jesus Christ and his redemptive sacrifice, in itself, saved. Social identity, at the same time, was submitted in early Christianity to a radical reinterpretation. For the first time in the ancient world, identity became defined in religious terms, not in ethnic or cultural-linguistic ones (as was the case in the Hel‑ lenistic and Roman worlds). This new approach to social identity is perhaps best reflected in the new corpus of laws from Constantine to Theodosius II established in the first decades of the fifth century and collected in the Codex Theodosianus. These laws show the importance of defining the church and the centers of author‑ ity within it. This implied a constant effort at defining the boundaries of the Chris‑ 11   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Early Christianity as Radical Religion: Context and Implications,« Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994), 173 – 193.

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tian community. Since the traditional Jewish criteria, such as ethnicity, language, and halakha, were no longer available, only dogma could provide the definition of the new social identity. Dogma – that is, the proper way to understand Jesus Christ, his nature, and his mission. Hence, for the first time, collective identity was defined in terms directly rooted in interiorization, in belief. True belief – or orthodoxy – was itself defined by its negation and reflected the many faces of error: heterodoxy or heresy from within, Judaism and paganism from without.12 The social definition of Church boundaries, however, reflected not only opposi‑ tion to error but also the desire, inherent to Christianity from its very beginnings, to broaden its appeal; in other words, the church boundaries reflect Christianity’s very catholicity, its strong and successful urge to convert. Conversion is the other side of the essentially dogmatic definition of the new religion: it implies a choice between truth and error. The consequences of this state of affairs for our present purpose are as follows: Both individual and collective identity are redefined in early Christianity in direct relation to the interiorization process. As pointed out above, both also reflect the limitations of this process. The fight between faith and sin within the individual and the fight between truth and error at the collective level seem to follow parallel pat‑ terns. Since truth comes from Jesus Christ, error comes from the Antichrist, from Satan. A choice of belief stands at the basis of the formation of both individual and collective identity and establishes an element of intolerance in the very definition of Christian identity. To be sure, intolerance has many faces, not all of them religious, and religious intolerance itself did not start with Christianity. But what seems to hap‑ pen very clearly in early Christianity, and what will remain an ominous legacy in the Western world, is the following: the two sides of intolerance related to identity-for‑ mation seem to strengthen each other. A strong sense of the unavoidable presence of sin does not prevent self-righteousness (paradoxically, the contrary seems sometimes to be true), while an interiorized strong feeling of certainty directly leads to religious persecution. These processes, which deserve serious study, are very complex and can be studied only in the longue durée. I have been able here only to allude to them. Therefore, I should like to come back to the radical character of early Christian beliefs. If the direction followed here is basically correct, it is less these beliefs in themselves than the overall structure and status of interiorization in the new reli‑ gion that is responsible for the growing religious intolerance that is one of the hall‑ marks of late antiquity. Like other revolutions, the Christian revolution succeeded to a remarkable extent in suppressing freedom in the name of liberation. I have elsewhere called attention to the influence exerted by what can be called eristic tendencies in New Testament texts.13 One must now go further and insist also 12   On Christian self-definition, see E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, I, The Shaping of Christianity in the Second and Third Centuries (London, 1980). 13   See note 11, above.

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on the following paradox. The absolute and unconditional command of love cannot be considered irenic. Indeed, the hiatus between the attitude dictated by the com‑ mand of love and social and psychological reality entails a deep and irreducible ten‑ sion, usually referred to as cognitive dissonance. As John Gager has shown, the cog‑ nitive dissonance between messianic expectations and the disappointment caused by Jesus’ crucifixion is fundamental for understanding the development of first- and second-century Christianity.14 Anthropologists make use of the term rituals of reversal in order to describe the peculiar phenomena observed in some societies in times of particularly intense tensions due to chiliastic expectations.15 The term might be useful in reference to the command of love for the enemies. The new attitude is per‑ ceived as radical and paradoxical by its proponents. It is opposed to any legitimate expectation; in other words, it is utopian. In Essene theology, the love command was linked to the idea of secret hatred. Hence, some links between this command and the esoteric trends in early Christian doctrine (trends ignored by most scholars) cannot be excluded.16 Gert Theissen, who speaks of an »introjective aggressiveness turned into self-ac‑ ceptance,« offers a first attempt at a psychoanalytical interpretation of the command of love.17 Freud himself, however, had already pointed out with great clarity the tragic paradox of this command. In a striking, yet generally unnoticed, passage of Civilization and its Discontents, Freud emphasized the direct relationship between the idea of love of mankind and that of intolerance. After the apostle Paul made general love of mankind (die allgemeine Menschenliebe) the foundation of his Christian community, the greatest intolerance toward those who remained outside this community (die aüsserte Intoleranz gegen die draussen Verbliebenen) became the unavoidable consequence. The Romans, who had not established their political collectivity upon love, did not know religious intolerance, although religion was a state matter for them, and the state imbued with religion.18 14   J. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1975). In his analysis, Gager refers to the cargo cults in twentieth-century Polynesia. The term cognitive dissonance seems to have been coined by Leon Festinger; see L. Festinger, H. Riecken, and S. Schachter, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Minneapolis, 1956). For the application of the term to early Christi‑ anity, see A. F. Segal, Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 99 – 105, notes 191 – 192. Segal has developed his ideas on Paul’s conversion in his Paul the Convert (New Haven, Conn., 1990). 15   Bibliographical references in H. Kippenberg, »Apokalyptik, Messianismus, Chiliasmus,« in Handbuch religionswissentschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1990), 9 – 26, esp. 12. 16   See G. G. Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (Studies in the History of Religions, 70; Leiden, 1996; revised and augmented paperback edition, 2005). 17   G. Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia, 1978), 105. 18   S. Freud, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, in his Fragen der Gesellschaft, Ursprünge der Religion (Studienausgabe IX; Frankfurt a. M., 1974), 243. For a summary treatment of Freud’s views on reli‑ gion in general, and of Christianity in particular, see M. S. Bergmann, In the Shadow of Moloch (New York, 1992), 219 – 243, esp. 241 – 243.

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To be sure, the lack of historical precision of this passage, as well as its rather sweep‑ ing generalization, do weaken the statement made by Freud. Indeed, we cannot ignore the limits of Roman religious toleration. Even before their ferocious fight against Christianity, the Romans reacted violently to the second century b.c.e. devel‑ opment of the Bacchic cult in Magna Graecia and to the first century c.e. rise of the Druidic cult in Gaul.19 One must also insist upon the deep ambiguity and the limits of any conception of tolerance – be it religious or political – in antiquity. We might perhaps refer here to the idea developed by Paul Veyne concerning belief in the gods in ancient Greece.20 In order to explain the double attitude of belief and skepticism among Greek intellectuals up to Plutarch, Veyne appeals to what he calls »truth pro‑ grams« (programmes de vérité). The same person can show signs of faith and disbe‑ lief at different levels. In this way, it seems to me, one can refer without oversimpli‑ fication to the complex relationships between tolerance and intolerance in the first Christian centuries. There are no Idealtypen in historical reality. It is, in each case, the specific equilibrium between tolerance and rejection of the other that distinguishes between the different attitudes. These remarks however should not overshadow the original intuition of Freud (who seems here to extrapolate on 1 Corinthians 13). He does not, like Gibbon, say what would be only partly true – that Christian monotheism, confronted with Roman polytheism, shows clear signs of intolerance. The roots of Christian intol‑ erance, according to Freud, should be found not in the idea of a single God but in the totalitarian character of a universal command of love. In other words, it is the very universalism of Christianity that is shown here to be threatening. By right, the Christian community must include all mankind. A refusal to join the community of believers reflects a perverse and shocking vice. While ethnic or religious partic‑ ularism tends to turn rather quickly into exclusivism that ignores or despises out‑ siders, ecumenical inclusivism entails the delegitimization of the other’s existence and hence generates tensions and violent intolerance. For Arnaldo Momigliano, the roots of religious intolerance in the Western world are to be found to a large extent in Christian universalism.21 Momigliano comes close to the conclusions of Paul Hacker

19   See for instance A. Momigliano, »Roman Religion,« in Encyclopedia of Religion, reprinted in Religions of Antiquity, ed. R. M. Seltzer (New York, 1989), 230 – 233; cf. A. Dihle’s claim, »Ein Motiv der Intoleranz freilich fehlte dieser Gesellschaft vollkommen, nämlich der Absolutheitsanspruch irgendeiner Religion oder Weltanschauung,« in Die griechische und lateinische Literatur der Kaiserzeit (Munich, 1989), 26. 20   P. Veyne, Les grecs ont-ils cru en leurs dieux? (Paris, 1983); translated as Did the Greeks Believe in Their Gods? (Chicago, 1988). 21   See A. Momigliano, »Empieta ed eresia nel mondo antico,« in Sesto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, vol. 2 (Rome, 1980), 437 – 458. See also his »Freedom of Speech and Religious Tolerance in the Ancient World,« in Anthropology and the Greeks, ed. S. C. Humphreys (London, 1978), 179 – 193. Cf. chapter 9, above.

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in his analysis of what he called Indian inclusivism, an attitude to be strongly distin‑ guished, Hacker argues, from true religious tolerance.22 One should also note that the duty of perfection central to Jesus’ teaching (»Be per‑ fect as your Father in heaven is perfect,« according to Matthew 5:48) entails the high‑ est ethical and spiritual standards, and hence harsh disappointment upon the inev‑ itable failure in meeting these standards. In other words, it is the combination of the idea of love – and the duty of love – and the universalist nature of Christianity that Freud finds to be so threatening, almost totalitarian in its unattainable expectations. Last, but not least, Freud’s intuition about the deep-seated ambiguity of the Chris‑ tian idea of total love refutes a central thesis of René Girard, according to which only Christianity, through the love sacrifice of Jesus, avoids the violence intrinsic to any other form of expression of the sacred.23 »The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.« Paul’s lapidary dictum (2 Corinthi‑ ans 3:6) soon became a cornerstone of Christian thought and sensitivity. Prima facie, it would seem to preempt the danger of »fundamentalism« (in the broader sense of a literal reading of the scriptures) within Christianity. Paul’s words, indeed, have always been understood as referring to the Old Testament, while the New Testa‑ ment, reflecting the teaching and actions of Jesus, means for Christian conscious‑ ness, above all, an exemplum, to follow in the imitatio Christi.24 But the imitation of Christ entails an activist attitude. When the reading of the gospels became polit‑ icized, as was the case in the fourth century, the ambiguities, the tensions, and the contradictions in the figure of Jesus would soon be reflected in Christian life. Side by side with the ascetical and mystical imitatio Christi, one would find in late antiquity the zèlos of religious activists, these monks whom Gibbon, although he avoided the term, considered to be fanatics.25 The tragedy of ancient Christianity is not directly dependent on the cognitive dissonance created by the delay sine die of the second coming. Rather, this tragedy reflects the Christians’ lack of sensitivity to the dissonance caused by the reading of utopian texts in a new political context and their new power to activate them. I wish to insist here on the importance of actualization, a concept opposite to neutralization, in order to understand various phenomena in the history of religions. Christian utopia lies at the very heart of New Testament kerygma.26 The French ancient historian Fustel de Coulanges could say how, together with Christianity, »the 22

  This concept is discussed by W. Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (Albany, NY, 1988), 403 – 418, and notes. 23   See R. Hammerton-Kelly, Sacred Violence: Paul’s Hermeneutic of the Cross (Minneapolis, 1991), who applies Girard’s ideas to Paul. 24   See P. Brown, »The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity,« Representations 2 (1983), 1 – 25. 25   For a bibliography and a definition of fanaticism, see H. Cancik-Lindemaier, »Fanatismus,« in Handbuch religionswissenschaftliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1988), 414 – 420. 26   One may point out that Jewish scholars often seem to have problems with the Sermon on the Mount. In front of this sublime ethics, rabbinic ideas might appear somewhat pale. For Solomon

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spirit of propaganda replaced the law of exclusion.« The problem here stems from the very fact that Christianity is a religion of conviction, based on the spirit rather than on the letter, in contradistinction to the religions of the ancient world and even to some extent to Judaism. Conviction, indeed, entails the duty to convince, but also, too often, the urge to conquer. The strength of the Christian message is an inherently ambiguous force, which is also at the root of an ineluctable, though spiritual, will to power. Paradoxically, then, the universal drive in religion (traditionally, unreflectively considered in a positive light) has often led to religious intolerance and violence, more so than has religious exclusivism, which has traditionally retained room for other religious identities beyond the community boundaries. Early Christianity, then, remained for some time a radical religion, harboring intense expectations for the second coming of Christ, the parousia, and redemption of humankind. The first generations of Christians saw themselves as soldiers in the cosmic war between God and His Son and the ruler of this world, Satan, and his acolytes. They were few, engaged in a world war against the powerful forces of evil. In that sense, the earliest Christian communities, despite the profound theological, cultural, and sociological differences between them, and despite the new identity that they were in the process of developing, retained some significant similarities with the world-view of the Jewish sectarians of first-century Palestine, in particular in their utopianism and millenarianism. Like the Qumran covenanters, the earliest Christian communities developed their theological conceptions in radical isolation from, and opposition to almost anyone else, both Jews and pagans. The Christians considered themselves to be the true Israel, verus Israel, i. e., their borrowed identity linked them directly to the history of ancient Israel. They interpreted correctly the message of the biblical prophets, whom the contemporary Jews misunderstood, and identified with the ancient history of Israel. Their cultural memory, however, never really became rooted in ancient Isra‑ elite society. In their successful attempt to break the circle of sectarianism and establish them‑ selves as followers of a religion in its own right, the early Christians soon drew their own identity in terms profoundly different from any kind of Jewish identity. The Christians had given up on all the known ingredients of Jewish identity: legal pre‑ scriptions of the Torah and the oral law, including kinship rules, language, territory. They were, indeed, in the words of the Epistle of Digonetes (second century), a tertium genus, (triton genos), a new kind of people, »from all the peoples« as the Persian sage, Aphrahat, would say in the fourth century. Early Christian cultural memory, then, despite affirmations of being the »true Israel,« was deeply different from Jewish Zeitlin, the weakness of Jesus’ love commands lies precisely in their utopian character, since it is only in a utopian world that a utopian ethics can be applied. See S. Zeitlin, »Prolegomenon,« in G. Fried‑ lander, The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount (New York, 1969), xxv.

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cultural memory: it lacked the sense of concrete roots of the latter in past Israelite society. The Christians had, voluntarily, given up the traditional characteristics of Jewish identity boundaries, and had, hence, to build anew identity markers of their own. As they could not use any of the usual identity markers provided by language, ter‑ ritory, polity, they had to focus on theological ideas. The definition of orthodoxy as the narrow track meandering between the various dangers provided by heresies of all sorts was the backbone of this new identity. Until the fourth century, this would provide the major battlefield of Christianity in the making. More than the blood of the martyrs, the fight for the correct interpretation of the Scriptures, the ongoing argument with the Gnostics, dualists, and Docetists of all kinds, toward the con‑ stantly sharper definition of Christian orthodoxy would provide the leading story of early Christianity. Clearly, the constant and rigorous watch for unacceptable under‑ standings of Jesus Christ and His message would offer ample space for polemics and rejection of competing views.27 The same first centuries also saw the making of Rabbinic Judaism, and the crys‑ tallization of Talmudic culture. It is this fact, precisely, which highlights the deep difference between the two orthodoxies: while the rule of faith (kanōn tēs pisteōs) is central to Christian identity, the Rabbis thrive by polemical discussions about all legal and extra-legal matters. The fact that consensus is rarely reached does not usu‑ ally engender split: »both are the words of the living God« (elu ve-elu divrei Elohim hayyim); i. e., opposing opinions are equally legitimate, is the traditional Talmudic way of summarizing legal arguments between two Rabbis. While the Church Fathers, partakers of an ecumenical faith, are in the business of excluding all dissenters, it is precisely Jewish exclusivism which permits a rather liberal acceptance of dissenting views within the community, together with a deep (and non-polemical) lack of interest for whatever and whoever lies outside the com‑ munity. Oddly enough, this paradox does not seem to have been clearly noticed and reflected upon. What should be emphasized here is that the systematic fight against heretics takes place together with the dramatic proselytizing movement in Christi‑ anity, which established it as a world religion, within and without the borders of the Roman Empire. One retains the impression that these two phenomena are not quite disconnected: together with the fast spreading of Christian faith, the need for clear boundaries is intensely felt, and this need cannot be filled with the traditional char‑ acteristics of collective identity. Hence the need is felt for more and more stringent arguments against all kinds of deviance from the (single) right belief on any major point of theology. It goes without saying that such arguments repeatedly limit the boundaries of legitimate religious thought, concomitantly enlarging those of rejected heterodox views. It is in that sense that we should first understand the paradox of a Christian universalism reflecting intolerant character more clearly than Jewish 27

  See, for instance, Sanders, Jewish and Christian Self-Definition.

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exclusivism, which had given up, at least to some extent (and due to the presence and success of Christianity) on the Jewish proselytism of old. A surprising and rather paradoxical consequence of theological universalism and dynamic proselytism, then, is its strengthening of intolerant trends in early Chris‑ tianity. But this is not all. As we shall see below, it is also on other, psychological grounds that universal pretenses foster intolerance: when salvation is offered to all and sundry, those daring enough to reject it soon become objects of anger, even hatred on the part of the Christians, whose feel that their generous love of human‑ kind is not returned in kind. Such psychological grounds are clearly visible in the development of Christian attitudes toward Jews. The topic of the growth of Chris‑ tian anti-Judaism, and of its possible transformation into attitudes which one must call anti-Semitic, is obviously much too big to be treated here.28 What I want to call attention to in the present context is the intolerant side of this attitude. Christian intolerance toward Jews, however, usually remained limited by a modicum of toler‑ ation. As mentioned above, the Jews remained tolerated more than other enemies of Christian order, such as heretics and pagans. Tolerated, perhaps, though not really accepted, and retaining an uncomfortable place on the margins of Christian society: it was impossible for the Christians to completely erase the presence of the Jews, as the memory of Israel loomed large in their own identity. The Jews were a testimony of the divine promise, »living letters of the Law.« But they were also the offspring of Christ’s murderers, who in their con‑ tinuous stubbornness refused to recognize the Messiah whom God had sent them, when all around the world people had converted to the new faith. Hence, it proved very difficult not to develop a strong anger, even hatred, against the Jews. This aversion had begun early. John’s Gospel had refered to the Jews as Satan’s children (John 8:44), while Melito, in second-century Sardis, was the first to speak of them as »God killers.« The major transformation of anti-Jewish Christian discourse, however, happened during the fourth century. Constantine, who only asked for toleration of Christianity, could refer to the Jews as to »that deadly sect.« Throughout the century, as the prog‑ ress of Christianity was more and more sensible, the violence of Christian anti-Jew‑ ish discourse became clearer. The seeds had been there for a long time, but they could now bloom, as it were, under the new political conditions that were revolu‑ tionizing the status of Christianity. The bishops, leaders of the formerly religio illicita, were now filling the corridors of power, from Constantinople to Milan, and their voice was heard loud and clear. The long-standing accusations against the Jews and their religion, which had over Christianity the advantage of a legal status, had long remained dormant, or in any case devoid of any real power, as long as the Christians 28   See G. G. Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999), ch. 8: »From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism in Early Christianity?,« 132 – 156. For later developments, see P. Stefani, L’antigiudaismo: Storia di un’idea (Rome, Bari, 2004).

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had been disenfranchised, or entpolitisiert, to use Max Weber’s term. They were now activated, and in the course of the fourth century, we can observe a strange phe‑ nomenon: the passage of some qualities (or rather vices) until then identified with pagans to the Jews. As soon as the pagan threat to Christianity was perceived as less virulent, the perception of paganism as a cult (or rather a variety of cults) offered to idols, or demons, was transferred to Judaism. In other words, we can observe then a »paganization« of the Christian perception of Judaism, as it were, which directly entails a demonization of the Jews: those who practice a cult of demons in their syn‑ agogues, for the first time identified to pagan temples or to theaters, are themselves in the process of becoming demons, supporters of Satan, indeed, his »first born.« With John Chrysostom’s eight sermons Kata tōn Ioudaiōn, written in the 380s, this process reaches a new stage, and the passage from theological anti-Judaism to a much deeper hatred of Jews, which we call anti-Semitism, seems to be fully accomplished, even with Robert Wilken’s proviso about the rules of late ancient rhetoric, which explain some of Chrysostom’s verbal violence, and the recognition that he was fighting a still very active Jewish competition for the minds and hearts of Christian communities.29

IV. Christian Intolerance versus Pagan Tolerance? A Conceptual Problem The polemics with Judaism reflected of course the very first conflict with which the Christians were involved, but it was not the most violent one. In the Roman Empire, the pagan majority some perceived the Christians as a threat. We should not be overly surprised that a weak sect, outlawed and often actively persecuted, could be felt to threaten the very pillars of society. Collective perceptions are not usually grounded in reason, as we know too well. The content of the Christians’ cult, hidden from the public eye, was left to the sometimes-wild imagination of the populace, and considered criminal, involving human sacrifice, cannibalistic practices, or obscene activities. Their beliefs were so strange as to be considered atheistic, since the Chris‑ tians refused to take any part in the public rituals practiced by all. If the conflict between pagans and Christians is so significant and so fascinating, this is due, first of all, to the stakes involved, and to the dramatic consequences of its outcome for western culture altogether. This conflict, then, has elicited so much interest that it seems almost impossible to deal with it in passing. Yet, I shall try to do just that, only pointing out some of its dimensions which do not seem to have been noticed sharply enough. In particular, I  shall focus here on the fact that despite the quantities of ink poured in the centuries-long polemics between them, Christians and pagans seem 29   R. L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley, London, 1983).

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to have had little to tell one another. It seems that Christians and pagans had little to say to one another, despite the huge space devoted on both sides to polemics.30 What we have, then, is a disappointing »dialogue de sourds« between pagan and Christian intellectuals. In many ways, the whole affair appears to have been a huge misunder‑ standing. The pagans did not understand that the Christians were fostering a new conception of religion, while the Christians remained unable to grasp the nature of pagan religion.31 In late antiquity, we are witnessing nothing less than a revolution of the very conception of religion, which was carried on, to a great extent, by the Chris‑ tians. This fact goes a long way in explaining the eventual success of Christianity in the great fight for the minds and hearts. It seems to me that the fundamental incom‑ prehension between pagans and Christians on the very nature of religion is directly relevant to the problem of Christian intolerance. Indeed, the multifaceted religious revolution of late antiquity is reflected mainly in the growth and final victory of Christianity in the Roman Empire. This religious revolution was accompanied by drastic cultural transformations, which ushered in patterns of thought and behavior that later became typical of the middle ages, both in the West and in the East. At the core of these transformations stands a deep shift in the parameters defining identity, both personal and collective. While in the Helle‑ nistic and early Roman world the question of identity was primarily a cultural one, by the fifth century c.e. it had become a question to be asked and answered almost exclusively in religious terms. As we have already seen in the case of Judaism, there were various kinds of reli‑ gious exclusion in the ancient world: while the Jews excluded the pagan ethnoi (goyyim), who had no part in the Divine revelation, from their sphere of interest, the level of tolerance for dissenting opinions was relatively high in Rabbinic literature. The Christians, on their part, who claimed to offer their message of salvation to all peoples, were usually consistent in their violent rejection of all dissenting opinion. The pagans, too, had their own ways of expressing intolerance of outsiders. Although Hellenistic and Roman societies did not share with Jews and Christians the claim for the uniqueness of religious truth, they had other ways of limiting religious freedom, according to social, economic, cultural, linguistic or sexual criteria. Various violent incidents and even persecution of religious outsiders also make it necessary to reconsider the commonly held opposition of ›pagan tolerance‹ to ›monotheistic intolerance‹.32 There is little doubt that some roots of Christian intolerance are also

30   See for instance C. Ando, »Pagan Apologetics and Christian Intolerance in the Ages of The‑ mistius and Augustine,« Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996), 171 – 207. 31   See Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy, ch. 3: »Celsus, Origen and the Nature of Religion,« 44 – 56. For a collection of early pagan sources on Christianity, see P. Carrara, ed., I pagani di fronte al cristianesimo: testimonianze dei secoli I e II (Florence, 1984). 32   See for instance A. Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews and Christians (Middletown, Conn., 1987), ch. 8: »Some Preliminary Remarks on the ›Religious Opposition‹ to the Roman Empire,« 120 – 141.

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to be found in pagan cults, as well as in the philosophical schools, where the exclu‑ siveness of truth was also cultivated. Due to their Jewish roots, the Christians have too often been perceived, in the conflict that opposed them to the pagans, as the main party guilty of intolerance. The opposition between a tolerant paganism and an intolerant Christianity has now been recognized for what it is, an image d’Épinal, no more a true reflection of historical reality than its opposite, the traditional apologetic vision of Christians being daily fed to the lions. Such a schematic opposition is based upon a misapprehension of Greek and Roman religion. Origen’s Contra Celsum remains for us an inexhaustible treasure for the pagan-Chris‑ tian polemics. Celsus was a Greek Platonist philosopher, who wrote his lost Alethes Logos in the 180s, while Origen wrote his refutation of Celsus around the mid-third century. Their aborted »dialogue« reflects the fundamental reciprocal mispercep‑ tion between pagan and Christian intellectuals. Before any analysis of the arguments, one should point out that the parallelism between the two positions is profoundly misleading. Celsus does not represent »paganism« in the same sense as Origen rep‑ resents Christianity, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as »paganism.« Celsus is not a »pagan,« but a philosopher. As such, he cannot either be called a poly‑ theist. To a great extent, Platonists (and not only Platonists) should be considered to have been monotheists, at least as the Christian theologians. After James O’Don‑ nell,33 the essays recently edited by Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity have shown once and for all that there were different sorts of monotheism in late antiquity, and that the Christians and the Jews were far from having a monopoly on this issue.34 The very existence of a »pagan« monothe‑ ism shows that we cannot anymore look to Jewish and Christian monotheism for the main root of violent antagonism and intolerance between pagans and Christian. The great divide between Celsus and Origen is not so much about the unity of the supreme Deity as it is about the nature of religion and its role in the state. Cel‑ sus is a conservative, who seeks to preserve society and its traditional values from an exogenous threat of an unknown kind. As such, he remains blind to the true nature of Christianity as a new spiritual force. For him, religion is first and foremost a matter of tradition, while for Origen, it is essentially a matter of truth. While the first is a radical relativist, the second supports a new, revolutionary kind of religion, established on objective truth and personal conviction. Celsus’s religion is a central attribute of state and society, and is a matter for the citizen, who seeks to reinforce 33

  J. J. O’Donnell, »The Demise of Paganism,« Traditio 35 (1979), 47 – 88.   P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede, eds., Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1999). See further S. Mitchell and P. van Nuffelen, eds, Monotheism between Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity (Leuven, 2009), and idem, One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2010). 34

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existing social structures. For Origen, true religion is implanted in the human heart, and calls for revolt against the existing political state of affairs. For Celsus, the struc‑ ture of the religious world is static, for Origen, it is highly dynamic. Origen’s Contra Celsum reveals the extent to which pagans and Christians had vastly different presuppositions about both individual and society – a point missed by E. R. Dodds’ Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety.35 In a word, Christians are unable to understand civil religion, while pagans cannot understand religious truth. The lack of ability, on the part of Christians, to appreciate civil religion is directly linked, I suggest, to the fact, mentioned above, that they do not have concrete roots in a past society: the Christian reinterpretation of Judaism is abstract, and this fact is duly noted by both pagans and Jews. This fundamental dual misunderstanding of religious truth and civil religion stands at the bottom of the deep gap, noted by Erik Peterson, in his rejection of Carl Schmitt’s ideas about political theology.36 To be sure, there existed among late antique intellectuals a tradition of tolerance vis-à-vis different opinions and patterns of behavior. Porphyry is a case in point, and in his De abstinentia he put a great emphasis on the toleration of different attitudes. Until the peace of the Church, however, it was mainly among Christian authors that a serious and sustained defense of the idea of religious toleration could be found. Indeed, it is the Christians, not the pagans, who were desperately in need of some toleration. At the turn of the third century, for instance, as combative and naturally intolerant a mind as Tertullian was able to develop a long argument in favor of reli‑ gious toleration.37 In the fourth century, however, it would be pagan thinkers who would develop lengthy arguments about religious tolerance. It  was now their turn to be on the defensive. Three names are usually referred to in this respect: Libanius (314 – 393), Themis‑ tius (317 – 388), and Symmachus (c. 340 – c. 402). The great rhetorician Libanius, from Antioch, who was an admirer of Julian, was nonetheless respected by Theodosius, and had various Christian students. Themistius, both a philosopher and a rheto‑ rician, was the educator of Arcadius, Theodossius’s son, engaged in polemics with Julian. Symmachus, the greatest orator of the time and one of the most prominent opponents of Christianity, attacked Gratian for having disestablished paganism, in the affair of the Altar of Victory in 382. In his argument in favor or religious toler‑ ation of dissenting views, Symmachus wrote (Relatio III.10) the famous sentence: 35

  Cf. note 16, above.   On the whole polemic, see A. Schindler, ed., Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Erik Peterson und die Kritik der politischen Theologie (Gütersloh, 1978). 37   See G. G. Stroumsa, »Tertullian on Idolatry and the Limits of Tolerance,« in G. Stanton and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 1998), 172 – 184. 36

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»Non uno itinere perveniri potest ad tam grande secretum.« Themistius pleaded for religious toleration before the emperors Jovian and Valens, arguing that »God’s glory is increased by the knowledge that religious differences are only a consequence of his unattainable majesty and of human limitations.« For Themistius, culture is different from faith, and piety should be left to free choice.38 In this he opposes the Emperor Julian, who, following Celsus, sees the pluralism of national cults as against the universalistic pretensions of Christianity. The attitudes of pagan intellectuals in the fourth century are marked by the religious revolution launched by Constantine. For most of them, the passionate arguments in favor of tolerance, while obviously sincere, reflect their new position of weakness. Julian’s intolerance, on the other hand, has been shown to bear a strong Christian influence.39 In the 340s, Firmicus Maternus would be the first Christian author to demand in so many words a total intolerance of pagan worship. The pagan gods were no real gods, and hence any cult rendered to them was false and misleading. Such an attitude is based upon the new definition of religion fostered by the Christians: reli‑ gion was now identical to truth, in contradistinction to the tradition since the days of Varro, which distinguished quite clearly between religion and truth. This trans‑ formation of the very concept of religion most probably offers the background for Augustine’s opposition between vera religio and falsa religio. On the other hand, the new definition of religion meant that idolatry, now equated to superstitio, was to be condemned. Michelle Salzman and Maurice Sachot have both shown, from different points of view, how the Patristic authors semantically inverted the traditional couple religio / superstitio.40 A new religiosity hence emerged in the Christianized Roman empire, together with the new conception of identity, which put a new emphasis on religion, while culture had been the main element defining identity since the Helle‑ nistic world. In many ways, the society emerging in the empire in the fifth century would be, at least from the religious point of view, less tolerant, or more intolerant, than under the pagan emperors.41 The tolerant attitude proponed by fourth century pagan intel‑ lectuals would become less and less relevant. Yet, it would not completely disappear. As the case of Boethius shows, pagan liberalism survived, to a certain extent, at least among some pockets of intellectual elites. Although scholars begin to recognize the 38   See G. Dagron, »L’empire romain d’Orient au IVe siècle et les traditions politiques de l’hellé­ nisme: le témoignage de Thémistios,« Travaux et Mémoires 3 (1968), 159 – 187. For the main sources about the polemics between pagans and Christians in the fourth century, see B. Croke and J. Harries, eds., Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome (Sydney, 1982). 39   For a striking study of Julian, see G. Scrofani, La religione impura: La riforma di Giuliano Imperatore (Brescia, 2010). 40   M. R. Salzman, »›Superstitio‹ in the Codex Theodosianus and the Persecution of Pagans,« Vigi­liae Christianae 41 (1987), 172 – 188; and M. Sachot, Quand le christianisme a changé le monde (Paris, 2007), esp. 72 – 88. 41   For the Christian persecution of pagans, see K. L. Noethlichs, »Heidenverfolgung,« Real­lexi­ kon für Antike und Christentum 13 (1986), 1149 – 1190.

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novelty of the conception of religion fostered by early Christianity, this novelty is still too often put in the traditional terms of monotheism versus paganism, or poly‑ theism – terms obviously inherited from early Christian polemical and apologetic literature. With the emergence and eventual victory of Christianity, it is nothing less than a new understanding of religion that comes into being. Various explanations of the growth of religious intolerance have emphasized either the collusion between political and ecclesiastical power, or the Jewish roots and the radical nature of early Christianity. I have sought elsewhere to present these two alternative approaches, and to argue that both fail to account for the transforma‑ tion of Christianity in the wake of Constantine.42 What these two approaches fail to take into account, I argued, is the dynamic character of religious attitudes. It is hardly conceivable, to my mind, to think that either there were no roots of the Christian intolerance which developed so fast throughout the fourth century, from Constan‑ tine to Theodosius I, or that these roots, present before the end of the first century, took so long to reveal themselves. I argued that some basic tensions, dormant from the beginnings, needed the catalyst of the Constantinian revolution in order to trans‑ form themselves into active and powerful »viruses,« as it were. In these brief, general and rather sweeping reflections, I have sought to call attention to some of the main roots of early Christian intolerance, as it developed in late antiq‑ uity. My central claim is that the growth of intolerance in the conflict between reli‑ gions in late antiquity has to do more with the deep transformation of the concept of religion, than with the idea of monotheism. To be sure, other aspects of this trans‑ formation should be taken into consideration, such as the growth in importance of religious communities, the conflict between various »book religions,« and the inter‑ nalization of religion, which can account for psychological dimensions of Christian intolerance.43 Psychoanalytical concepts, such as ›introjection,‹ can shed some light upon the transformation of religious love into hatred. It comes indeed as a surprise that the discoverers of the inner man are also among the proponents of ecclesiastical collusion with the »secular hand« in order to break religious dissent by force. In any case, we should remember that the undeniable worsening state of affairs with the victory of Christianity in the Roman Empire can be understood neither in solely theological terms, nor as a result of purely political factors.44 The highly complex and ever-changing social and cultural context remains here central. There might be a message here for us, in our present predicament. While history cannot teach us pos‑ itive lessons about what to expect, historical analysis can certainly help us to avoid analytical fallacies, which are too often based upon cultural and religious prejudice. 42

  Cf. note 11, above.   See Stroumsa, Barbarian Philosophy, ch. 5: »Internalization and Intolerance in Early Christi‑ anity,« 86 – 99. 44   See for instance P. Veyne, Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien, 312 – 394 (Paris, 2007). 43

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V. Conclusion The preceding pages are far from having offered a full-fledged analysis of the rise of religious violence in late antiquity. As a historical case study, early Christianity might offer us some perspective on our present predicament. In conclusion, I can only call attention to a number of points relevant to our present theme. First, social scientists have spoken since 1957 – following Leon Festinger and his associates – of cognitive dissonance, referring to deep shocks in the belief systems of people after events dispelled those beliefs (for instance, the coming of the Messiah). I propose to introduce the corollary concept of cognitive consonance. What hap‑ pens to the belief systems of people when events suddenly, or surprisingly, confirm their beliefs? The first Christian communities, like the Qumran covenanters, could retain radical, violent eschatological beliefs in check as long as they were entpolitisiert. Although they read radical texts (such as the War Scroll or John’s Apocalypse) through literal hermeneutics, this reading did not endanger anyone, as they were totally powerless. The real problem started with the Christianization of the Roman Empire, when they retained the same simplistic hermeneutics, while political and military power were now on their side. Hence, the direct responsibility for holy vio‑ lence should not be attributed to religious texts (even when they are indeed violent) but rather to unsophisticated hermeneutics. Second, religion belongs at once to the private and to the public sphere. In other words, there are both individual and collective aspects to religious identity. While the spectrum of the impact of religion on both the private and the public domain varies greatly between internalized religion and universalized religion – according to the nature of the religion involved and to each historical and cultural context – no religious life can ignore either private or public life. A lack of balance between the private and the public expression of religion is bound to create tensions leading to violence. Similarly, the dialectical interplay between religious (and ethnic) and cul‑ tural identities may lead to religious violence when the chasm between the two is too great, creating dissociation between religious and cultural identity. Open and closed modes of religiosity are found in all religious traditions. To some extent, these can be seen as reflecting centrifugal and centripetal forces. The present struggle is set, essentially, not between »religions,« but between modes of religiosity, within each religious tradition. And third, in modern societies (and the same is true in the postmodern »global village«), open religion entails embracing religious pluralism in the public sphere. Hence traditional religious identities must undergo deep hermeneutical transforma‑ tions in order to become full and active participants in their societies (rather than passive onlookers, tolerated by and tolerating the other faute de mieux). The core of these transformations is represented by the passage from religious to cultural memory. While the first is centered on the experience of the group, the second integrates the religious memories of other groups within a given society. The transformation of

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religious memory into cultural memory will be the counter-narrative to that breed‑ ing religious violence.45 In this transformation, the main enemy of open religion is its closest neighbor: closed religion. Whether open religion will be successful in its fight against closed religion is not a prediction which historians can make. But we must try.

45   On  religious memory, see G. G. Stroumsa, The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., 2016), 29 – 39.

17. Titus of Bostra and Alexander of Lycopolis against Manichaean Dualism Plotinus and Mani probably never met on the battlefield.1 Dispelling such a preg‑ nant image d’Épinal as the physical encounter of the two masters should not mean ignoring the conflictual intercourse between Neoplatonism and Manichaeism in the Roman Empire. Ultimately, both movements were losers in the grand struggle for souls and minds, which the Christian bishops and theologians won in the fourth century against pagans and heretics alike. The extent to which Christian theologians assimilated philosophical – and in particular, Platonic – concepts and ideas is better known than the exact limitations of Platonic influence. And the Christian and Neo‑ platonist ultimate rejection of gnostic and dualist patterns of thought is more readily recorded than accounted for accurately. Among the various spiritual trends in the Roman Empire – as well as under Sasa‑ nian rule – few seem to have been so powerful, and none has aroused such hatred, as Manichaeism.2 Indeed, this hatred was fueled by the eccentric behavior of Man‑ ichaean ascetics, and led to slanderous accusations.3 More importantly, however, it is the very basis of Manichaean theology and mythology, its radical dualism, which elicited the most profound repulsion – from both pagan philosophical and Christian theological quarters.4 A reflection upon this repulsion and the arguments with which it was propounded might shed some new light on a particularly complex chapter in 1   We know from Kephalaia, I, that Mani joined Shapur in one of his campaigns against the Romans. This probably happened in 256 – 260, in the campaign against Valerian, rather than in 242 – 244, in that against Gordian III, whose army Plotinus had joined in order to get acquainted with Eastern wisdom. See H. C. Puech, Le Manichéisme; son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris, 1949), 47 – 48. On Platonic influences on Manichaeism, see A. Henrichs and L. Koenen, in ZPE 19 (1975), 72 – 75, nn. 25 – 32; 32 (1978), 138 ff., nn. 187 ff.; 140, n. 191; 141, n. 194. See also L. Koenen, »From Baptism to the Gnosis of Manichaeism,« in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, II, ed. B. Layton (Suppl. to Numen, 41; Leiden, 1981), 735, n. 8. 2   See P. Brown, »The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire,« JRS 59 (1969), 92 – 103, reprinted in his Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (London, 1972), 94 – 118. For the legal aspects of the repression, see E. H. Kaden, »Die Edikte gegen die Manichäer von Diokletian bis Justinian,« in Festchrift für Hans Lewald (Basle, 1953), 55 – 68. 3   See for instance the case described in G. G. Stroumsa, »Monachisme et Marranisme chez les Manichéens d’Égypte,« Numen 29 (1983), 184 – 201. On the common »front« of Christian and Neo‑ platonist thinkers against Manichaeism, see C. Andresen, »Antike and Christentum,« THE 3, 69 – 73. 4   On the »radicalism« of Manichaean dualism and its limits, see G. G. Stroumsa, »König und Schwein: zur Struktur des manichäischen Dualismus,« in Gnosis und Politik, ed. J. Taubes (Pader‑ born, 1984), 141 – 153.

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late antique intellectual history. In attempting such a reflection, I have concentrated upon the two leading figures to have refuted Manichaeism in Greek: Titus of Bos‑ tra and Alexander of Lycopolis. Titus, bishop of Bostra, a highly Hellenized Syrian city on the limes, wrote in the second half of the fourth century, a few years after Julian’s reign, one of the first Christian theological refutations of Manichaeism, and certainly the most comprehensive.5 Mainly through Epiphanius of Salamis, who not only refers to it but also makes generous use of its argumentation, Titus’ work was to have the most profound impact on later Christian literature adversus Manichaeos.6 As with Titus, Alexander’s title of fame rests upon his tractate against Man‑ ichaeism – his only extant writing, published about 300 – one of our earliest doc‑ uments on the propagation of Manichaeism in Egypt.7 (The work itself has sur‑ vived only due to the fact that it had been incorporated into a corpus of Christian anti-Manichaean texts, since Alexander was thought to have been a bishop.)8 The city where Plotinus was born had become a major center for the implantation of Manichaeism already in the second half of the third century.9 Like the bishop of Bostra – or Cyril, the bishop of Jerusalem – half a century later, the philosopher of Lycopolis is deeply concerned by the new movement, which had even seduced some among his fellow philosophers.10  5

  The complete Syriac text as well as the Greek text of books I to III.7 were published (sepa‑ rately) by P. de Lagarde, Titi Bostreni . . . graece, and Titi Bostreni Contra Manichaeos libri quatuor syriace (both in Berlin, 1859). P. Nagel has further published the Greek text of III.7 – 29: »Neues griechisches Material zu Titus von Bostra,« in Studia Byzantina, ed. J. Irmscher and P. Nagel (Ber‑ liner Byzantinische Arbeiten; Berlin, 1973), 285 – 359. Nagel has been working for some years on a new edition of Titus. On Titus himself, see R. P. Casey’s article in Pauli Wissowa, s. v. Titus v. Bostra, as well as J. Sickenberger’s introduction to his Titus von Bostra, Studien zu dessen Lukashomilien (TV 21 = New Series 6; Leipzig, 1901).  6   For a list of references to Titus’ work in later Christian literature, see Sickenberger, op. cit., 5 – 8. Epiphanius refers to him in Panarion 66.21.3 (III, 48 – 49, ed. Holl).  7   The text was edited by A. Brinkmann, Alexandri Lycopolitani, Contra Manichaei opiniones disputatio (Leipzig, 1895). See also the annotated translation of the text by P. W. van der Horst and J. Mansfeld, An Alexandrian Platonist against Dualism (Leiden, 1974), actually a full-length study of Alexander in philosophical context. After the completion of this paper there appeared a French translation and detailed commentary of the text by A. Villey, Alexandre de Lycopolis: Contre la doctrine de Mani (Paris, 1985). John Rist has recently sought to define more precisely Alexander’s place in the history of late antique philosophy. He has shown that Alexander was a conservative Middle Platonist, rather than a Neoplatonist, whose »theories bear a marked similarity with those of the pagan Origen,« concluding that »it is against Alexander’s Middle Platonism that we should view the prominent Christians of early fourth-century Alexandria . . .« See J. Rist, »Basil’s ›Neoplatonism‹: Its Background and Nature,« in Basil of Caesarea: Christian, Humanist, Ascetic, ed. P. J. Fedwick (Toronto, 1981), 137 – 220, esp. 166 – 169.  8  The codex unicus, from the Laurentiana, is part of a late ninth-century codex, dedicated to Basil the First, an emperor who had fought the Paulicians; cf. Brinkmann’s introduction to his edi‑ tion.  9   On the implantation of Manichaeism in Egypt, see in particular L. Koenen, »Manichäische Mission und Klöster in Ägypten,« in Das römischbyzantinische Ägypten (Aegyptiaca Treverensia; Mainz, 1983), 93 – 108, as well as my »Monachisme et Marranisme« (cited above, note 3). 10   Alexander, 6 (8, ed. Brinkmann; 58, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld).

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Alexander is rather sympathetic to Christianity; although he thinks the Christians incapable of precise philosophical thought, he praises their elevated ethics.11 Titus, for his part, while no philosopher, is the bearer of a good rhetorical education, and shows a certain knowledge of koinē philosophical vocabulary and arguments – both Platonic and Stoic.12 I could not find in his work, however, any indication to suggest a direct borrowing from Alexander. A comparison between these two refutations of dualism might therefore add to our understanding of the common ground and specific differences between Chris‑ tian and Neoplatonist fourth-century literati. A further question raised by such an inquiry is the extent to which the need to argue at length against the dualist chal‑ lenge influenced the structures, or at least the emphasis, of their own thought.13 One might point out here that anti-Manichaean literature has been mainly scrutinized by students of Manichaeism for the information it could lend about details of Man‑ ichaean mythology, or quotations from Manichaean writings.14 Thus, although Titus and Alexander are well-known to scholars in the field, very little attention seems to have been devoted to their actual argumentation. The following pages can do no more than arouse interest in this direction. It is hoped that further studies will reveal more fully the impact of the Manichaean challenge amidst late antique intellectuals. Besides the ludicrous details of their mythology, the Manichaeans were able to develop very early a highly sophisticated theoretical argumentation in support of their dualism. This important point, which cannot be overemphasized, is proved precisely by the character of Titus’ and Alexander’s refutations: although neither ignores Manichaean mythology, it does not stand for them at the core of the seductive powers of Man‑ ichaean thought.15 Similarly, in Justinian’s Constantinople, it is with a very abstract refutation of dualism that Zacharias »Rhetor,« of Mytilene (to whom has also tradi‑ tionally been attributed the authorship of a pamphlet against Manichaean mythol‑ ogy), decided to respond to a Manichaean tract found in a bookstore in the capital.16 11

  Alexander, 1 (3, ed. Brinkmann; 48 – 50, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld).   See A. Puech, Histoire de la littérature grecque chrétienne . . . III (Paris, 1930), 559 – 560. Jerome testifies to the wide recognition achieved by Titus’ philosophical culture (Epist. 70; PL 22, 664 – 668). 13   I have argued about a clear Manichaean influence on Didymus the Blind in »The Manichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,« in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, ed. B. A. Pearson and J. E. Goering (Philadelphia, 1986), 307 – 319. 14   For two such classical studies, see on Alexander, H. H. Schaeder, Urform und Fortbildungen des manichäischen Systems (Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 1924 – 25; Leipzig, Berlin, 1927); where the author claims that Alexander’s presentation of Manichaean mythology truthfully reflects original conceptions. On Titus, see A. Baumstark, »Der Text der Mani Zitate in der syrischen Übersetzung des Titus von Bostra,« Oriens Christianus (NS) 6 (1931), 23 – 42. Baumstark argues that these quo‑ tations, rather than being re-translations from the Greek, preserve in the original Aramaic Mani’s ipsissima verba. 15   On Titus’ lack of interest in Manichaean mythology, see W. Frankenberg, »Die Streitschrift des Titus von Bostra gegen die Manichäer,« ZDMG 92 (1938), 28*-29*. 16   On Zacharias, see now S. N. Lieu, »An Early Byzantine Formula for the Renunciation of Man‑ ichaeism – the Capita VII Contra Manichaeos of (Zacharias of Mytilene),« JAC 26 (1983), 152 – 218. 12

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For both Alexander and Titus, Manichaeism presents itself, first of all, as an attempt to solve the problem of evil.17 This is not surprising, of course, although one might call attention, in this respect, to the fact that Plotinus himself, who had argued against the gnostics at length and with great vehemence, does not refer to them even once in his tractate »On what are and whence come evils« (Enneads I.8). One should ponder this point. It is indeed from the various gnostic trends of the first Christian centuries that Mani inherited his attempt to answer the question unde malum?18 His highly organized mind, however, seems to have given the question a new urgency, and to have set it at the very core of his mythological theology, with a consistency unknown to the more fluid – should one say, to the somewhat amorphous gnostic mythologies. Titus begins the first book of his refutation by stating that Manichaeism is born from the desire to discharge God of any responsibility for evil, thus postulating another principle, opposite to God from all eternity and solely responsible for evil in the universe. Titus devotes the first two books (out of four) of his work to a rational refutation of such a dualism. Books III and IV, which are extant in full only in Syriac, deal respectively with the Manichaeans’ rejection of the Old Testament and their misunderstanding of the New Testament. The argumentation in these last two books is purely scriptural, and therefore they will not concern us here, since they can in no way be paralleled to Alexander’s work. The thorough refutation of Manichaean dual‑ ism in book I is followed by a lengthy argument against the Manichaean conception of evil. Book II of Titus’ Adversus Manichaeos is actually the most comprehensive theodicy in all patristic literature. In these two books, Titus claims, he will argue only according to the koinai ennoiai, and he will in no way establish his argument upon the scriptures, so as to give his refutation universal value – since the notiones communes are, or should be, by definition common to all men.19 But what are the koinai ennoiai? The term is correctly recognized as Stoic in origin.20 In Stoic doctrine, it refers to those imprints left on the human mind by common experience. Plutarch had written a whole treatise on the topic,21 and Origen had referred to the concept in the Contra Celsum.22 Thus, its use by Titus is not surprising, since our author shows The text of Zacharias’ theoretical refutation was published by A. Demetrakopoulos, Ekklesiastikē Bibliothēkē (Leipzig, 1866), 1 – 18. 17   Titus, I.1 (1, ed. Lagarde); I.4 (3, ed. Lagarde), et passim. 18   On the Manichaean reinterpretation of gnostic myths of the origin of evil, see G. G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Nag Hammadi Studies 24; Leiden, 1984), part III. 19   See, for instance, Titus I.2 (1, ed. Lagarde); I.5 (4, ed. Lagarde): ai kata physin ennoiai; I.11 (6, ed. Lagarde): logismoi physikoi; I.15 (8, ed. Lagarde); I.17 (10, ed. Lagarde). 20   Cf. M. Polenz, Die Stoa Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung (Göttingen, 1948), I, 56; II, 426 –  427. See also R. B. Todd, »The Stoic Common Notions: A Reexamination and Reinterpretation,« Symbolae Osloenses 48 (1973), 47 – 75. 21   Plutarch, »Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions,« Moralia, vol. 13 (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., London, 1976). 22   For further references, see Polenz, op. cit., II, 205 – 206. See also M. Spanneut, Le Stoïcisme des Pères de l’Êglise, de Clément de Rome à Clément d’Alexandrie (Patristica Sorbonensis; Paris, 1957), 211 ff.

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other signs of philosophical education, both Platonic and Stoic. Like other Christian theologians, however, Titus refers to the koinai ennoiai in a broad rather than in a technical way. »Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée«; Descartes is as much, or as little, a Stoic as Titus, who only wants to show that Manichaean doctrine is unconvincing and should be rejected on rational grounds alone. For him, these rational grounds are common to all thinking men, and in particular to philosophers and Christians. Titus argues that the idea of two principles, as conceived by the Man‑ ichaeans, stands outside of this consensus.23 Similarly to Titus, Alexander argues that Manichaean conceptions are not ratio‑ nal, that Manichaean thought is established on false principles, and therefore cannot perform its self-assigned main task: to solve the problem of evil.24 At the outset of his work, Alexander complains that arguing against the Manichaeans’ conceptions is rendered particularly difficult by their propensity for mythology, and hence shun‑ ning of rational thought.25 The philosopher is ill at ease developing dialectical argu‑ ments against a protagonist who does not accept the rules of the game. For Alexan‑ der the Christians, too, are not very good philosophers, although he concedes that they do not share with the Manichaeans – whose origins he sees, rightly, in Christian sectarianism – the latter’s infatuation with mythological patterns of thought.26 The genre of Alexander’s writing is that of a professional philosopher, hence very differ‑ ent from that of Titus. His arguments are usually of a much more technical nature than those of the educated bishop. Yet, the fact is striking enough to be noted: for both, Manichaean dualism appears to be fundamentally illogical, irrational, step‑ ping out of the bounds of common sense. Both also insist on the misleading con‑ sequences entailed by such a false epistemology, in particular in the field of ethics. Alexander’s argumentation against Manichaean ontology gravitates around the status of matter and of the First Principle. He insists that matter cannot be consid‑ ered evil since it is generated by God.27 In his emphatic denial of any evil in connec‑ tion with matter, Alexander stands rather in a rather lonely place within the Platonic tradition. His conception is at the antipodes of that of Plotinus, despite the ambigu‑ ities of the latter’s attitude.28 It is also markedly different from that of the Chaldaean 23  Titus, I.11 (6,  ed. Lagarde). This argument will run like a thread throughout patristic anti-Manichaean literature; see for instance John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa IV.20 (PG 94), cols.  1193 – 1196. 24   For instance, Alexander 8 (12, ed. Brinkmann; 65 – 66, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 25   Alexander 5 (8 – 9, ed. Brinkmann; 58 – 59, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 26   Alexander 1 (3 – 5, ed. Brinkmann; 48 – 52, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 27   The argument is central to Alexander, and runs through much of the book; see Mansfeld’s summary, 19 – 23. 28   On Plotinus’ conception of evil and its relationship to matter, see D. O’Brien, »Plotinus on Evil. A Study of Matter and the Soul in Plotinus’s Conception of Human Evil,« Le Néoplatonisme (Col‑ loques internationaux du CNRS; Paris, 1971), 113 – 146; and M. I. Santa Cruz de Prunes, La Genèse du monde sensible dans la philosophie de Plotin (Bibl. Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses, 81; Paris, 1979), 114 – 123.

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Oracles and of Porphyry, for whom matter, although »born from the Father,« remains evil or linked to evil. For Alexander, too, matter is derived from the First Princi‑ ple: a Pythagorean, rather than a Platonic doctrine.29 Daringly enough, Alexander is willing to reject Platonic conceptions of matter deemed too close to those of the Manichaeans. For instance, he objects to the definition of matter as ataktos kinēsis, which had become too closely connected to the identification of matter with evil in Middle Platonism.30 Due to the polemical nature of his writing, however, Alexander rejects and refutes much more explicitly than he propounds his own views. Thus he does not expose at any length his personal opinion on the origin of evil. One is led to speculate that it is free-will, rather than matter, which lies at the core of evil, but this is not stated explicitly. One may postulate that the clear departure from school tradi‑ tions in the conception of matter is due to the seriousness presented by the dualistic challenge for Alexander – not a very original thinker in other respects. Since matter itself is derived from the First Principle, the Manichaean idea of two original principles, Alexander argues, is not logical. For a Platonic mind, the very idea of archē involves its unicity.31 Moreover, in order for the two original principles to mingle, a third, intermediary element or principle is needed.32 Incidentally, the opposite argument had been used by Methodius of Olympus in his De Autexousio, where he argues against a Platonic, rather than a gnostic, thesis directly linking mat‑ ter to the origin of evil.33 Alexander also makes the point that Mani’s insistence on the physical conception of the two realms of light and darkness entails a corporeal conception of God, a conception which Alexander rejects as ludicrous.34 For him, the archē is by nature incorporeal. The same argument is made by Titus, and will also be given a prominent place by Augustine in his anti-Manichaean writings.35 Altogether, it would seem that Alexander conceives Manichaeism, in its insistence on the materiality of God, as a kind of crypto-Stoicism, as his translators duly note.36 Although Titus agrees with Alexander on many points in his refutation of Man‑ ichaean ontology, his standpoint is sensibly different. It is not enough for Titus to argue that matter is in no way connected with evil. Since the world was created by God, who is good by definition, none of its parts can be evil.37 Evil, therefore, has no 29   The place of Alexander’s view of matter in the Platonic tradition is well described by Mansfeld in his introduction; see note 27, above. 30   Alexander 7 – 8 (11 – 12, ed. Brinkmann); 63 – 66, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). Cf. L. Troje, »Zum Begriff ATAKTOΣ KINHΣIΣ bei Platon und Mani,« Museum Helveticum 5 (1948), 96 – 115. 31   Alexander 6 (9 – 11, ed. Brinkmann; 59 – 63, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 32   Alexander 8 (13, ed. Brinkmann; 66 – 67, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 33   Methodius argues that only a third, intermediary principle can keep the two opposites sepa‑ rate. See A. Vaillant, Le De Autexousio de Méthode d’Olympe, PO 22, chs.  5 – 6, 747 – 753. 34   Alexander 8 (13 – 14, ed. Brinkmann; 67 – 68, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 35   On Augustine, see my »The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of Origen’s Posi‑ tion,« Religion 13 (1983), 345 – 358. 36   Ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld, 47. 37   Titus II.1 (25 – 26, ed. Lagarde).

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real objective existence, besides sin (Alexander for his part, recognizes the validity of the Platonic conception according to which it is matter which does not really exist).38 From Basil the Great and Augustine, this negative conception of evil was to become the standard solution for the problem of evil in both Greek and Latin patristics.39 In due course, it also became the Neoplatonic official standpoint, best expressed by Proclus in his tractate on evil.40 It would seem, however, that Christian theology was quicker to develop and lead to its radical conclusion a notion which was only poten‑ tial in Neoplatonic hierarchical thought. Like Alexander, Titus insists that the concept of archē implies unicity, and that dualism is a logical impossibility.41 He also develops the argument also found in Methodius about the third principle which should exist from all eternity in order for the two opposites to remain separate.42 Like Alexander, he shows that the Man‑ ichaean conception denies of God some qualities inherent to Him by definition. According to the koinai ennoiai, for instance, God is at once immaterial, uncircum‑ scribed and all-powerful. In particular, Titus pokes fun at that most scandalous of Manichaean conceptions according to which the Divine principle was overcome, or even eaten by the Evil principle, and is conceived as suffering.43 While Manichaeism originates in an attempt to disclaim for God any responsibil‑ ity over evil in general, and men’s sins in particular, the Manichaeans fall into an even greater sin by their denial of God’s ever present providence. In the very first chapter of his work Titus states – without a specific reference to Plato, of course – that it is the first doctrine of the Catholic Church that God is not responsible for human injustice. As noted above, however, it is in the second book that Titus fully develops his theodicy. Polemics are not lacking, and Titus attacks various aspects of Man‑ ichaean theology and mythology, such as Manichaean encratism and hylopsychism, and in particular reverence offered to the sun – after all a material, not a spiritual entity, Titus points out.44 In the first chapter of this book, Titus states very clearly that there is no evil whatsoever in God’s creation, and that only sinners’ injustice is really evil. This evil, moreover, does not stem from a matter without beginning. In the end, everything has a place in the cosmic order and a role to play in the realization of divine plans. The next chapters spell out that free will was given to man through 38

  Alexander 12 and 26 (18 and 39, ed. Brinkmann; 73 and 97, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld).   See Basil’s treatise, Quod Deus non est auctor malorum (PG 31), cols.  329 – 354. Augustine’s position is analyzed at length by F. Billiesich, Das Problem des Übels in der Philosophie des Abendlandes, I (Wien, 1955), 221 – 286. In an anti-Manichaean context, Serapion of Thmuis states that evil is a praxis, not an ousia. See Serapion of Thmuis, ed. R. P. Casey, »Against the Manichaeans« (Har‑ vard Theological Studies, 15; Cambridge, 1931), ch. 5. For Serapion, as for Titus, evil comes from a sickness of free-will; he adds that this is attested by both scripture and an analysis of human action. 40  Proclus, De l’existence du mal, ed. and trans. D. Isaac (Paris, 1982). 41   Titus I.11 – 12 (6, ed. Lagarde). 42   Titus I.9 (5, ed. Lagarde). 43   Titus I.7 (4, ed. Lagarde). 44   See for instance Titus II.36, 54 and 60 (47, 59 and 62, ed. Lagarde). 39

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natural knowledge of good and evil. Had man been led by instinct to perform evil, judgment on human actions would have proved impossible. Moreover, only a jeal‑ ous God would have deprived man of freedom; human freedom is the very image of God in which man was created. If so, sin cannot be natural or necessary, as the Man‑ ichaeans argue, but only deliberate and voluntary.45 Responding to the Manichaean anguish about violence and death, Titus further argues that war is a fruit of sin, while death itself, far from being an evil by nature, belongs to the order of salvation and is therefore invested with a positive role.46 The same is true, for instance, of such phenomena as earthquakes, night, illnesses or beasts; indeed, all aspects of creation were made for our good, in virtue of God’s providence.47 The »Stoic flavor« of these chapters, which describe cosmic harmony in a rather verbose language, was noted long ago by K. Gronau.48 Yet, the overall impression emerges that Titus’ major philo‑ sophical frame of reference remains Platonism. This is particularly due to his insis‑ tence on the fact that Mani deprives God of immateriality, an essential quality, and on the unicity implicit in the concept of archē. It might be recorded here, however, that Irenaeus had already made a similar point, when he argued against the gnostics that the existence of a First Principle outside the divine pleroma contradicted the very idea of a pleroma.49 Similarly, Alexander is rather close to the Christian attitude when he rejects the idea of a separate principle of evil (in this, he will be followed by Hierocles in the Alexandrian school),50 when he argues that matter cannot be evil since it is gener‑ ated by God, or when he insists on divine providence’s ruling of the world. Yet, if Titus and Alexander remain so far apart, this is not only due to the much more technical level of Alexander’s argumentation. Titus’ long developments on the‑ odicy, and Alexander’s emphasis on matter, aptly characterize the core of the Man‑ ichaean challenge to Christianity and Neoplatonism respectively. In a creationist ontology, the problem of evil demands a justification of the demiurge; in an emana‑ tionist ontology, the problem is immediately reflected by the status of matter (and by the nature of the intermediary powers). Besides their abhorrence for ontological dualism, both Neoplatonist and Chris‑ tian thinkers strongly rejected Manichaean anthropology and ethics. Here again, the emphases of the argumentation reflect the differences of standpoint. Like their ontol‑ ogy, the Manichaeans’ anthropology and ethics are organized along dualist patterns. The soul belongs to the world of light, to the divinity, to which it seeks to return after its separation from the body and its purification; the inner core of the Manichaean 45

  Titus I.3, 8 and 10 (26, 29 and 30, ed. Lagarde).   Titus II.22, 28 and 46 (39, 43 – 44 and 55, ed. Lagarde). 47   For instance, Titus II.32 and 41 (47 and 50, ed. Lagarde). 48   See K. Gronau, Das Theodizäeproblem in der altchristlichen Auffassung (Tübingen, 1922), 18. 49  Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses II.1.2, quoted by J. Farges, Méthode d’Olympe: le Libre Arbitre (Paris, 1929), 51, n. 2. 50   Ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld, 27 – 29. 46

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community, the encratic electi, are clearly set apart from the auditores – and not only from the non-Manichaeans. Alexander states at once his interest in ethics. Christianity, he says, owes its early reputation not so much to the quality of its metaphysics as to the excellence of its ethics, readily recognized even by non-Christians.51 But this ideal Christianity was unfortunately broken up at an early stage by the emergence of sectarian trends, which can be characterized precisely by their lack of interest in ethics – or even by the outright unethical ways in which they were established. For him, Manichaeism is but the latest, and the worst, of these sectarian trends.52 One may recall here that one of Plotinus’ main grievances against the gnostics was their inability to propound an ethical doctrine, or, rather, the totally a‑ethical char‑ acter of their elucubrations.53Alexander is shocked by Manichaean limitation of the path to salvation to the elect. For him, this directly contradicts the idea of a divine providence, which by definition cares equally for all. Moreover, he argues that the Manichaean doctrine of salvation precludes the idea of moral progress – although he also expresses doubts about the existence of such progress.54 For him, Manichaean doctrine abolishes the need for education, which is only possible, like the acquisition of virtues, under the assumption that »what is possible for one (i. e., the practice of Manichaean precepts) is possible for everybody.«55 In somewhat anachronistic terms, only a universalizable attitude may be called ethical. Although Alexander is not overly troubled by the Manichaean dichotomy of body and soul, he recognizes that Manichaean anthropology entails the suppression of freedom of choice, and hence the possibility not only of education but also of punishment.56 He has a final grievance against the Manichaeans: their encratism is reprehensible because it con‑ tradicts both the hierarchy of being (in the case of food taboos) and the idea of God’s omnipotence (in the case of sexual asceticism).57 As a Christian, Titus is more at ease in condemning Manichaean anthropological dualism, and notes that according to Mani the human person remains a composite which is never to be unified. For Christian doctrine, it is in his whole self, body as well as soul, that man was created in God’s image.58 Thus the body cannot be consid‑ ered the locus of evil, any more than matter in general.59 Evil, Titus repeats, is noth‑ ing but sin, or human injustice. And it is not only in his body, but first of all by a free decision of his soul, that man sins.60 Although habit renders sin omnipresent, it is not 51

  Alexander 1 (3, ed. Brinkmann; 48 – 51, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld).   Alexander 2 (4, ed. Brinkmann; 52, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 53  Plotinus, Enneads II.9.15 (LCL; ed. Armstrong II, 280 – 284). 54   Alexander 16 (23 – 24, ed. Brinkmann; 79 – 81, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 55   Alexander 16 (23, ed. Brinkmann; 79, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 56   See the discussion in van der Horst-Mansfeld, 44 – 45. 57   Alexander 2.5 (36 – 37, ed. Brinkmann; 94 – 95, ed. van der Horst-Mansfeld). 58   Titus II.8 and 11 (29 – 31, ed. Lagarde). 59   Titus 1.29 (18, ed. Lagarde). 60   Titus II.39 (49 – 50, ed. Lagarde). 52

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inevitable, or necessary.61 God is the giver of natural law, which seeks an equilibrium of all things existing in the world, and in particular between soul and body. Thus, the encratist, whose attitude is one of extreme contempt for the body, and a total rejection of its needs, commits a sin against natural law. Manichaean encratism is thus condemned not only because it attributes the means of salvation exclusively to the elect, but also since it does not recognize the legitimacy of pleasure for the body. Sexual relations are natural since they are intended for procreation. God has thus planted sexual desire in us in order to permit the reproduction of the human race. Thus, the legitimacy of a sexual pleasure obtained in compliance with natural law.62 Similarly, the pleasure of eating and drinking is natural, when following the creation’s order and measure.63 In giving such a central place to the human body in his work, Titus reflects a con‑ cern present in many of the patristic anti-Manichaean polemics since the earliest such document (from about 300 c.e.), in which an unknown Egyptian bishop argues against the Manichaeans for the legitimacy of marriage.64 In modern political jargon, the Neoplatonist philosopher and the Christian bishop would have been called »objective« allies. By their respective standpoints, they are too far apart from each other to do more than join a cause ad hoc. Against a common enemy, their arguments can be only partially similar. If there is one cen‑ tral tenet, however, of both the Neoplatonist and Christian Weltanschauungen which they felt was directly threatened by Manichaeism, I daresay it was Providence.65 For both, the only conceivable world was that ruled by a single good ruler, who cared for each of its parts and indwellers. For both Alexander and Titus, dualism meant anar‑ chy.66 Both were therefore bound to reject a doctrine so pessimistic as to deny this world any respectability.

61

  Titus II.10 (30 – 31, ed. Lagarde).   Titus  II.56 – 57 (61, ed. Lagarde). The argument from natural law is found elsewhere in anti-Manichaean patristic polemics; see for instance John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 14, in B. Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, IV (Patristische Texte and Studien; Berlin, New York, 1981), 359. 63   Titus II.58 (61 – 62, ed. Lagarde). 64   For the impact of Manichaean encratism on Egyptian Christianity, cf. Stroumsa, »The Man‑ ichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,« in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity. 65   On Providence in Platonic and Patristic thinking, see C. Parma, Pronoia und Providentia: der Vorsehungsbegriff Plotins und Augustins (Leiden, 1971). 66   Long ago, E. Peterson had pointed out the clear connections between monotheism and »mon‑ archy« in early Christian thought. See his Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem (Leipzig, 1935). For the Fortleben of philosophical and theological refutations of Manichaeism, and about the phil‑ osophical koinē of late antiquity and beyond, see chapter 19, below. 62

18. The Words and the Works: Augustine and Faustus Historical mutations, to use a metaphor borrowed from the study of biological evo‑ lution, are those turning points or major shifts in the structures of thought which redefine the boundaries of the world of knowledge and through which perceptions of the divine, of the self, and of the world are radically altered. In late antiquity, Augustine, more than anyone else, stood at the parting of the ways. In his works, one can grasp the mutation itself: the ushering out of the Antique world and the ushering in of the medieval Weltanschauung. Manichaeism had been the young Augustine’s major spiritual temptation, and it was a radical one at that.1 Outlawed by the pagan emperors before the end of the third century, the Manicheans had sought, in the Christian Empire where they were banned with renewed vigor, to appear as Christians – indeed as the true Christians. Deemphasizing the mythological patterns of thought inherited from Mani’s writings, and emphasizing the Christian elements – or, rather, the role of Christ – in Man‑ ichaean theology, they claimed to be the only true followers of Christ’s ascetical mes‑ sage. In their eyes the Catholics were Judaizers distorting the Christian kerygma.2 For the church fathers who polemicized against it, Manichaeism was thus seen as an internal danger rather than as a threat from without, a total corruption of Truth, and the worst of all heresies.3 Augustine was no exception, and his personal involvement with the sect only increased the stakes. When Augustine rejected Man‑ ichaeism, he was not only objecting to a baroque mythology; he implicitly repudi‑ ated a whole understanding of religion, that is to say both a whole epistemology and soteriology. From this point of view, therefore, a new look at his anti-Manichaean polemics should shed some light on what was really at stake beyond the rhetoric and 1   The best study on Augustine and Manichaeism is still P. Alfaric, L’évolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin, I: Du Manichéisme au Néoplatonisme (Paris, 1918). P. Courcelle has shown that Augustine remained a Manichaean auditor for ten years rather than for nine, as he says in the Confessions. See his Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1950). 2   See the various texts quoted and discussed in L. Koenen, »Augustine and Manichaeism in Light of the Cologne Mani Codex,« Illinois Classical Studies 3 (1978), 154 – 95, especially 163 and nn. 31, 33. 3   Even the pagan philosopher Alexander of Lycopolis, who wrote the first philosophical refuta‑ tion of Manichaean dualism around 300 c.e., considers Manichaeism to be a Christian heresy. On the place and role of Manichaeism inside Egyptian Christianity, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Manichéisme et Marranisme chez les Manichéens d’Egypte,« Numen 29 (1983), 184 – 201; and idem, »The Man‑ ichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,« in B. A. Pearson and J. E. Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (Philadelphia, 1986), 307 – 319.

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the actual – and sometimes over-lengthy – arguments expressed in the heat of the debate. There may be no better text of which to ask these questions and to observe the mutation, than the Contra Faustum, the most impressive and bulky of Augus‑ tine’s anti-Manichaean works. It was written around the year 400 c.e., in no less than thirty-three books, the same number as Faustus’ Capitula.4 Faustus, the famous Manichaean bishop, was a native of Africa, who prided him‑ self on his humble origins, and on his pagan background. The same was true of Augustine. Faustus has been analyzed, and so have his doctrines, which can be stud‑ ied in the textual reconstitution of his Capitula.5 Rather than attempt such an analy‑ sis anew, or offer a detailed study of Augustine’s argumentation,6 I shall call attention to some central features of the Contra Faustum, a masterpiece of patristic polemical literature, to which only Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho and Origen’s Contra Celsum can be compared in terms of significance. It might be a mistake to concentrate on the actual arguments of the Contra Faustum. In book 23, for instance, Augustine refutes at great length the various accusa‑ tions of immorality leveled by Faustus against the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. These arguments strike one as being of a rhetorical nature. Faustus’ follow‑ ers would probably not have been convinced by Augustine’s arguments, but this is the way a late antique intellectual argued. This was not only a matter of culture and education, but also of social function, or rather figure: one had to perform in polem‑ ics as in a ritual of sorts. Thus the argumentation itself often reveals the surface of the polemics rather than the deeper structure of the thought. At stake in the debate is nothing less than the very conception of religion. As Faus‑ tus points out, Catholics and Manichaeans stand for two radically different under‑ standings of the nature of Christianity. For the former, belief – particularly in Christ’s incarnation – is the cornerstone of Christian religion, while the latter insist on ascet‑ ical behavior as the fulfillment of the New Testament’s commandments. In order to clarify his conception of Christianity, Faustus opposes the words to the works: 4   For a classification of Augustine’s anti-Manichaean writings, see C. P. Mayer, »Die antiman‑ ichäischen Schriften Augustins,« Augustinianum 14 (1974), 277 – 313. The text of the Contra Faustum is edited by J. Zycha in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 25 (Vienna, 1891), 249 – 797. The only translation is that of R. Stolhert, in St. Augustin: The Writings against the Manichaeans and against the Donatists (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers; reprinted Grand Rapids, Mich., 1979). Although not very accurate, this translation has the advantage of existing. I shall usually quote it here, giving the Latin in the note when Augustine’s wording seems to be particularly important. 5   On Faustus, see A. Bruckner, Faustus von Mileve: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des abendländischen Manichäismus (Basel, 1901), who calls Faustus »ein Wanderlehrer«; while for A. Harnack he is merely »ein volkommener Salonsprofessor,« in Augustins Confessionen (Giessen, 1888), 22. On Faustus’ work, see P. Monceaux, Le Manichéen Faustus de Milève, Restitution de ses Capitula (Paris, 1933). See also F. Decret, Aspects du Manichéisme dans l’Afrique romaine: les controverses de Fortunatus, Faustus et Felix avec saint Augustin (Paris, 1970). 6   See P. Cantaloup, »L’harmonie des deux Testaments dans le Contra Faustum Manichaeum de Saint Augustin« (Thesis, Faculté de Théologie Catholique, Toulouse, 1955).

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But suppose, since you will have it so, that there are these two parts of perfect faith, one con‑ sisting in word, or the confession that Christ was born, the other in deed, or the observance of the precepts . . . (Contra Faustum, 5.2)7

According to Faustus, the radical difference between these two conceptions explains the much greater popularity of Catholicism over Manichaeism, for it is easier to believe words than to practice words. The multitude remains ignorant of the only path to true salvation: the strength and power gained by personal behavior. Only that can bring one to the sole aim of religion. It is natural that the multitude should flock to you and away from me, for they know not that the Kingdom of God is not in word (in verbo), but in power (in uirtute). Why, then, do you blame me for taking the harder part, and leaving to you, as to a weak brother, the easy part? You have the idea that your part of faith, or confessing that Christ was born, has more power to save the soul than the other parts. (Contra Faustum, 5.2)

These remarks of Faustus are fundamental in order to understand not only the deep difference between the two conceptions of religion, but also the self-perception of a Manichaean bishop in Africa toward the end of the fourth century. He seems quite willingly to accept the price of elitism: the lack of a large following. The Manichae‑ ans claim to be religious virtuosi. This claim should not mislead us in seeing them as holy men, in the sense that Peter Brown’s studies have made familiar to students of late antiquity. The Manichaean electus is a very strange kind of holy man indeed, since he lacks both a model upon which to pattern his behavior and a flock towards which he could stand in a dialectical relationship and with which he could interact in some very precise ways. In their relationship with the auditores, the electi do not at all perform the functions of the holy men with their flocks.8 Manichaean asceti‑ cism is established, in Faustus’ own words, upon a docetic conception of Christ, and, ipso facto, upon a very limited, purely metaphorical idea of imitatio Christi, an idea essential for understanding the Christian holy men. It is this conception of religion as works which stands at the root of Faustus’ rejection of the Old Testament. »You see the knowledge of great things is worth little, unless the life corresponds« (Contra Faustum, 12.1). The lack of interest, or even the distrust in religious speculation, is reflected in an opposition of principle to biblical hermeneutics: if a text is not acceptable as it is, and, particularly, if its precepts cannot be practiced literally, then

7

  . . . ponamus, quia ita uis, duo haec parte esse fidei perfectae, quarum una quidem constet in uerbo, id est fateri Christum natum, altera uero in opere, quod est observatio praeceptorum . . . (272, ed. Zycha). 8   There is no denying the fact that elects and auditors are in need of each other in the Man‑ ichaean system, but the auditors are not granted equal access to salvation as are simple believers in Christianity. For an interesting Manichaean document found in Latin near Tebessa, which empha‑ sizes both the Christianizing side of Manichaeism and the fundamental differences between the religious classes, see P. Alfaric, »Un manuscript manichéen,« Revue d’Histoire et de Littérature Religieuses (NS) 6 (1920), 62 – 98.

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it should be rejected without hesitation.9 It is by such behavior that the pure and sin‑ cere hearts will be distinguished from the hypocrites: You ask if I believe the Old Testament. Of course not, for I do not keep its precepts. Neither, I imagine, do you . . . for the difference between your faith and mine, it is this, that while you choose to act deceitfully, and meanly to praise in words what in your heart you hate, I, not having learned the art of deception, frankly declare that I hate both these abominable precepts and their authors. (Contra Faustum, 6.1)

Faustus’ rejection of tradition is established upon a firm conviction of the individu‑ al’s ability to judge what is right, and hence what is true. Paradoxically enough, there‑ fore, the core of his religious outlook is not simply ascetical behavior, but an ascet‑ icism grounded in rational reflection, while he denigrates the Catholic approach, based on words, as fideist. Explaining the ground for his biblical criticism, Faustus says that »many things which pass in Scripture under the name of the Savior are spurious,« adding: I still claim the liberty to examine whether this comes from the hand of the good sower . . . But what escape from this difficulty can there be for you, who receive everything without examina‑ tion, condemning the use of reason, which is the prerogative of human nature, and thinking it impiety to distinguish between truth and falsehood . . . (Contra Faustum, 18.3)

Faustus’ epistemology implies that everything is explainable. Indeed, for him there is no more need of miracles than there is of faith or exegesis. Religion is about ethics and only ethics, and texts which deal with anything else should be discarded: All we look for in the prophets is prudence and virtue, and a good example, which, you are well aware, are not to be found in the Jewish prophets. (Contra Faustum, 12.1)

It may be noted here that Faustus’ criticism of Catholic Christianity reminds one of the arguments of Celsus, the pagan philosopher who wrote Alēthēs Logos, a pam‑ phlet against Christianity, before the end of the second century.10 The Manichaean bishop here appears to herald some of the virtues hailed by pagan intellectuals. This self-avowed and proudly affirmed identity with the gentile world of thought helps to explain Faustus’ visceral rejection of anything Jewish: But we are by nature Gentiles, of the uncircumcision; as Paul says, born under another law. Those whom the Gentiles call poets were our first religious teachers, and from them we were afterwards converted to Christianity. We did not first become Jews, so as to reach Christianity through faith in their prophets; but we were attracted solely by the fame, and the virtues, and the wisdom of our liberator Jesus Christ . . . Again, I say, the Christian Church, which consists more of Gentiles than of Jews, can owe nothing to Hebrew witnesses. (Contra Faustum, 13.1)

 9   For the problem of exegesis, and the grounds of Augustine’s opposition to Manichaeism on this issue, see G. G. Stroumsa, »The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of Origen’s Position,« Religion 13 (1983), 345 – 358. 10   The text is preserved in Origen’s Contra Celsum. For a recent analysis, see R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, 1983), 94 – 125.

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And Faustus can then speak of »the demon of the Jews – for he is not God« (Contra Faustum, 18.2). For Faustus, however, the total denial of Jewish law, as »the law of sin and death« (Contra Faustum, 19.2; cf. Rom. 8:2) does not imply any antinomian rejection of the concept of law. As a gentile, Faustus considers himself born under another law, the law of nature, having adopted with his conversion the third kind of law, »the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus« (ibid.). Jewish and Christian laws are antithetical: »Do you begin to perceive that you are not Christians?« Faustus asks his Catholic opponents (Contra Faustum,  19.6).11 As  we have seen, however, there is no such opposition between the law of nature and the law of Christ, since the latter must be understood as a list of purely ethical precepts to be accepted by reason and followed meticulously. We are now closer to grasping some of the main elements of Faustus’ conception of religion. Far from admitting any religious affinity to paganism, he boldly affirms that both Jews and Catholics are schisms of the Gentiles, for you have the same faith, and nearly the same worship . . . The fact is, there are only two sects [i. e., two religions], the Gentiles and ourselves. (Contra Faustum, 20.10)12

Faustus attributes to paganism »the doctrine that all things good and evil . . . have only one principle« (Contra Faustum, 20.3).13 Thus, only the Manichaean opposition of hylē, matter, to the good God is markedly different from pagan doctrine. There is little difference, according to him, between a pagan solar cult and the Jewish cult of »the Almighty.« In this way, Faustus can claim both the existence of two principles and the uniqueness of God, a God at last discharged from any responsibility for evil: Do we believe in one God or in two? In one, of course . . . It is true, we believe in two principles; but one we call God, and the other Hylē, or, to use common popular language, the devil . . . Do you think that we must call them both gods because we attribute, as is proper, all the power of evil to Hylē and all the power of good to God? (Contra Faustum, 21.1)

Manichaean dualism is indeed radical – as radical as any religious dualism can be – but Faustus is right when he insists that dualism does not completely characterize the Manichaean conception of God.14 In some ways, for instance, Manichaean doctrine can be described as pantheistic as well. The doctrine of »the suffering Jesus, who, as hanging from every tree, is the life and salvation of men« is well known (Contra 11

  An sensim fatemini uos non esse christianos? (502, ed. Zycha). I have modified Stothert’s trans‑ lation. 12   . . . quare constat uos atque Iudaeos schismata esse gentilitatis, cuius fidem tenentes et ritus ­mo­dice quamuis immutatos de sola conuentuum diuisione putatis uos esse sectas . . . (538, ed. Zycha). 13   In this paragraph, Faustus distinguishes between schisms, which have different rituals, and sects, which do not partake in the same basic worldview. 14   On the problem of Manichaean dualism and so-called »ditheism,« see G. G. Stroumsa, »König und Schwein: zur Strucktur des manichäischen Dualismus,« in Gnosis und Politik, ed. J. Taubes (Pader­born, 1984), 141 – 153, esp. 141 – 143.

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Faustum, 20.2).15 What it means is that the sacredness (religio) attached by Catholics to bread and wine is attached to everything by the Manichaeans (ibid.). More generally, Faustus’ religious outlook leaves no place for a hierarchy of being, since God and the devil are placed, for all practical purposes, on the same foot‑ ing. Moreover, the rejection of both the Old Testament and the historical figure of Jesus implies the disappearance of any continuum in history. When combined, these two characteristics of Faustus’ religiosity lead to a third trait, which further alienates it from the patristic approach, particularly the Platonizing one of Augustine;16 the Manichaean teacher cannot conceive of two hierarchically ordered worlds, the spir‑ itual world and the phenomenal one, the former being a model for the latter. Rather, the Manichaean realm of light is simply juxtaposed to the realm of darkness, but is in no way less material or more spiritual. In a sense, it could be argued that the Manichaean conception of the way the divine is dispersed in nature and immersed in it, appears as a crypto-Stoicism of sorts. This point had already been noted by Alexander of Lycopolis, the Platonic philosopher who wrote the first philosophical refutation of Manichaeism a century before Augustine’s Contra Faustum.17 On ethics, on epistemology, and on the conception of religion, Augustine’s posi‑ tion is radically opposed to that of Faustus. Faustus’ claim to a higher morality stands on a number of misconceptions, and Augustine seeks to unveil them all. He thus points out some of the main differences between Christian and Manichaean ethics. For Christianity there can be no duality of an esoteric doctrine, taught only to the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples, and an exoteric teaching offered to the masses (Contra Faustum, 16.32). Augustine implicitly rejects the whole foundation of Manichaean ethics, i. e., the clear-cut distinction between the ascetic electi, who form the inner core of the religious communitas, and the larger body of the auditores, who have as one of their main duties the material support of the elect ones. This dual teaching of the Manichaeans is the reverse side of their simplistic approach to the texts themselves and their refusal to distinguish between different kinds of teachings. Thus, their onslaught against the Old Testament reveals their inability to recognize the essence of ethical statements. Faustus displays ignorance of the difference between moral and symbolic precepts. For example: »Thou shalt not covet« is a moral precept; »Thou shalt circumcise every male in the eighth day« is a symbolical precept. 15

  . . . cuius ex uiribus ac spiritali profusione terram quoque concipientem gignere patibilem Iesum, qui est uita ac salus hominum, omni suspensus ex ligno . . . (536, ed. Zycha). For two recent studies of fig‑ ure of Jesus patibilis as Augustine knew it, see W. Geerlings, »Der manichäische ›Jesus patibilis‹ in der Theologie Augustins,« Theologische Quartalschrift 152 (1972), 124 – 131; and E. Feldmann, »Christus – Frömmigkeit der Mani-Jünger: der suchende Student Augustinus in ihrem ›Netz‹?« in Pietas, Feschrift B. Kötting, ed. E. Dassmann, K. S. Frank, Jahrbuch für Antike and Christentum 8 (1980), 198 – 216. 16   See J. J. O’Meara, »The Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine,« in J. J. O’Meara, ed., Neoplatonism and Christian Thought (Albany, 1982), 34 – 41 and 241 (notes). 17   See chapter 16, above.

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It is from this lack of distinction, and hence the rejection of allegorical exegesis, that the Manichaean rejection of the Old Testament derives: From not making this distinction, the Manichaeans, and all who find fault with the writings of the Old Testament, not seeing that whatever observance God appointed for the former dispensation was a shadow of future things, because those observances are not discontinued, condemn them, though no doubt what is unsuitable now was perfectly suitable then as prefig‑ uring the things now revealed. (Contra Faustum, 6.2)

On another problem, that of the status of the body, Augustine directly confronts the ethical implications of Manichaean doctrine. This issue actually seems to have been one of the main points of controversy between Manichaeans and Christians. For instance, the first Christian text to polemicize against Manichaeans, the pastoral letter of an Egyptian bishop, written before 300 c.e. already argues for the legitimacy of marriage.18 Similar pleas against the Manichaean denial of the flesh are found in most of the patristic anti-Manichaean treatises. The Christian conception of man made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) implies at least a certain recognition of the body’s status, and a rejection of the total anthropological dualism ultimately inherited by the Manichaeans (and the gnostics before them) from the Platonic tradition. It is worth noting that Faustus himself accepts the principle of homo imago dei, although, not surprisingly, only in a spiritualized sense: it is only when we are born again, in the spirit, that we begin to reflect God’s image (Contra Faustum, 29.1). Together with the Manichaean attitude to the body, it is thus the old Orphic and Platonic concep‑ tion that Augustine rejects: So, when you say you are the temple of God, it must be in your body, which, you say, was formed by the devil. Thus you blaspheme the temple of God, calling it not only the workman‑ ship of Satan, but the prison-house of God. (Contra Faustum, 20.15)19

In his anthropology as in his ontology, Augustine offers a hierarchical conception to counter simplistic Manichaean oppositions. Man, like the beasts, is composed of a body as well as a soul, but, unlike them, is also the possessor of reason, above soul. And in reason itself, which is partly contemplation and partly action, contemplation is unques‑ tionably the superior part. The object of contemplation is the image of God . . . (Contra Faustum, 22.27)

This new anthropological structure permits Augustine to redefine sin, which does not consist simply, as for the Manichaeans, in any affirmation of the body, but in any transgression in deed, or word, or desire, of the eternal law. And the eternal law is the divine order or will of God, which requires the preservation of material order, and forbids the breach of it. (ibid.) 18

  See Stroumsa, »The Manichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,« in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity. 19   This point is noted by A. Adam, »Das Fortwirken des Manichäismus bei Augustin,« Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 69 (1958), 1 – 25, in particular 4 – 5.

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Natural order, then, is precisely the anthropological structure, in which the body itself has a place.20 Eventually, Augustine is willing to admit that the patriarchs, or King David, could have sinned. For him, however, this fact does not involve denying the status of holy writ to the Old Testament. On the contrary, the true recognition of human nature (sin, but also repentance) is one of the signs which grant the Old Testament its unique value (Contra Faustum, 22.97 – 98, for instance). In his epistemology, similarly, Augustine refuses the glib antinomies of Faustus. There is no opposition between simple faith and deeper understanding. Rather, the latter is dependent upon the former; both are linked in a dialectical relationship which permits the passage from the one to the other. Just as the contemplation of God does not imply the rejection of the body, so the Christian mind must first be nourished in simple faith, in order that it may become capable of understanding things heavenly and eternal. (Contra Faustum, 12.46)

Faith implies belief in the Old Testament, and more precisely in the prophets (ibid.). Augustine’s perception of faith as a necessary step in the progressive acquisition of truth permits him to successfully counter the Manichaean boasts about reason and the rejection of miracles. For him, the boundaries of nature (and hence the real law of nature) are not quite identical to our own perception. The human mind needs faith because it cannot comprehend everything in God’s creation. Hence, what Faus‑ tus calls »law of nature« is only that which is not contrary to the ordinary course of human experience. Miracles should not be denied; their occurrence does not contradict the laws of reason, but only our limited understanding. Augustine sees »no impropriety in saying that God does a thing contrary to nature, when it is con‑ trary to what we know of nature« (Contra Faustum, 26.3). Thus, the fact that Catholic truth is not self-evident and is in need of miracles does not imply a total lack of law in the conduct of the universe. In Christian theology, at least, God does not behave in utterly unexpected and odd ways, as he does according to Manichaean mythology (Contra Faustum, 13.6 and 22.21, for instance).21 20   Augustine’s anthropology is at the root of his consistent opposition to Manichaean asceticism. This is of course a recurrent theme in his writings in general and in his anti-Manichaean polemics in particular. Here one should at least refer to his De moribus ecclesiae catholicae and De moribus manichaeorum, as well as to the De continentia, where the grounds of the opposition between Chris‑ tian asceticism and Manichaean encratism are explicated. For the background of these two attitudes to the body, see G. G. Stroumsa, »Ascèse et gnose: aux origines de la spiritualité monastique,« Revue Thomiste 81 (1981), 557 – 573. On Augustine’s view of sexuality, see the fine study by P. Brown, »Sexuality and Society in the Fifth Century a.d.: Augustine and Julian of Eclanum,« in E. Gabba, ed., Tria Corda: Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano (Como, 1983), 49 – 70. 21   The polemic with Faustus on faith and reason is related, of course, to the broader context of ratio and auctoritas in Augustine’s thought. See P. Courcelle, »Saint Augustin manichéen à Milan?« in Les Confessions de Saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: antécédents et postérité (Paris, 1963), 20 – 21. As Courcelle notes, Augustine remained deeply influenced by Manichaean insistence on rationalism long after his conversion. See also W. Frend, »The North African Cult of Martyrs,« Jahrbuch für Antike and Christentum 9 (1982), 162.

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The immediate consequences of these epistemological principles bear directly on Augustine’s overall conception of religion. His defense of faith implies the idea of a revealed law as necessary for salvation, since the highest law of nature is not accessi‑ ble to limited human understanding. Moreover, his criticism of the Manichaean false conception or »simulacrum« of reason, which he shows as resulting in myth, paves the way for the alternative: a systematic exegesis of holy writ, and in particular the Old Testament. It is in this perspective that Augustine’s »defense and illustration« of the Old Testament can be best understood. Far from recoiling from Faustus’ accusa‑ tion of Judaizing, Augustine claims the pride of the Christians in being Israel’s heir: »The reason why the Jews did not believe in Christ, was because they did not observe even the plain literal precepts of Moses« (Contra Faustum, 16.32). Far from ignoring the precepts of the Old Testament, as Faustus claims they do, the Catholics »observe them all, not now in the figures, but in what the figures were intended to foretell« (ibid.). This total, spiritual obedience to the law is its fulfilment, heralded by Christ. The law itself, by being fulfilled, becomes grace and truth. Grace is the fulfillment of love, and truth is the accomplishment of the prophecies. And as both grace and truth are by Christ, it follows that He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it . . . (Contra Faustum, 17.6)

For Augustine, both the Jewish and the Manichaean attitude are opposed to this spiri‑ tual understanding of the Bible. Both communities are incapable of a spiritual reading of the text, and remain bound in »carnal disquietude« (Contra Faustum, 4.2). While for the Jews, this carnal attitude implies a naive belief in material blessings, the Man‑ ichaeans remain prisoners of the matter in which they have jailed and defiled their God (Contra Faustum, 20.11). This matter, moreover, they have mythologized: in their boastful ignorance, they speak of hylē, ignoring the fact that for the Greek philoso‑ phers, matter had no form of its own (Contra Faustum, 20.14). In various ways Augus‑ tine thus reveals the deep contradictions involved in the dichotomies of Manichaean thought, and offers a consistent alternative. His is a thought established upon the hier‑ archical principle which integrates past history and the human body into a contin‑ uum, toward the supreme human goal: the contemplation of a purely spiritual God. In the first passage of Faustus’ Capitula which Augustine chooses to quote and to refute, the Manichaean bishop refers to Catholics as Judaized »semi-Christians« (Contra Faustum, 1.2). Augustine answers that while »semi-Christians« may have an incomplete knowledge of truth, the Manichaeans are »pseudo-Christians,« whose conception is, quite simply, false (Contra Faustum, 1.3). Recognizing with the Apostle (Col. 2:5) the limitations of some believers’ spiritual life, he argues that Manichaeism, rather than helping them to improve their ways, only »robs them« of whatever they already had. Semi-Christians may be imperfect without being wrong. And while imperfection can be remedied, there is no way in which falsity can be improved. The short first book of the Contra Faustum thus presents the stakes of the contro‑ versy in quite sharp terms: a radical reinterpretation of the Christian kerygma versus

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the avowed need for intellectual and spiritual reform and its possibility within the realm of tradition. As Peter Brown has aptly noted, the deep root of Augustine’s disillusion with Manichaeism lies in its essentially static character. »The Manichees had avoided the tensions of growth on all levels . . . The Manichaean discipline, therefore, was based on an exceedingly simpliste view of a way a man acts.«22 We have seen in the preceding pages how Augustine ridiculed Faustus’ pretention to see in man »a rational temple of God« (Contra Faustum, 20.15). To the latter’s attempt to oppose the Manichaean elect’s ascetical behavior and to the Catholics’ almost exclusive interest in theology, Augustine answers that for the Christian, words and works are linked by a constant dialectical relation. For the Christian, imitatio Christi implies a concrete, incarnated Jesus Christ, while faith in the scriptures is established upon proper exegesis. It is not only the Manicheans’ ontology, it is also their attitude to ascetical life and their simplistic reading of the scriptures which prevents them from developing an adequate concept of spirituality. Their dualism of light and darkness thus appears to run even deeper than the ontological structure of the universe: it also informs their attitude to ethical and religious behavior. A reli‑ gion without either sin or progress, Manichaeism belongs in a fundamental sense to the ancient world, notwithstanding the anathemas of which it was the object in the Pagan Empire. For Augustine, on the contrary, religion was meaningless unless it served as a con‑ stantly evolving personal relationship to God, an attitude by which each man (from the depth of a conscience recognized as sinful) sought to approach God through a lifelong attempt to purify his feelings, his thoughts, and his actions. Direction, or intentionality, characterizes this approach to religious life. Only the subtle eye can see the delicate, albeit essential, difference between pagan and Chris‑ tian life. In a beautiful passage reminiscent of the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus (second century), Augustine writes: Those who believe differently, and hope differently, and love differently, must also live differ‑ ently. And if we resemble the Gentiles in our use of such things as food and drink, and houses and clothes and baths, and those of us who marry, in taking and keeping wives, and in beget‑ ting and bringing up children as our heirs, there is still a great difference between the man who uses these things for some end of his own, and the man who, in using them, gives thanks to God, having no unworthy or erroneous ideas about God . . . (Contra Faustum, 20.23)

This text preserves an echo of Augustine’s distinction between uti and frui as devel‑ oped in the De Doctrina Christiana. The finality is what counts. In one word, the Christians cannot resemble the pagans, »for while the things are the same, the end is different« (ibid.).

22

  P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, 1967), 59.

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The apparent humility of such a formulation is deceptive. Here lies the fundamen‑ tal strength of the Christian appeal in the late antique world. The canalization of the numinous into a simple and unique source of power also permitted the complete reorganization of the world of knowledge and the establishment of the idea of Chris‑ tian culture which was to inform the whole of the Middle Ages. Confronted with such a message, the bold Manichaean claim to total knowledge and perfect asceticism not only sounds shallow, but also clearly appears to stem from a hybris whose outcome could be neither rational nor reasonable. What it actually was, however, was a plunge into baroque mythology. Augustine attacked this claim, and history doomed it. In Pascal’s words, »qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête.«

19. Anti-Manichaean Polemics: Late Antiquity to Islam Mani established his religion on very broad syncretistic grounds, in the hope that it could conquer the whole oikoumenē, East and West, by integrating the religious tra‑ ditions of all peoples – except those of the Jews. Although Manichaeism as an orga‑ nized religion survived for more than a thousand years, and its geographical realm extended from North Africa to Southeast China, this ambition never came close to being realized, and the Manichaeans remained, more often than not, small and persecuted communities.1 Yet, in a somewhat paradoxical way, Mani did achieve his ecumenical goal. For more than half a millennium, from its birth in the third century throughout late antiquity and beyond, his religion was despised and rejected with the utmost violence by rulers and thinkers belonging to all shades of the spiritual and religious spectrum. In this sense, Manichaeism, an insane system, a »mania,«2 appeared as the outsider par excellence. It thus offered a clear reference point, a con‑ venient negative criterion of identity and self-definition to Neoplatonist philoso‑ phers and Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Zoroastrian theologians alike. For Roman emperors, the Manichaeans represented a varied but obvious threat. Manichaean obsession with matter, and resultant radical asceticism (particularly rejection of marriage) was not only foreign and abhorrent to most pagan minds, it was also felt to be a direct threat to the welfare of the state. Moreover, the geo‑ graphical provenance of Manichaeism rendered accusations of representing a Per‑ sian »fifth column« almost inevitable.3 In Christian milieus the situation was more complex. Manichaean thinkers con‑ sidered themselves to be the true Christians, and looked down on Orthodox Chris‑ tians as Judaizers who were only »semi-Christian.« This attitude, amply documented from Augustine to al‑Bīrūnī, is easily understood from an inner Manichaean point of 1   This essay is co-authored by Sarah Stroumsa. For the best overview of Manichaeism in its roots and developments East and West, see now S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China: A Historical Survey (Manchester, 1985). Cf. the review by G. G. Stroumsa, Classical Review (NS) 37 (1987), 95 – 97. 2   So called by Greek Christian heresiographers using a word play on the founder’s name. It appears already in the earliest polemics in Greek; see, e. g., Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos I.1 (ed. P. de Lagarde; Berlin, 1859), 1; and Epiphanius Pan. 66.1 (ed. C. Riggi; Rome, 1967), 4; and see note 46 and note 47, below. In order not to overburden a complex argument, we have tried to keep instances and notes to a minimum, often ignoring texts parallel to those cited. Our documentation thus seeks to be representative rather than exhaustive. 3   On this perception of the Manichaean danger in the Roman Empire, see Lieu, Manichaeism, 91 – 95.

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view. Mani had given much thought to the (mythical) figure of Jesus, and saw him‑ self – up to his passion – as a new Jesus, as the last prophet sent down to humankind, offering the final and total revelation, the true Gospel.4 Hence, the Christians treated Manichaeism as a threat from within, regarding it as »the worst of all heresies,« the last and most vicious trick of the Devil.5 Like the Christians before them, Muslims spoke of the Manichaean danger in superlatives, but for slightly different reasons. Muslim heresiographers never relate to Manichaeism as to an Islamic heresy, but as to pure paganism. Despite Manichaean devotion to their scriptures,6 and despite the fact that the Zoroastrians were consid‑ ered ahl al‑kitāb, Manichaeans were never granted this status. Muslim theologians did not have to worry about overt Manichaean claims to represent truer Islam. Nev‑ ertheless, they dreaded the Manichaean skill to infiltrate secretly into the Muslim community in order to lure the simple people and to corrupt Islam from within, for instance by falsifying prophetic traditions.7 Unlike Christian and Muslim theo‑ 4

  On Augustine, see particularly L. Koenen, »Augustine and Manichaeism in Light of the Cologne Mani Codex,« Illinois Classical Studies 3 (1978), 167 – 76. On Manichaean Christology, the standard work is still that of E. Rose, Die manichäische Christologie (second ed.; Stud. Orient. Rel., 5; Wiesbaden, 1979). A thesis recently submitted by I. Gardner at Manchester University is still unpublished. See also al‑Bīrūnī, al‑Āthār al‑Bāqiya ʿan al‑Qurūn al‑Khāliya – Chronologie orientalischer Völker, ed. E. Sachau (Leipzig, 1923), 23 = S. H. Taqizadeh, Mani ve Din-o (Tehran, 1325 HJ), 201 (hereafter Mani). Taqiza‑ deh’s meticulous compilation of Arabic and Persian sources on Manichaeism is concerned mainly with expositions of the religion, especially its mythology, rather than with refutations thereof. 5   For the description of Manichaeism as a Christian heresy (mainly with docetic features), see, e. g., the prologue of the »Seven Chapters« attributed to Zacharias of Mitylene, in S. N. C. Lieu, »An Early Byzantine Formula for the Renunciation of Manichaeism – the Capita VII contra Manichaeos of ›Zacharias of Mitylene‹,« JAC 26 (1983), 152 – 218, esp. 176. For the Devil’s role, see ibid., ch. 1 (176, ed. Lieu; and 190, note on 1.11: Mani is called the »vessel of the Devil,« which implies a Syriac word-play on his name). See also Epiphanius, Pan. 66.2 (12 – 14, ed. Riggi). In the Byzantine world, »Manichaeism« soon became a term of opprobrium, thrown at various kinds of heretics whose beliefs were not even loosely connected to Manichaeism. Cf. note 106, below. Together with the preference of scholars for descriptions of Manichaean mythology over argumenta‑ tive polemics, this fact has often discouraged scholarly interest in Byzantine anti-Manichaean literature. 6   This devotion, which found its artistic expression in Manichaean book lore, was noted with envy by Muslims; see al‑Samʿānī, al‑Ansāb (ed. Margoliouth; Hyderabad, 1962) (= Mani, 246); Ibn al‑Jawzī, al‑Muntaẓam fī Taʾrīkh al‑Mulūk waʾ1-Umam (Hyderabad, 1357H), 174 (= Mani, 257). 7   The most notorious example of Manichaean falsification of ḥadīth is perhaps that of ʿAbd al‑Karīm b. Abī al‑ʿAwjāʾ: see al‑Bīrūnī, Āthār, 67 – 68 (=  Mani, 202); al‑Baghdādī, al‑Farq bayn al‑Firaq (ed. M. Badr), 167 – 168 (= Mani, 190). The terror of Manichaean infiltration is best formu‑ lated by al‑Sharīf al‑Murtaḍā, Ghurar al‑fawāʾid wa-durar al‑qalāʾid (= Amālī, ed. M. Abū al‑Faḍl Ibrāhīm; 1954), I, 127 (= Mani, 193). As in Byzantium (see note 5, above), the accusation of »zan‑ daqa« and even specifically dualism, was loosely used against all sorts of unorthodox views, resulting in the same lack of interest in anti-Manichaean literature on the part of modern scholars. See, e. g., G. Vajda, »Les zindiqs en pays d’Islam au début de la période Abbaside,« RSO 17 (1938), 173 – 229. For general studies of the Muslim reaction to Manichaeism, see S. H. Schaeder, »Manichäer und Muslime,« ZDMG 7 (= 82) (1928), lxxvii; C. Colpe, »Anpassung des Manichäismus an den Islam (Abū ʿĪsā al‑Warrāq),« ZDMG 109 (1959), 82 – 91; A. Abel, »Les source arabes sur le manichéisme,« Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 16 (1961 – 1962), 31 – 73; G.  Mon‑ not, Penseurs musulmans et religions iraniennes, ʿAbd al‑Jabbār et ses devanciers (Paris, 1974).

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logians, Jewish thinkers had no political commonwealth to protect from the Man‑ ichaeans. Moreover, Manichaean dualism does not seem to have represented a direct threat from inside the Jewish community. The only lively debate with a dualist may be that with the heretic Ḥīwī al‑Balkhī (eighth century), whose system was appar‑ ently closer to that of Marcion than to that of Mani.8 Otherwise, the argumentation in Jewish writings remains on an abstract theological level, and closely resembles that found in Muslim kalām. Its main interest for us lies in that it supplements our evidence on the development of anti-Manichaean argumentation. Although very little is known about the historical evolution of the Manichaean religion, there is no reason to assume that in a world that underwent drastic trans‑ formations, the Religion of Light alone remained unchanged. There were dimmer periods and also resurgences. In particular, the first Islamic centuries seem to have witnessed a strong Manichaean renaissance.9 One possible way to overcome the pau‑ city of Manichaean material is through the study of anti-Manichaean arguments, which, while repeating the standard accusations against Manichaeism, may reveal patterns of evolution. As a full-fledged Gnostic system of thought, Manichaeism represented the last significant outburst of mythological thought in the world of antiquity.10 It remains a moot point whether Mani himself actually believed in the baroque mythology and the highly developed numerology that he propounded.11 In any case, since Mani was the Last Prophet, and had brought the final revelation to humankind, there was no place left for interpretation or exegesis of his message.12 Hence Manichaeans were asked to believe his apodictic sayings and mythical doctrines au pied de la lettre. This point was clearly seen by polemicists. The sixth-century Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius remarked: »They do not think it right to understand any of the things they say allegorically . . . as one of their sages informed me.«13 In the various intel‑ lectual and spiritual traditions of late antiquity, myths were not seen to be taken at their face value, and were never to be understood apart from the exegetical level that

 8

  Cf. I. Davidson, Saadia’s Polemic against Hiwi al‑Balkhī (New York, 1915); and see M. Stein, »Hīwī al‑Balkhī, the Jewish Marcion,« Sefer Klausner (in Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1937), 210 – 225.  9  Lieu, Manichaeism, 82 – 83, refers to the initial Arab tolerance under the Umayyads as account‑ ing for this resurgence. This is plausible, although it might be more precise to speak of »preoccupa‑ tion with other matters« than of »tolerance.« 10   For an analysis of Manichaean versions of some fundamental Gnostic myths, see G. G.  Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (NHS 24; Leiden, 1984), part 3. 11   This question is raised by H.‑J. Polotsky, »Manichäismus,« Pauly and Wissowa, eds., Realenzyklopädie der classischen Wissenschaft (Suppl. 6), 241 – 272, reprinted in his Collected Studies (Jeru‑ salem, 1971). 12   See G. G. Stroumsa, »›Seal of the Prophets‹: The Nature of a Manichaean Metaphor,«Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 7 (1986), 61 – 74. 13  Simplicius, In Epicteti encheiridion 27 (ed. Dübner, 71 – 72). We follow Lieu’s translation of the paragraph, Manichaeism, 23.

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alone could reveal their deeper, spiritual meaning.14 Therefore Simplicius reflects an attitude very common among late antique thinkers, Christian and pagan alike, when he denies the Manichaean »stories« the very name of a myth: »They fabricate certain marvels which are not worthy of being called myths. They do not, however, use them as myths, nor do they think that they have any other meaning, but believe that all the things which they say are true.«15 The Manichaeans’ univalent understanding of their myths enables two Muslim theologians to remark, some four centuries after Simplicius, that the very exposition of Manichaean myth is its best refutation. This remark, voiced by both al‑Māturīdī (d. 942)16 and ʿAbd al‑Jabbār (d. 1025)17 reflects the assurance of these two well informed and usually trustworthy authors that there was no second level on which Manichaeans understood their myths. If the Muslim critics had been aware of such an exegesis, they would surely not have neglected to refute it.18 Yet, like so many oth‑ ers before them, they sneer at the myth but hardly argue with it. In the various traditions, therefore, the bulk of anti-Manichaean polemics is directed not so much against the myths themselves as against the theological princi‑ ples underlying them. For it was the Manichaean fascination with science, which has been called a »simulacrum of reason,« that attracted intellectuals like Augustine.19 This scientific and rational pretense of Manichaeism offered the real challenge to the monotheistic religions. From its very beginning Manichaeism succeeded in bringing about a more or less common front of pagan philosophers and Christian theologians and in turn‑ ing them into »objective allies,« as it were, all united in their radical rejection of the main tenets of the new religion. Of course, the arguments of the various polemicists differ in their accent, their technicity, and their originality. Nevertheless, the picture of Manichaeism that emerges from the various texts is rather clear and consistent. Also consistent is the polemicists’ insistence on what one may call the »philosoph‑ ical koinē« of late antiquity, to which the theological foundations of Manichaeism were abhorrent. This philosophical koinē is reflected in the almost constant appeal – 14   We may refer here at least to J. Pépin, Mythe et allégorie: les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (second ed.; Paris, 1979). 15  Simplicius, In Epicteti encheiridion 27. On the Manichaean use of mythology, cf. Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaei opiniones 10, and see A. Villey’s discussion in his translation of the work, Alexandre de Lycopolis, Contre la doctrine de Mani (Paris, 1985), 247 – 249. 16   Abū Manṣūr al‑Māturīdī, Kitāb al‑Tawḥīd, ed. F. Khulaif (Beirut, 1970), 157:17 – 18. 17   ʿAbd al‑Jabbār al‑hamadhānī, al‑Mughnī fī Abwāb al‑Tawḥīd waʾl-ʿAdl 5, ed. M. M. al‑Khu‑ dayrī (Cairo, 1958), 9:4 – 6, translated by Monnot, Penseurs musulmans, 151. 18   G. Vajda’s appreciation of al‑Māturīdī’s account as »de moyenne importance« is probably too harsh, as Vajda’s own interest in the text would demonstrate: »Le témoignage d’al-Māturīdī sur la doctrine des manichéens, des dayṣanites et des marcionites,« Arabica 13 (1965), 2 – 3. G. Monnot’s somewhat more generous evaluation seems more justified. On the importance of ʿAbd al‑Jabbār’s account, see Monnot, Penseurs musulmans, 19 – 20, 118. 19   See, e. g., Augustine, Conf. III.6, IV.7. Cf. P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1967), 46 – 53, esp. 48 – 49.

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by Christians as well as by pagans – to the »common principles of thought,« the koinai ennoiai (a concept borrowed from Stoic philosophy), and to »rational argumenta‑ tions« (logikai methodai).20 Similarly, Muslim and Jewish writers repeatedly insist on the innate, intuitive axioms of thought (al‑ma’qūl) and on rational, logical argu‑ mentation (ṭarīq al‑qiyās).21 This fact illustrates what was said above, that it was at the theological, rather than at the mythological level, that the discussion usually took place. There are grounds to believe that this preference for rational debate was introduced by the Manichaeans themselves. The extremely precise and organized mythology developed by Mani was meant to account not only for cosmic and psy‑ chic phenomena, but also for physical, geological, and climatic realities. Their scath‑ ing criticism of the Bible and of the biblical conception of God was based on the rejection of the anthropomorphisms in the Old Testament and, more broadly, on the involvement of the God of Israel with Evil. This criticism facilitated conversion, as the case of the young Augustine testifies, and the Manichaeans felt secure in their claim to possess in their doctrine more refined instruments of rational discourse than their opponents.22 Therefore, it was mainly on this level that their opponents had to respond to the Manichaean challenge, by showing that Manichaean thought itself was irrational and self-contradicting. The range of polemical topics covers most aspects of theology, from logic and metaphysics to physics, ethics, and anthropology. We shall focus here on two themes, or rather, two clusters of connected themes: materialism and free will. These two poles stand broadly for theology and ethics, that is to say, two of the three foci of Manichaeism according to the interesting taxonomy propounded by Leo the Great in one of his sermons.23 It is hoped that these two themes will highlight the core of the polemics as well as the imprint it left on the theological thought of the opponents of Manichaeism. For the Manichaeans matter is evil, and as one of the two principles it is the oppo‑ site of God. Christian theologians and pagan philosophers alike discard, first of all, the very idea of two principles (archai) for all beings. This idea, they say, contradicts 20

  See chapter 18, above. See also C. Andresen, »Antike und Christentum,« TRE 3, 69 – 71.   For these terms see J. R. T. M. Peters, God’s Created Speech: A Study in the Speculative Theology of Abd al‑Jabbar (Leiden, 1976), 71 – 72, 82 – 83; for their use in anti-Manichaean con texts, compare, e. g., (the Muslim) ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 9:6, and (the Jewish) Dāwūd ibn Mar‑ wān al‑Muqammaṣ’s ʿIshrūn Maqāla; see al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters, ed. and trans. S. Stroumsa (Provo, Utah, 2016), index. 22   See, e. g., Augustine, Conf. III.7, V.10, and particularly De utilitate credendi I.2. The latter text is quoted by Villey, Contre la doctrine, 199, who estimates (rightly, to our minds) that methods of argumentation should not have been very different in Egypt, and concludes: »Il ressort de là que les manichéens devaient faire de la raison un usage surtout polémique, pour ruiner les thèses de leurs adversaires et surtout, s’agissant de chrétiens, de ce qu’ils estimaient être les inconséquences de leur exégèse.« 23   The third one is cult. Sermon 86.4, according to the classification of R. Dolle, in Leon le Grand, Sermons, IV (SC 200; Paris, 1976), 184 – 185: »Inqua lex est mendatium, diabolus religio, sacrificum turpitudo.« 21

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common sense, since there should be a common – and hence, a third – single root of these two archai.24 Moreover, the two opposite principles could not mix with‑ out the presence of a third archē, which would act as an intermediary. Following an argument propounded already by Proclus in his treatise On the Origins of Evil (where the Manichaeans are not even mentioned), Simplicius adds that matter cannot be a principle.25 Since essence (ousia) can have no opposite, it is illogical to claim that evil stands in opposition to God. Rather, one should say that evil is opposite to the good accord‑ ing to contingency (or »as an accident«: symbebēkos). Indeed, evil has no ousia of its own, but is defined as the absence (steresis) of good.26 One of the most puzzling paradoxes of Manichaean thought – the one which lends itself most easily to criticism – is the contradiction between the perception of the material world as the work, or at least the realm, of the evil power, and a radical inability to overcome, in imagery and mythology, the world of senses. Further, as we have seen, the Manichaeans were unable to distinguish mythical expression from rational and spiritual exegesis. Thus not only their imagery, but their very thought remained entangled in sensibilia. This Manichaean materialism affects Manichaean theology proper. The Man‑ ichaeans are depicted by their opponents as fundamentally unable to conceive of spiritual entities or essences. Titus, bishop of Bostra in the second half of the fourth century, is the author of one of the first – and by far the most important – Christian anti-Manichaean polemical works written in Greek. The arguments of this text are repeated time and again by later Christian heresiographers. In this context, Titus wonders about the Manichaean ability to speak of the Light of God without conceiv‑ ing of it as spiritual.27 The Christian heresiographers seem to regard Manichaean materialism as con‑ tradicting the very concept of God. God cannot be situated in a place (topos), and the Manichaean physical description of the divine realm, and particularly of the bor‑ der between the realm of Good and that of Evil, is perceived as absurd. For Zach‑ arias of Mytilene, for example, in the first half of the sixth century, this description implies that god is limited (perigraphos).28 Such a conception is obviously at odds with the koinē perception of God as unlimited (aperilēptos). Alexander of Lycopolis, 24

  For two early authors, see the instances quoted in chapter 18, above.  Simplicius, In Epicteti encheiridion 27.69 – 70. Cf. I. Hadot, »Die Widerlegung des Manichäis‑ mus im Epiktetkommentar des Simplikios,« Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 51 (1969), 31 – 57, esp. the beginning; and idem, Le  problème du néoplatonisme alexandrin: Hiérocles et Simplicius (Paris, 1978), 49 – 51. 26   See, e. g., Zacharias of Mitylene, Antirrhèsis, in A. Demetrakopoulos, ed., Ekklesiastikè Bibliothèkè (Leipzig, 1866), 3, 13 (47). Zacharias probably wrote the Antirrhèsis towards the end of his life, after 527. Cf. G. Bardy, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 15. 3679, and H.‑O. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (second ed.; Munich, 1977), 385. Cf. note 41, below. 27   Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 1.23 (ed. de Lagarde, 14). 28   Zacharias of Mitylene, Antirrhèsis 15 (ed. Demetrakopoulos, sec. 3). 25

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the pagan philosopher who, at the turn of the fourth century, wrote the first fullfledged anti-Manichaean polemic, points out that the Manichaean perception entails not only God’s limitation, but also his corporeality.29 The nature and status of matter are at the core of Alexander’s discourse, which appeals to Platonic traditional argu‑ mentation in order to refute the Manichaean conception of matter as »disordered movement« (ataktos kinēsis).30 One should add that Christians and Manichaeans accused each other in late antiquity of propounding an anthropomorphist concep‑ tion of God.31 Movement and mixis imply another series of internal contradictions. According to the last of the Greek church fathers, John of Damascus (who died in the Palestin‑ ian monastery of Mar Saba around 750), the moving of a part of God into another locus contradicts God’s indivisibility and introduces change into the eternal.32 Sim‑ ilarly, two sixth-century theologians, John of Caesarea and Paul the Persian, attack in various ways the Manichaean doctrine of God. John insists that if a part of God moves into another realm (that of evil), this creates a division in the deity as does the Manichaean participation of souls in God’s substance.33 Paul notes the moral blemish of a God who sends his »sons« or »members« as ransom into the kingdom of evil.34 On his side, Zacharias remarks that this conception contradicts God’s tran‑ scendence, which should imply a certain distance from creatures.35 Finally, for Christian theologians – but not for Platonist philosophers – the Man‑ ichaean conception of eternal matter denies the possibility of the creation of the world ex nihilo by God rather than from God’s own substance. Manichaean hylozo‑ ism had to be rejected in order to affirm matter’s subordination to God. The Chris‑ tian heresiographers insist that matter, if subordinated to God, cannot be identified 29   Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaei opiniones 8 (ed. Brinkmann, 13 – 14; trans. Vil‑ ley, 17). 30   Ibid., 6 – 8 (ed. Brinkmann, 9 – 13; trans. Villey, 14 – 15). 31   See, e. g., Augustine Conf. III.7 for the Manichaean anti-Christian argument, and Augustine C. Epist. Fund. 23.25 for the Christian counter-argument. These texts are discussed in G. Stroumsa, »The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of Origen’s Position,« Religion 13 (1983), 345 – 358, esp. 352 – 353. 32   John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 3, in B. Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damas­ kos 4 (Patristische Texte und Studien; Berlin, New York, 1981), 355. 33   John the Grammarian, Disputatio cum Manichaeo I.5 – 13, in M. Richard and M. Aubineau, eds., Iohannis Caesariensis Opera (CCSG; Turnhout, 1977), 119 – 121. 34   Paul the Persian, Disputatio cum Photini Manichaeo 40 (PG 88), cols. 565 – 568. Paul also notes that if divine substance is indivisible, the souls cannot originate in it (ibid., col. 536). On Paul the Persian and his dialogue with Photinus, see Lieu, Manichaeism, 171 – 173. It should be pointed out that the years around 527 (when Justinian, together with Justin I, published a harsh edict against the Manichaeans) seem to have witnessed a sort of renaissance of Manichaeism in Byzantium, reflected by Simplicius, as well as by the writings of Paul, Zacharias, and John. Cf. Hadot, »Widerlegung,« 32, who refers to J. Jarry, Hérésies et factions dans l’ Empire byzantin du IVe au VIIe siècle (Cairo, 1968), esp. 334 – 339 (a work that should be read with care). See also J. Jarry, »Les hérésies dualistes dans l’Empire byzantin du ve au viie siècle,« BIFAO 63 (1965) 89 – 119. 35   Zacharias of Mitylene, Antirrhèsis 13 (ed. Demetrakopoulos, 7).

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with evil, since everything coming from God must be good.36 If genesis were evil, its opposite, corruption (phthōra), would be good – a manifestly wrong conclusion. Furthermore, the conception of matter as evil and blind contradicts Manichaean mythology. A blind matter could not see the divine light. On the other hand, if mat‑ ter could see God, that would imply a close relation, a sort of kinship (syngeneia) between the two-something which both common sense and Manichaean doctrine itself cannot admit. This argument is based on the rule that only similar essences can know one another.37 It should be emphasized that the attack carried from various quarters against the identification of matter with evil is not a rejection of dualism per se, but specifically of Manichaeism. Concerning matter, a basic difference between Zoroastrians and Manichaeans must be noted here. The Zoroastrians did not partake in the Man‑ ichaeans’ inability to conceive of spiritual entities. While the two realms of matter (gētīg) and spirit (mēnōg) coexist, according to Mazdean thought, creation, an act of Ahura Mazda (the good God) is only in the world of gētīg, while Ahriman’s existence remains in the world of mēnōg.38 On most points, the outline given here of Christian polemics against Manichaean materialism would also fit the polemics written against it in Arabic, by both Muslims and Jews. They too attempted to preserve God’s indivisibility and God’s immutability, and, like the Christians before them, they strove to establish creation ex nihilo, and fought against the Manichaeans as part of their fight against the Aṣḥāb al‑hayūlā, those who believe in primordial matter.39 Nevertheless, although no totally new ele‑ ment comes into the discussion, there seems to be a shift in weight, and certain issues become focal, which had been only superficially dealt with in patristic literature. These arguments are usually incorporated in kalām texts into the section devoted to God’s unity (bāb al-tawḥīd). Al‑Māturīdī and ʿAbd al‑Jabbār draw their descrip‑ tion of Manichaeism from earlier sources such as the ninth-century heresiographers Abū ʿĪsā al‑Warrāq and al‑Nawbakhtī. But when they turn to the refutation of Man‑ ichaeism, their arguments and terminology reflect contemporary kalām. Hence, the defense of God’s indivisibility and immutability is often formulated in terms bor‑ rowed from Islamic atomism.40 36   See, e. g., John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 76 (ed. Kotter, 392); cf. ibid., 31, 70 (ed. Kot‑ ter, 369, 388). 37   E. g., Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 1.23 (ed. de Lagarde, 14). 38   This point has been demonstrated by S. Shaked, »The Notions Mēnōg and Gētīg in the Pahlavi Texts and their Relation to Eschatology,« AcOr 33 (1971), 59 – 107. For the Zoroastrian anti-Man‑ ichaean polemics, see the Škand Gumānīk Vičar of Martan Farrux, in the edition of P. J. de Menasce, Une apologétique mazdéenne du IXe siècle (Fribourg, 1945), ch. 16, 227 – 261. 39   See, e. g., al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (ed.  Stroumsa), ch. 5, secs. 10 – 41; ch. 8, sec. 46; al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd (ed. Khulaif), 113:1 – 6. 40   See, e. g., ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 61:13 (on the authority of al‑Warrāq), and the discussion in Mughnī, 22 – 24 (esp. 23:3 on ḥayz, the technical term for atom); al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd (ed. Khulaif), 157:21.

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But even beyond atomistic circles and concerns, Arabic writings against Man‑ ichaean materialism reflect the growing importance of what we might call phys‑ ics. Like Simplicius, the tenth-century Jewish theologian Saʿadya al Fayyūmī points out that darkness is not a principle (aṣl) opposed to light, but is only the absence (ʿadam) of light.41 In another context he explains that bodies (ajsām) have no oppo‑ site: only accidents (aʿrāḍ, i. e., symbebēkos) have opposites.42 But in Arabic here‑ siography, unlike in patristic polemics, this antiManichaean argument grows into a Manichaean contention, and the Manichaeans are depicted as those who deny the existence of accidents.43 They also deny the existence of potentiality: there are only bodies or essences, which may sometimes attach themselves to other bodies (like colors) or hide within them (like the fire within the piece of wood, for example – the famous kumūn).44 The Manichaean rejection of spiritual entities also receives a slightly different turn, and becomes a purely epistemological issue. In polemical writings in Arabic the Manichaeans are repeatedly said to deny whatever they »have not seen.« They are explicitly said to accept only the evidence of the senses,45 to the point that the ninth-century Jewish theologian Dāwūd al‑Muqammaṣ refers to the Manichaeans as Manānī al‑ʿiyān,46 a curious appellation that apparently means »those who have a mania of sense perception.« Al‑Muqammaṣ, who is, so far as we know, the first Jewish theologian to write in Arabic, studied with Christians in Nisibis, and there is every reason to believe that he got his information about the Manichaeans there, as well as the originally Greek pun on Mani’s name.47 41

 Saʿadya al‑Fayyūmī, Kitāb al‑Amānāt waʾl-Iʿtiqādāt, ed. J. Qafih (Jerusalem, New York, 1970), ch.  1.3, 56.12 – 14. Other mutakallimūn, for whom absence was a real entity, do not usually use this argument. See note 26, above. 42  Saʿadya, Amānāt, 4.3 (ed. Qafih, 155.26 – 156.5). 43  See ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 11.16 – 19; 21 – 22; 62.13. 44   On the dualistic background for al‑Naẓẓām’s theory of latency, see J. van Ess, »Kumūn,« The Encyclopedia of Islam (new ed.) 5, 384 – 385; and see idem, »Ḍirār b. ʿAmr und die ›Cahmya‹: Bio­ graphie einer vergessenen Schule,« Der Islam 43 (1967), 258, 260, et passim. See also al‑Bāqilānī, al‑Tamhīd, ed. M. M. al‑Khudairi and M. A. Abū Ridā (Cairo, 1947), 67 – 75 (= Mani, 446); Jābir b. Ḥayyān, K. al-Khawāṣṣ al‑Kabīr, ed. P. Kraus (Cairo, 1354 HJ), 229 (= Mani, 76); S. Pines, Beiträge zur islamischen Atomenlehre (Berlin, 1936), 99 – 100 and note 2. 45   See, e. g., al‑Murtaḍā, Amālī 138:14 (= Mani, 197); al‑Jāḥiẓ, al‑Ḥayawān, ed. ʿAbd al‑Salām Hārūn (Cairo, 1940), 4, 449:4 – 7 (= Mani, 93); al‑Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al‑Islāmiyīn wa-Ikhtilāf al‑Muṣallīn, ed. H. Ritter (Istanbul, 1929), 332:9 – 10 (= Mani, 122). Phrases such as lam nara in ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 10:5, in the description of Manichaean claims are probably a veiled ref‑ erence to the same doctrine. Monotheistic writers turn this argument against the Manichaeans; see, e. g., al Qāsim b. lbrāhim, al‑Radd ʿalā . . . Ibn al‑Muqaffaʿ, ed. M. Guidi (Rome, 1927) 4.10, 5.10 – 11, 13.7, 80. This polemical shift is a reaction not only to the general Manichaean pretension of objec‑ tivity, as suggested by G. Monnot, »Matoridi et le Manichéisme,« MIDEO 13 (1975), 49, but specifi‑ cally to the Manichaean insistence on the testimony of the senses, the ʿiyān. The importance of this epistemological principle for the rejection of creatio ex nihilo is clearly seen in al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd (ed. Khulaif), 27:20 – 28:3. 46  Al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (ed. Stroumsa), ch. 14, sec. 1. 47   See note 2, above.

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We have already seen Titus of Bostra’s wonder at the Manichaeans’ ability to speak about divine light without recognizing spiritual entities. Muslim and Jewish theolo‑ gians (like ʿAbd al‑Jabbār and al‑Muqammaṣ) turn this wondering into fact. Accord‑ ing to them, the Manichaeans say that the light of God is exactly the same as the light we see in this world.48 Manichaean involvement with sensibilia is also reflected in Arabic sources by the description of the two Manichaean principles as endowed with five senses and as having five colors.49 This colorful description, which borders on mythography, does not appear to have been known to earlier polemicists. This preference for slightly different issues and variation in the formulas may indeed merely reflect intellectual fashions; or it may be that the polemicists’ pref‑ erence alone is reflected here. But it is also possible that contemporary Manichae‑ ans themselves were affected by these fashions, and that the Arab heresiographers faithfully recorded not only basic Manichaean arguments and beliefs, but also their slightly evolving shades. In a Discourse against Mani, Ephrem the Syrian (fourth century) states that the opinion according to which evil is found in the midst of the works of the good con‑ tradicts free will: »For see, that if that evil is still established in our midst, Him there‑ fore we are required to judge and blame for the evil who was able to take away the Evil from our midst.«50 In his flowery language, Ephrem refers to the same cluster of problems with which his near-contemporary Augustine will be fighting in his youth. The Manichaeans had thrown their most poisonous arrows at the biblical God, who was responsible for injustice, death, war, and all the evil apparent in the Old Testa‑ ment. The bulk of Augustine’s most voluminous polemical treatise, the Contra Faustum, is directed against such blasphemies.51 In developing their theodicy, the Christian theologians related it directly and immediately to ethical theory, and in particular to the concept of free will and anthropology. As Titus of Bostra says at the very beginning of his treatise, it is the first doctrine of the Catholic Church that God is not responsible (anaitios) for human injustice (adikia), which is the only real evil, and hence cannot be imputed to God.52 Quite opposite to this true conception of God stands the Manichaean one:

48  Al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (ed. Stroumsa), ch. 9, sec. 27 (al‑nūr alladhī nushāhidu); ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 22:11 – 14 (al‑nūr al‑maʿqūl). Al‑Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, Ibn al‑Muqaffaʿ, 4 – 8 (= Mani, 78); and ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 51:21 – 52:2 are polem‑ ical uses of this Manichaean concept. 49   E. g., al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd, 158:4 – 10; Nishwān al‑Ḥimyarī, al‑Ḥūr al‑ʿīn, ed. Kamāl Muṣṭafā (Egypt, 1948), 133; ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 10:5 – 6, 11:8; and see Vajda, »Māturīdī,« 14 – 18. 50   Quoted according to the translation of C. W. Mitchell, S. Ephraim’ s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan (London, 1921), 2, xcv. 51   On the core of the polemics between Faustus and Augustine, see chapter 18, above. 52   Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 1.3 (ed. de Lagarde, I, 3).

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a God who in his oikonomia mixes contraries, adds Titus, will also be responsible for evil.53 As this reference to Titus shows, the direct linkage between theodicy and anthro‑ pomorphism and ethics (that is, the problem of free will) in patristic thought is clearly established from the early stages of anti-Manichaean polemics. The problem of free will (autexousion) had already been discussed at length in patristic theology before the fourth century, precisely in an anti-dualistic context. Against Valentinians and other gnostics the early church fathers up to Origen had already defended both God’s goodness and human free will.54 Christian theology was thus well equipped to deal with the Manichaean challenge at the theological level. It would seem that even more than with the problems related to materialism, the major place accorded to the defense of free will in Christian theology, particularly in Byzantium, owes much to this challenge.55 It is also in this context that the accu‑ sations against Augustine by the Pelagian thinker Julian of Eclanum should be seen. According to Julian, Augustine’s insistence on grace as a major element in salvation and his correlating lack of emphasis on the role of free will, reflect the fact that the bishop of Hippo had never quite succeeded in freeing himself from his Manichaean past.56 In their argument against Manichaean materialism the Christian polemicists insisted that evil was not to be identified with matter, and that it did not even have an identity of its own, but rather it should be defined as the lack of good.57 In the context of their theodicy, they sharpened this conception and developed the Chris‑ tian doctrine of evil. Good and evil, says Zacharias, are not in God, but in human being, adding that good is a habit (hexis), whereas evil is the absence of this habit.58 In the proper sense, evil is impiety or sin; one can speak of the »objective« evils in the world only in the figurative sense. One can thus speak of a polysemy of good and evil that in the proper sense are opposed to each other only as qualities in human beings.59 Since the world created by God is good, there is no place in it for evil. In many cases, notes 53

  Ibid., 1.29 (ed. de Lagarde, 18 = 1.24 in numeration in PG 18).   For an overview, see D. Nestle, »Freiheit,« RAC 8. 269 – 306. 55   See, e. g., H.‑G. Beck (= O. Hildebrand), Vorsehung und Vorbestimmung in der theologischen Literatur der Byzantiner (OCA 114; Rome, 1937), 3 – 17. See further P. Nagel, »Mani-Forschung und Patristik« (TU 120; Berlin, 1977), 147 – 150. 56   On the conflict between these two thinkers, see esp. P. Brown, »Sexuality and Society in the Fifth Century a.d.: Augustine and Julian of Eclanum,« in E. Gabba, ed., Tria Corda. Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano (Como, 1983), 49 – 70; and E. A. Clark, »Vitiated Seeds and Holy Vessels: Augustine’s Manichaean Past,« in idem, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, Queenston, 1987), 291 – 349. 57   See, e. g., John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 14 (ed. Kotter, 358) and parallels quoted there. Cf. also notes 26 and 41, above. 58   Zacharias of Mitylene, Antirrhèsis 3 (ed. Demetrakopoulos). 59   Ibid., 4; 47, 13 (ed. Demetrakopoulos). 54

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Ephrem, what appears prima facie as evil turns out to have a curative function.60 The medical metaphor is also used in a slightly different sense by John of Damascus. God is not more guilty of Satan’s fall than a doctor can be held responsible for his patient’s sickness.61 The devil is indeed as free as human beings, and it is out of his own free will that he acts in evil ways. John of Damascus is brought to insist that since God can create only good order, we are responsible even for death, which was produced by human beings, not by God. He adds that, on the other hand, God gives only being, while we alone have the power of making good being.62 In short, for the Christian theologians, evil is found in subjective experience rather than in the objective order of nature. The opposition of the church fathers to Manichaean anthropology and to its implications is not less radical. Manichaean dualism is not limited to the ontolog‑ ical or cosmological level. The great divide crosses also human beings themselves: while our souls may be of divine provenance and of divine nature, our bodies, being material, belong in toto to the other power. Such a conception is anathema to the Christian theologians. Anthropological dualism would prevent any integrated con‑ cept of the person. Although this concept will find its final expression with Boethius, it was already well established in patristic thought in the fourth century (in great part owing to the gnostic challenge of the second and third centuries).63 Therefore, the Christian theologians emphatically reject the two aspects of Man‑ ichaean anthropology. The body, as part of the human being who is created in the image of God, cannot be altogether evil. On the other hand, as John of Caesarea says, God would indeed be responsible for evil if the soul were part of God.64 But since human beings are free, the source of evil is to be found in the soul, and in its own free choice (Paul the Persian).65 Zacharias says that the soul is the cause of evil and of unlawful acts; hence, it cannot be said that we sin involuntarily.66 Incidentally, the discovery of the soul as the root of sin, and the identity of sin and evil in the proper sense is, according to Titus of Bostra, another proof for the non-divinity of the soul.67 In the Father’s eyes, a free God and a free human being are corollaries: one entails the other, just as the Manichaean conception that makes of human beings slaves of the evil power is also bound to deprive God of God’s free will. 60

 Mitchell, S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations, 2, xcv.   John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 37 (ed. Kotter, 373 – 374). 62   Ibid., 71 – 72 (ed. Kotter, 389 – 390). 63   See, e. g., J. Moingt, »Polymorphisme du corps du Christ,« in Corps des Dieux, ed. J.‑P. Vernant (Le Temps de la réflexion, 7; Paris, 1986), 47 – 62; and G. G. Stroumsa, »Caro Salutis Cardo: Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought,« History of Religions 30 (1990), 25 – 50. 64   John the Grammarian, Disputatio cum Manichaeo 43 (ed. Richard-Aubineau, 123). 65   Paul the Persian, Disputationes, Dialogus I (PG 88), col. 543. 66   Zacharias of Mitylene, Antirrhèsis 4 (ed. Demetrakopoulos); cf. John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 15 (ed. Kotter, 360). 67   Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 1.32 (= 1.26 – 27 in PG 18; ed. de Lagarde, 20). 61

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If human beings are thus able to act freely, this means that they possess a natural knowledge of good and evil.68 This natural knowledge is, in the field of ethics, the equivalent of the koinai ennoiai in epistemology. Here again, both pagan and Chris‑ tian thinkers seem to agree on most points in their radical rejection of the ethical implications of Manichaean doctrines. Already, Alexander of Lycopolis was shocked by the Manichaean limitation of the path of salvation, pointing out the social aspects of the closed Manichaean com‑ munity. Moreover, he ridiculed Manichaean asceticism as meaningless.69 Simplicius goes further. According to him, Manichaean doctrine negates the very possibility of ethical life, since Mani »eradicates virtue and ethical behavior by negating the free‑ dom of choice given to man by God and nature.« Simplicius adds that, if there were such a thing as the evil principle, there would be no evil in the world.70 Such wording echoes Plotinus’ passionate argument against the gnostics, where he insists on their lack of ethical teaching.71 Although Christian theologians seem to have put a stronger emphasis on theo‑ dicy and anthropology, they were by no means insensitive to the ethical side of the polemics. Titus, for instance, notes at the start of his opus, that the false conception of compulsion held by the Manichaeans entails a lack of belief in effort (ponos) and virtue (aretē) in human behavior.72 In reaction to Manichaean encratism, the church fathers consistently defended the legitimacy of marriage.73 Suffice it here to mention John of Damascus, who insists that natural law itself legitimizes child bearing.74 Christians offered exegesis on texts which the Manichaeans understood literally. In their denigration of the flesh, for instance, Manichaeans were able to quote Paul, whereas the Christians had to understand the Paulinian concept of flesh in a figura‑ tive sense, as the spiritual principle of evil.75 The Christians claimed that sin is nei‑ ther natural nor necessary: human beings, not God, are responsible for it, through the free will of their souls. Indeed, late antique thinkers were not more successful than we are in surmounting the problem of evil. Nevertheless, they offered a cogent conception of free will, which linked in a rather rigorous way theodicy, anthropology, 68

  Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 2.3 (= 2.2 in PG 18; ed. de Lagarde, 26 – 27).   Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaei opiniones 16, 25 (ed. Brinkmann, 23 – 24; trans. Villey, 30, 41). 70  Simplicius, In Epicteti encheiridion 27 (ed. Dübner, 72 – 73). 71  Plotinus, Enn. II.9. 72   Titus of Bostra, Contra Manichaeos 1.2 (ed. de Lagarde, 2). 73   On Manichaean encratism, see J. Ries, »L’enkrateia et ses motivations dans les Kephalaia cop‑ tes de Medȋnet Mâdi,« in U. Bianchi, ed., La tradizione dell’ enkrateia: motivazioni ontologiche e protologiche (Rome, 1985), 369 – 383. 74   John of Damascus, Contra Manichaeos 14 (ed. Kotter, 359). For Egyptian instances, see G. G.  Stroumsa, »The Manichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,« in B. A. Pearson and J. E. Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (Philadelphia, 1986), 307 – 319. 75   Paul the Persian, Disputationes, Dialogus III (PG 88), cols.  547 – 549. 69

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and ethics. This conception is established upon a vision of human beings as free in theory but sinners in practice. Many of the Christian concepts and arguments men‑ tioned above were taken over by Muslim and Jewish theologians, who stated cate‑ gorically that the attribution of evil to God stems from ignorance of the meaning of evil and from a subjective, egocentric view of the world.76 Also common is the attack, from various angles, on the Manichaeans’ mistaken conception of the person, which does not recognize the integrity of the living entity.77 Concerning free will, however, there are certain differences between Christianity and Islam – differences that bear upon the status of human will and action. As is well known, predestinarian views were predominant in early Islam. This is clear from both the Qurʾān and claims of Muslim orthodoxy.78 Moreover, an outside observer such as John of Damascus confirms this predestinarian tendency in the earliest period of Islam.79 It stands to reason that within early Islam, some held the oppo‑ site view. Indeed, political insurgents against the Umayyads professed a doctrine of free will, in defiance of the predestinarian view held by the rulers.80 Hence, the issue of free will and predestination was present within Islam itself from its early stages. However, we are concerned here with the theological expression of this issue. In this context, a full understanding of the texts cannot ignore the impact of the Man‑ ichaean challenge. Arabic texts repeatedly refer to the Manichaean presence during the formative period of Islam. The scope of this chapter does not allow us to go fur‑ ther into the historical question, but we see no compelling reason not to accept the accounts of Arab heresiographers on the issue of free will (as in the topics dealt with above) as solid evidence. Moreover, the formulation of the problem of free will in Muslim theological literature seems to confirm this evidence. It should be noted here that in discussing ethics, Arabic-writing theologians often refer to dualists in general rather than to Manichaeans. In many cases, how‑ ever, it appears that dualism tout court meant first and foremost Manichaeism. ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, for example, who dedicates most of his anti-dualist polemics to Man‑ ichaeism, opens his refutation of the Zoroastrian view of evil by saying that this is 76   See, e. g., Jaʿfar al‑Ṣādiq, Tawḥīd al‑Mufaḍḍal (Najaf, 1352 HJ), 89 – 90 (= Mani, 75); Al‑Kitāb al‑Muḥtawī de Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr, text, trans. and comm. by G. Vajda, ed. D. R. Blumenthal (Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, 12; Leiden, 1985), 139, 688; Saʿadya, Amānāt, 9.7 (ed. Qafih, 278). 77   E. g., ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 29:17 – 19, who speaks of the unity of the per‑ son (al‑jumla al-ḥayya); also, the very common argument from the ability of the sinner to repent, e. g., Saʿadya, Amānāt, 1.3 (ed. Qafih, 53); al‑Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al‑Intiṣār . . . Le Livre du Triomphe, ed. H. S. Nyberg (Cairo, 1925), 30 – 31; al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd (ed.  Khulaif), 115, 162, 163, 179; Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr, Muḥtawī (ed. Vajda-Blumenthal), 688. 78   The relevant texts were analyzed in a comprehensive way by W. Montgomery Watt, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam (London, 1948). 79   See his Disputatio Saraceni et Christiani (PG 94), cols. 1585 – 1598, esp. 1589 – 1592; ed. and trans. by J. W. Voorhis, »The Discussion of a Christian and a Saracen by John of Damascus,« Moslem World 25 (1935), 266 – 273, esp. 270. See the discussion of this text in D. J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The »Heresy of the Ishmaelites« (Leiden, 1972), 99 – 112. 80   See note 98, below.

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actually a repetition of the refutation of dualism (thanāwiyya) – this last word refer‑ ring clearly to his previous discussion of Manichaeism. Due to the problematic stand of free will in Islamic thought, it seems that Man‑ ichaean attacks on God’s equity found here, at first, easy prey. But it was not long before Muslim thinkers started to fight back, and this reaction had a major impact on the development of Islamic theology.81 Wāṣil b. ʿAtāʾ (early eighth century), the founder of the first established school of Islamic theology, the Muʿtazila, is said to have composed a thousand questions against the Manichaeans,82 and this fact can illustrate the speed and urgency with which Muslims reacted to Manichaeism. As the Škand-Gumānīk Vičār, a Zoroastrian polemical work of the ninth (?) cen‑ tury shows, Muʿtazilite argumentation on free will did not impress dualist theolo‑ gians, for whom there remained inherent contradictions in monotheism itself on the question of human freedom.83 The importance of the complex of theodicy and free will in this fight is best illustrated by a relatively late source, the Qaraʾite Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr (eleventh century), who often follows the Muslim ʿAbd al‑Jabbār. According to Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr, the polemics with the dualists has nothing to do with the unity of God (tawḥīd), but rather it belongs entirely to the realm of theodicy (bāb al‑ʿadl).84 To our knowledge, this is the only place where this view is formulated in such a dras‑ tic way, but Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr is certainly not alone in putting the stress in this domain. A ninth-century Muslim heresiarch, Ibn al‑Rāwandī, who was a student of the Manichaean Abū ʿĪsā al‑Warrāq, wrote a book propounding dualism (fī  taqwiyat al‑qawl fī al‑ithnayn).85 This book was entitled »The Futility of Divine Wisdom« (ʿAbath al‑Ḥikma),86 a title which expresses well Manichaean rejection of both this evil world and its creator. An Arabic work from the same period, which is attributed to the Muslim theologian al‑Jāḥiẓ but clearly betrays a Christian origin, takes up the Man‑ ichaean challenge and endeavors to prove precisely that Divine wisdom and economy is manifest in every aspect of this world, including what seems to us to be evil.87 And 81   See H. S. Nyberg, »Zum Kampf zwischen Islam und Manichäismus,« 32 (1929), 425 – 441, especially 430 – 431. 82   See, e. g., ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Faḍl al‑Iʿtizāl . . ., ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tunis, 1974), 165:11 – 13. On Wāṣil, see S. Stroumsa, »The Beginnings of the Muʿtazila Reconsidered,« Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990), 265 – 293. 83   Škand-Gumān Vičār, ch. 11, 194 (p. 141), and 208 (p. 147). Of course, Muslim polemical works were meant more for internal consumption than as missionary tools. 84   Yūsuf al‑Baṣīr, Muḥtawī (ed. Vajda-Blumenthal), 139, 687. 85   On al‑Warrāq’s Manichaeism, see Colpe, »Anpassung des Manichäismus«; and S. Stroumsa, »The Barāhima in Early Kalam,« Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985), 230 – 231 n. 5. Al‑War‑ rāq’s Manichaeism suggests that his student’s qawl fī al‑ithnayn was also of the Manichaean sort. 86   See Nyberg’s introduction to al‑Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al‑intiṣār (ed. Nyberg), 34 – 35; and Ṭabaqāt al‑Muʿtazila by Ibn al‑Murtaḍā in the edition of S. Diwald-Wilzer, Die Klassen der Muʿtaziliten (Bib‑ liotheca Islamica, 21; Wiesbaden, Beirut, 1961), 92:3 – 4. 87   Kitāb al‑Dalāʾil waʾl-Iʿtibār fī al‑Khalq waʾl-Tadbīr, ed. Muḥammad Rāghib al‑Ṭabbākh (Ḥalab, 1928); and see D. Z. Banet, »A Common Source for Baḥya b. Yosef and al‑Ghazālī,« Magnes Anniversary Book (in Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1938), 23 – 30.

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according to both al‑Māturīdī and al‑Baghdādī, a major doctrine of the Muʿtazila, that God’s deed is always the optimum (al‑aṣlaḥ) originated in the Muʿtazilite attempt to refute the dualists.88 Ibn al‑Rāwandī’s abovementioned book had an alternative title: »On defending God’s injustice and on accusing him of injustice« (al‑Taʿdīl waʾl-Tajwīr).89 This title reveals the broader scope of the Manichaean challenge. For the creation of the evil world earned God the accusations of cruelty and folly; the accusation of injustice, however, did not refer directly to God’s creation, but more precisely to God’s conduct with human beings. God orders them to do what they cannot do, and then pun‑ ishes them for disobeying these absurdities.90 This accusation led ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, for example, to formulate clearly his objection to Manichaeism: dualism is false, he says, because of the reality of God’s commands and prohibitions.91 A substantial part of the discussion of theodicy in many Muʿtazilite works, how‑ ever, does not speak directly about Manichaeans, but rather about the predestinari‑ ans, known as the Mujbira. Their doctrine of predestination is said to be untenable because it would mean that God created people for heaven and hell regardless of what their deeds might be, and because only those who act out of free choice can be called agents. Since the Mujbira deny this freedom to choose, human beings are not the real agents of their acts, and punishing them for their acts is unjust.92 Quite often, the skirmishes between the Mujbira and the ʿAdliyya are presented as a totally intra‑ mural problem in Islamic and also in Jewish writings. Al‑Muqammaṣ, for example, gives a well-rounded discussion of the flaws in the doctrine of the Mujbira, with‑ out mentioning the dualists at all in this context.93 Nevertheless, the terminology he chooses is strikingly similar to the terminology known to us from Manichaean jar‑ gon and from monotheistic anti-Manichaean vocabulary. For al‑Muqammaṣ sets out to prove that God is wise and just (ḥakīm, ʿādil), and not, as the determinist doctrine would imply, stupid and unjust (jāhil, safīh, ẓālim), a master whose acts are futile (ʿabath), oppressive, and tyrannical (ẓulm, jawr). And indeed, al‑Māturīdī tells us, using again the same terminology, that it is in anti-dualistic context that these terms were used and developed.94 88

 Al‑Māturidī, Tawḥīd (ed. Khulaif), 215:8 – 216:3; al‑Baghdādī, Farq, 113 ff. (= Mani, 185 – 187).   See Nyberg, ed., Le Livre du Triomphe. 90   In this context the human being is compared to a chained slave who is asked to perform an impossible act, see al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (ed. Stroumsa), ch. 12, secs. 5 – 7; or to a donkey given an order to fly like an eagle, see Theodore Abū Qurra, »Maymar yuḥaqqiqu liʾl-insān ḥurriya thābita,« Mayāmir Thāudūrūs Abī Qurra, ed. Q. Bāsha (Beirut, 1904), 10 – 11. 91   ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 35:4 – 36:7. 92   The problem of human acts is thoroughly discussed by D. Gimaret, Théories de l’ acte humain en théologie musulmane (Paris, 1980). On the Mujbira, see ibid., 61. 93  Al‑Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (ed. Stroumsa), ch. 12; and see G. Vajda, »La finalité de la création de l’homme selon un théologien juif du IXe siècle,« Oriens 15 (1962), 61 – 85. See also ʿAbd al‑Jabbār, Mughnī (ed. al‑Khudayrī), 8.330:6 ff., who repeatedly compares the Mujbira to the Majūs. 94   Tawḥīd, see note 85, above. 89

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Similarly, a standard argument in the polemics against the Mujbira is that we must consider human beings the sole agents of their acts, because of the impossibil‑ ity of ascribing one act to two agents.95 This is a major argument in antiManichaean polemics, which is developed at length in those sections of the theological works that deal with the creation of the world.96 In all likelihood, it is from this context that it was borrowed and passed into the argument about free will. And yet, the dualists are not usually mentioned when this argument is adduced in the context of free will. Finally, a  famous prophetic tradition (ḥadīth) says that the Qadarites are the Zoroastrians of Islam (al‑Qadariyya majūs hādhihi al‑umma).97 Whether the name Qadariyya was given originally to supporters of free will or to predestinarians remains a moot point. At any rate, this ḥadīth, used by both parties, testifies to their awareness that, notwithstanding the political aspects of the Muslim debate over free will,98 the issue of qadar – God’s omnipotence or human beings’ ability to act – was raised in the course of the theological encounter with dualism. This ḥadīth speaks specifically about Zoroastrians, but, as mentioned above, in the context of free will (including the attacks on Qadariyya and Mujbira), the dualism intended was often Manichaeism. This is most clearly demonstrated in an Arabic epistle of the Melkite theologian Theodore Abū Qurra (ninth century) who tries to prove that »man has real free‑ dom.«99 Quite a few times in the course of this short epistle, Abū Qurra begins his argument with an apostrophe to the Manichaean (Yā Mānī). He includes in his work a correction of a Manichaean interpretation of a verse from the Gospel that the Man‑ ichaeans take as a proof of predestination, and that Abū Qurra interprets as referring to human intentions.100 Nevertheless, the epistle is not really anti-Manichaean, since it is clear from the outset that Abū Qurra directs his work against someone who denies free will, but believes that God is equitable.101 The reference to Manichaeism is made only as ilzām, that is, in order to force the opponent to see the outrageous logical outcome of his claims. This last fact led Armand Abel to suggest that it is with Muslims that Abū Qurra really argues here.102 This suggestion must, however, be

 95

  E. g., Saʿadya, Amānāt 4.4 (ed. Qafih, 156.31 – 156.4).   Ibid., 1.3 (ed. Qafih, 53 – 54).  97   See the use of this ḥadīth by al‑Māturīdī, Tawḥīd (ed.  Khulaif), 88:13 – 89 (against the Muʿtazila, and where the issue is God’s free will), as well as by a Muʿtazilite, Ibn al‑Murtaḍā, Bāb dhikr al‑Muʿtazila min kitāb al‑munyā waʾl-amal, ed. T. W. Arnold (Leipzig, 1902), 10:4. On the name »Qadariyya« see Watt, Free Will, 48 – 53; Sahas, John of Damascus, 105 n. 1.  98   See, e. g., Watt, Free Will; J. van Ess, »Les Qadarites et la Ghailāniya de Yazīd III,« SJ 31 (1970), 269 – 286; H.  Laoust, Les schismes dans l’ Islam (Paris, 1965), 44.  99   See note 90, above. 100   Abū Qurra, »Maymar yuḥaqqiqu« (ed. Bāsha), 15, in reference to Matt. 12:33. 101   Ibid., 10, 17 – 18. An outline of Abū Qurra’s anti-Manichaean polemics is given by S. H. Grif‑ fith, »The Controversial Theology of Theodore Abū Qurrah (c. 750 – c. 820 a.d.): A Methodological, Comparative Study in Christian Arabic Literature« (Ph. D. dissertation, Catholic University of Amer‑ ica, 1978), 238 – 240. 102   Abel, »Les sources arabes,« 33.  96

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modified, for there is no clear sign of anti-Muslim polemic in this work.103 In all like‑ lihood, Abū Qurra, like al‑Muqammaṣ, is affected by the Muslim interiorization of the Manichaean ethical challenge. He polemicizes with the (presumably Christian) predestinarian as the Muslim would polemicize with a mujbir. Probably more than Judaism and Islam, Christianity is inherently prone to dual‑ istic challenges. But this very fact also provides the answer for Christianity’s rather impressive immunity to Manichaeism: in the second and third centuries, Christian thinkers had successfully developed theological tools in order to counter the gnostic threat. These tools were ready for renewed use against Manichaeism, which chal‑ lenged Christianity when it was becoming the leading religion in the Roman Empire. Manichaeism was soon to be pushed into a defensive position and into the under‑ ground. It is possible – although the sources are too scarce for one to be certain – that a resurgence of the Manichaean challenge occurred during the reign of Justin‑ ian I, in the first half of the sixth century. Such a resurgence would explain the rigor of Justinian’s legal measures against the sect, and also the relative abundance of refu‑ tations stemming from that period.104 In any case, there was clearly no Manichaean danger in Byzantium after the sixth century, and in all probability the argumentation that reached John of Damascus and Theodore Abū Qurra had been transmitted to them in a rather abstract way, with no reference to an actual polemical con text. Other Byzantine theological works from the sixth to the eighth century make only random allusions to Mani, his doctrines, and his followers.105 The lack of a serious Manichaean threat to Byzantine Christianity does not mean the absence of any Manichaean influence on Byzantine theology. When Jean Gouil‑ lard wrote that Byzantine refutations of Manichaeism »s’intéressent plus à tel ou tel article de doctrine qu’à l’inspiration d’ensemble,« he was probably wrong.106 Chris‑ tian theologians focused precisely on those major implications of Manichaean doc‑ trine that threatened the monotheistic conception of God and of the human per‑ son. Theodicy and ethics seem never more cogently developed in patristic and early

103   To be sure, Christian authors had to beware Muslim scrutiny in their Arabic polemical writ‑ ings, and usually avoided attacking Islam openly. This caution, however, did not prevent Abū Qurra, as well as other Christian theologians, from polemicizing against Islam. In such cases, Abū Qurra alluded to Islam through the use of Quranic verses or of such veiled references as »the outsiders« (al‑barrāniyūn). For an analysis of such transparent hints see now S. H. Griffith, »Theodore Abū Qurrah’s Arabic Tract on the Christian Practice of Venerating Images,« JAOS 105 (1985), 66 – 68. 104   See note 34, above. 105   See, e. g., from the sixth century Leontius of Byzantium, De sectis 3.2 (PG 86.1), col. 1213; Theodore of Raithu, De incarnatione (PG 91), col. 1485 C – D. From the seventh century we have George the Higoumen, Chapters to Epiphanius concerning Heresies, who mentions the Gospels of Philip and of Thomas in the edition by M. Richard, Epetēris Etaireias Byzantinōn Spoudiōn 25 (1955), 331; and Anastasius Sinaita, Viae Dux, ed. K.‑H. Utheman (CCSG, 8; Turnhout, Louvain, 1981), see index, and particularly XXII 3.34 (298) which seems to imply direct contact with a Manichaean. 106   J. Gouillard, »Une hérésie protée: le manichéisme des Byzantins,« Cahiers du Cercle Ernest Renan 127 (1982), 157 – 165, esp. 159.

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Byzantine works than in the context of anti-Manichaean polemics, whereas in other polemical contexts the main emphasis was on problems of Christology and Trini‑ tarianism. The very reappearance of anti-Manichaean polemical works by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians in the early Islamic period testifies, along with the accounts of Muslim historians, to a Manichaean resurgence under the Umayyads, and to their presence in the early Abbasid period. But the testimony goes deeper than the mere popularity of anti-Manichaean polemics. The comparison of Muslim and Chris‑ tian polemics highlights the similarity of Muslim authors with the earlier Christian polemicists, and in all probability the dependence of the former on the latter. On the other hand, the comparison also emphasizes the differences between polemics in Greek and in Arabic. The pronounced concern of Arabic-writing theologians for specific points of physics, and still more their concern for free will, appears to reflect the slightly different challenge that Manichaeism represented to the monotheistic religions after the rise of Islam. This would imply that anti-Manichaean polemics do not carry only fossilized topoi but rather reflect an actual encounter with Manichae‑ ans. The content of the polemics also corroborates the evidence of Muslim historians and heresiographers about an active Manichaean presence. This is particularly man‑ ifest in the writings of mutakallimūn from eastern provinces such as al‑Māturīdī. Some sixty years ago H. S. Nyberg suggested that the confrontation with Man‑ ichaeism had had a major impact on the shaping of the Muʿtazila.107 Our survey of the treatment of free will in theology written in Arabic corroborates this suggestion, and also shows that this influence was not merely a heritage from Christian litera‑ ture. The Manichaean direct challenge is in the background of the Muʿtazilites’ attack on the Mujbira, as it is in the background of Julian of Eclanum’s attack on Augustine. To the best of our knowledge there is no similar phenomenon of interiorization of the dualist challenge in eastern patristic literature, which could have exerted a direct influence on Islamic thought. This fact suggests that Christian theological influences, which no doubt existed, are not in themselves enough to explain the structure of the Islamic discussion of free will.108 It could be argued that the discussion of free will, the Mujbira topic included, should be explained as an inner development within Islamic thought, without any need to appeal to outside influences. The plausibility of such an argument, however, rests upon the assumption that there was no Manichaean presence in the East – or at least no Manichaean intellectual and spiritual challenge – during the formative

107   Nyberg, »Zum Kampf zwischen Islam und Manichäismus,« 430 – 431. See also S. Pines, »Phi‑ losophy,« in The Cambridge History of Islam, ed. P. Holt, A. Lambton, B. Lewis (Cambridge, 1977), 791. 108   The possibility of Christian influence on the Qadariyya has been discussed by Sahas, John of Damascus, 104 – 106; and by M. Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study (Cambridge, 1981), 149 – 50, 156.

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period of Islamic thought. Such an assumption ignores the cumulative and consis‑ tent evidence from Muslim sources, of which some theological aspects were pre‑ sented and discussed in this essay. To summarize the results of the inquiry, it appears that Manichaean presence and doctrine constituted a significant challenge to both early Byzantine and early Mus‑ lim theology, although this challenge was of a slightly different nature in both cases. Moreover, it appears that the emphasis of this challenge was on ethical rather than on purely theological issues. Anthropological conceptions of the Manichaeans – and hence, their approach to the problem of free will – seem to have been felt by both Christian and Muslim theologians as more immediately threatening than their theo‑ logical dualism and its »materialist« sequel.

Conclusion: Shapes of Time in the Abrahamic Religions: A Phenomenological Sketch In myth as in ritual, the two main axes of religion, the time dimension is fundamen‑ tal. The stories a community tells, orally as well as in its scriptures and their infinite interpretations, are anchored in the Urzeit, and point to the Endzeit.1 In all reli‑ gious communities, past and present, religious praxis is the main regulator of time, through the hours of the day and the days of the year. Religions, moreover, in par‑ ticular those of literate peoples, all have a history, infinitely complex, through which they constantly remodel themselves. No religion is an island: like societies, religions are born, develop, and die, never alone, always in contact with other religions, new societies. Space, here, joins time as the other fundamental category in which religions live – indeed, as Kant taught us, like any human endeavor.2 In any historical, reve‑ latory religion, moreover, there is an internal, insoluble tension between its appear‑ ance in time, its historical roots, and its pretention to represent a universal, total revelation. For such religions, a particular problem lies in their confrontation with religions having appeared before and after them. Christianity offers a particularly striking instance of this inbuilt tension, in its strained relationship with both Juda‑ ism, perceived as some sort of immature or incomplete Christianity, and Islam, a reli‑ gion originally identified as »the last and worst of the heresies,« in John of Damascus’ words, and in any case a religion established by a false prophet – since prophecy had come to an end with Jesus. As to all humankind besides Israel, and before Christ, different ways were found by the church fathers to permit the salvation of the just, epitomized in Tertullian’s lapidary statement: Anima naturaliter christiana.3 Simi‑ larly, Jewish and Islamic literature started early to speak about a heavenly book, the master Torah or Qur’an, as it were, having existed even before time, and according to which the world had been created. In 1905, Marcel Mauss published one of the first modern studies on aspects of time in religion, a study remarkable to this day for its insights. Mauss, who identified some of the essential characters of religion, in more ways, and more subtly, than his 1   On the concept of time in religion, see for instance T. Böhm, »Zeit,« in H. Cancik, B. Gladigow, K.‑H. Kohl, eds., Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe V (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 2001), 397 – 409, with bibliography; and H.‑P. Mathys, »Zeit, II (Religionsgeschichtlich),« in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 36 (Berlin, New York, 2004), 516 – 523, with bibliography. 2   See for instance S. G. F. Brandon, History, Time and Deity: A Historical and Comparative Study of the Conception of Time in Religious Thought and Practice (Manchester, New York, 1965). 3  Tertullian, Apology, 17.

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uncle Émile Durkheim, points in his »Étude sommaire de la représentation du temps dans la religion et la magie« to the paradox of the sacred, which is at once infinite and immutable, and yet can only be expressed through the infinite plurality of time and space.4 At the time, Henri Bergson’s conception of subjective duration versus objectively measured time, as developed in his early writings, was all the rage. Durkheim had studied at the École Normale Supérieure in the same promotion as with Bergson (and Jean Jaurès), but the two had little in common in their intellectual character. Mauss explicitly refers to Bergson’s doctoral thesis, the Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889), and to his Matière et mémoire (1898), as bearing directly on his own approach. In Bergson’s footpaths, in particular, Mauss asserts the duality between quantitative and qualitative time.5 One could almost speak of his intuition of a bicameral mind in attitudes to time. In his discussion of rituals, he speaks of the »antinomy« of time, which is divisible, and the sacred, which, while being essentially indivisible, can only be expressed through the medium of time.6 For him, the great power of religion (as well as of magic) permitted to solve the striking contradiction between the notion of the sacred and that of time.7 Mauss’s analysis is comparative in its method, but seeks to describe the phenom‑ enon of time in religion and magic. In a sense, it provides an essay in religious phe‑ nomenology, before phenomenology became a method.8 Although, as he states, most of his examples come from Greek and Roman religion, as well as from the history of Christianity, he does not shy from referring to German mythology, the Aztec cal‑ endar or the Talmud (which he could read in the original Aramaic and Hebrew), adding that ethnological data should broaden the scope of his preliminary study. Mauss insists that religion deals with two kinds of time, that of experience and that of the calendar, which does not only measure time, but also gives it a rhythm. One may note here that these two sorts of time do not refer to individual and social time. As argued by the historical sociologist Norbert Elias in his 1987 study of personal and collective time, indeed, external compulsion coming from the social institu‑ tion becomes »a pattern of self-constraint embracing the whole life of an individ‑ ual.« For Elias, this »is a graphic example of how a civilizing process contributes to forming the social habitus which is an integral part of each individual personality 4   This text was first published in the Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études (1905), 1 – 39. I quote from the reprint in H. Hubert and M. Mauss, Mélanges d’histoire des religions (second ed.; Paris, 1929), 189 – 239. 5   M. Mauss, »Étude sommaire,« 210. 6   Ibid., 196. 7   Ibid., 225. 8   The best-known phenomenological analysis of time in religion is probably that provided by M. Eliade’s Le mythe de l’éternel retour (Paris, 1969; first ed. 1947). For a forceful critique of Eliade and his work, see C. Ginzburg, »Mircea Eliade’s Ambivalent Legacy,« in C. Wedemeyer and W. Doni‑ ger, eds., Hermeneutics, Politics, and the History of Religions: The Contested Legacies of Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade (Oxford, New York, 2010), 307 – 323.

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structure.«9 Following Mauss, I wish to focus here on the complexity of time, of the concomitant existence of different conceptions of time in the monotheistic religions. As a shorthand expression, »Abrahamic religions« refers to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in all their transformations and variants throughout history and geogra‑ phy. Clearly, these three religions share a common genealogy, and history and culture have strengthened or created numerous family resemblances between them.10 It is useful, but must be employed with care, as it easily slips into essentialist perceptions. Two main kinds of such essentialism are striking. The first transforms these religions into static realities, frozen and unaffected by time. The second, explicitly or implicitly, assumes that these three religions form together an entity of its own, distinguished by a powerful boundary from other religious phenomena, which are endowed with a polytheistic character. The German historian Reinhart Kosseleck has noted a striking asymmetry between experience and expectation in the temporal structure of modern times, growing, in particular, since the late eighteenth century, establishing from this asymmetry his concept of historic time. Along the same lines, François Hartog’s idea of »regimes of historicity« seeks to shed light on the increasing tension between experience and expectation.11 It seems to me that what both historians express, in their own terms, is rather similar to the tension between measured and experienced time in religious experience highlighted by Mauss. I also wish to mention here, perhaps a bit wildly, Daniel Kahneman’s ideas about two systems of thought. In a relatively recent best‑ seller, Kahneman argues that we all possess two parallel modes of thought, or systems of thinking, one intuitive and spontaneous (System 1), the other logical and analyti‑ cal (System 2).12 System 1 operates automatically and quickly, while System 2 effects complex computations and effortful mental activities associated with subjective expe‑ rience of agency, choice, and concentration. He argues, moreover, that human thought is usually achieved through the interaction between the two systems, and that there is a highly efficient division of labor between the two systems. It seems to me that Kahneman’s understanding of the interaction between these two systems of thinking might serve as a metaphor for the two kinds of time interacting in religion. That civilizations and cultures harbor different notions of time does not need to be spelled out, and could certainly not be dealt with here. What I may perhaps point out, at least, is that the traditional opposition between ›Western‹ and ›East‑ ern‹ conceptions of time is highly problematic. This point has been convincingly  9   N. Elias, Time: An Essay (Oxford, Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 11; originally Über die Zeit (Frank‑ furt am Main, 1987). 10   See A. J. Silverstein, G. G. Stroumsa, eds., and M. Blidstein, ass. ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford, 2015). 11   See F. Hartog, Régimes d’historicité: présentisme et expériences du temps (Paris, 2012; first ed. 2003), 39. He discusses Kosseleck’s argument. 12   D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York, 2011). Kahneman, a psychologist who taught in Jerusalem before moving to Princeton, is a Nobel laureate in economics.

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argued by Joseph Needham, in Time and Eastern Man, his seminal study of Chi‑ nese ideas of time.13 Needham noted in his conclusion the old idea of a ›timeless Orient‹ did not hold water, and that »on the whole China was a culture more of the Irano-Judaeo-Christian type than the Hindo-Hellenic.«14 The contradistinction between these two families of time conceptions refers to the idea of time as lin‑ ear, irreversible, moving from past to future along a single, ascending line, reflecting moral, religious and / or scientific progress, versus that conceiving of time as circular, entailing the eternal return of things (and people) to their original situation. It may be pointed out here that these two families of time cultures do not coincide with the Indo-European and Semitic linguistic families, which had become hypostatized into ethnic, cultural and religious families during the second half of the nineteenth century. Iranian conceptions of time, indeed, have long been recognized as repre‑ senting the background of ancient Jewish apocalyptic and eschatological traditions. They are thus at the core of those traditions as they appear, in particular, in the New Testament and the Qur’an. Before we move to the Iranian conceptions of time and their potent impact on early Jewish attitudes, let us go back to Mauss’s insight about the duality of time in reli‑ gious experience. The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz had argued that in Bali, there is a contradistinction between ritual time, as a social pattern, and worka‑ day time.15 Responding to Geertz, the British anthropologist Maurice Bloch (whose grandmother was Mauss’s cousin) proposed, rather, to refer to two distinct tempo‑ ralities in Bali.16 While the first, lineal and durational, applies in the world of praxis, the other, cyclic and static, operates in the world of ritual. I obviously have no author‑ ity to adjudicate between Geertz and Bloch. What counts for us here is that both insist on distinguishing, in our terms, between religious and secular time, and that it stands to reason that the duality in time observed in Bali exists also in other societies. In other words, Bloch’s observation adds credibility to Mauss’s hunch. As Iranian conceptions of time are less known to the non-specialist, it might be worth briefly discussing them and their impact upon other ancient cultures before moving on to the larger Near Eastern and Mediterranean spectrum, with a focus on 13

  J. Needham, Time and Eastern Man: The Henry Myers Lecture 1964 (Glasgow, 1965).   Ibid., 52. On Indian conceptions of time, see for instance M. Angot, L’Inde classique (Paris, 2017), 105 – 107. See also L. Renou, L’Inde fondamentale, Études d’indianisme réunites et présentées par Charles Malamoud (Paris, 1978), »Un hymne à énigmes,« 58 – 65. See further C. Malamoud, »La nuit du temps: le passage des jours d’après un rite et un mythe de l’Inde ancienne,« in his Le jumeau solaire (Paris, 2002), 55 – 65. 15   C. Geertz, »Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali,« in his The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 360 – 411. 16   M. Bloch, »The Past and the Present in the Present,« Man (NS) 12 (1977), 278 – 292. Cf. A. Gell, The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images (Oxford, Provi‑ dence, RI, 1992); as well as D. Owen Hughes and T. Trautmann, eds., Time: Histories and Ethnologies (Ann Arbor, 1995). 14

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the Abrahamic religions.17 The Bundahishn (»Primal creation« in Pahlevi) is prob‑ ably the major text dealing in detail with the Zoroastrian conception of time.18 The Bundahishn was redacted after the end of the Sasanian Empire, at a time when Zoro‑ astrians were adapting to their new, fragile situation as a tolerated minority under Islamic rule. Like most other Pahlavi literary texts, however, many in its contents reflects older conceptions and it often presents theological and mythological tradi‑ tions from the ancient past. A major question confronting scholars of ancient Iranian literature concerns the dating of these traditions, all the more so as this literature had been preserved orally for centuries before being committed to writing. It is often extremely difficult, or altogether impossible, to disentangle older layers from later accretions. Just like religious beliefs and practices, indeed like language itself, myths never remain static, and constantly evolve, both driven by an inner logic of devel‑ opment and under the impact of foreign traditions with which they are in contact. Time, the theme with which the Bundahishn opens, in its striking, majestic first chapter, also reflects the very core of the whole book, as its two new translators, Domenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope, emphasize. When Ohrmazd, the Spirit of Light, understands in his prescience that Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness, is about to launch an onslaught against him, thus creating a state of mixture between the realms of the two Spirits, he decides to create time and the cosmos. Time is finite, just as is the cosmos, and establishes the parameters of both cosmic and human his‑ tory. The last stage of cosmic history will display the renewed separation between the realms of Ohrmazd and Ahriman, the final victory of the Spirit of Light and the final failure of the attempt of the Evil Spirit to disrupt cosmic order. Cosmic history is thus divided into four periods of 3000 years each: before Ahriman’s attack, after the attack but before the creation of the world, during the state of Mixture, and the final separation between the two realms. Time, which is limited, is created from Eternity, which remains, of course, unlimited. Zurvan, »the Lord of Long Dominion,« or »the Lord of Fate,« is created by Ohrmazd (in the form of a fifteen-year-old young man, »whose power comes from Virtue«) to counter the attack of the Evil Spirit. Scholars once postulated that, Zurvan, the god of Time, who in a number of non-Iranian ver‑ sions of the creation myth was the father of both Ohrmazd and Ahriman, was the supreme deity in a Zoroastrian heresy from the Sasanian era, but recent scholarship has now shown that a Zurvanite faith never existed.19 17   In the following paragraphs, I make extensive use of my postscript to D. Agostini and S. Thrope, The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation: A New Translation (Oxford, 2020). On Iranian conceptions of time, see K. Rezania, Die zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung: Eine Untersuchung über Zeitund Ewigkeitskonzepte und die Frage des Zurvanismus (Göttinger Orientsforschungen; III Reihe: Iranica; Neue Folge 7; Wiesbaden, 2010). 18   On the discussion of creation in the Bundahishn, see P. Oktor Skjaervo, The Spirit of Zoroastrianism (The Sacred Literature Trust; New Haven, London, 2011), 82 – 89. 19   S. Shaked, »The Myth of Zurvan: Cosmogony and Eschatology,« in I. Gruenwald, S. Shaked, G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Messiah and Christos: Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Tübingen, 1992), 219 – 240.

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In order to highlight the capital importance of our text for the intellectual and reli‑ gious history of the Mediterranean and Near East, let us succinctly survey the broad spectrum of religious and philosophical conceptions of time in late antiquity. To be sure, reflecting on time as a core parameter of both the cosmic order and human existence is in no way specific to ancient Iran. While the Vedas also refer to the cos‑ mic status of time, in India an entropic vision of time soon developed that played down cosmic and historical change. In Iranian mythological conceptions and theo‑ logical reflection, on the other hand, both eternal and created time remained core elements of creation and of cosmic history. It is in the longue durée that one must observe the interface of Iran and other Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, from the Achaemenids on. More particularly, it is with Greece and with Israel that this interface would be crucial for future developments. While Plato had already discussed time, in the Timaeus and elsewhere, whether or not he knew of Iranian conceptions of time remains a moot point. At various stages in later Greek philosophy, one can point to a number of possible contacts between Iran and Greece. For Aristotle, eternity (aiōn) represented stability, while time (chronos) reflected mobility. In Greek, the meaning of both words was fluid, and could represent at once abstract entities or divinities. Although in classical literature chronos was more frequently used to denote time, aiōn became more and more com‑ monly used from the Hellenistic period on.20 Multifaceted cultural contacts between the Greek (and later the Hellenistic) world and the realm of Iran permitted a perma‑ nent transmission of knowledge, mediated by the Magi, Zoroastrian priests, living in the westernmost regions of the Zoroastrian diaspora as well as through other channels. There is, however, no hard evidence supporting the claim that the myth of Zurvan had an impact upon Greek thought. Whatever the case may be, Hellenic philosophers in the Roman Empire, in particular Iamblichus and the later Neopla‑ tonists, learned to include in their system some sacred entities and divinities coming from the Orient.21 In philosophical texts, Aiōn, which is already attested in Orphic literature, becomes identified with the second god, deuteros theos. The Hermetic Mind to Hermes (Corpus Hermeticum XI), shows a striking predi‑ lection for aiōn (eternity), which appears twenty-seven times in the work (there are only three other mentions of the word in the whole Hermetic Corpus). At the start of the treatise, Mind (nous) says to Hermes: Hear how it is with god and the universe, my child God, eternity, cosmos, time, becoming (ho theos, ho aiōn, ho kosmos, ho chronos, hē genesis)

20   See the seminal article of A. D. Nock, »A Vision of Mandulis Aion,« in his Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, ed. Z. Stewart (Oxford, 1972) I, 357 – 400, esp. 377 – 396. (Nock’s article was first published in 1934.) 21   See S. Sambursky and S. Pines, The Concept of Time in Late Neoplatonism: Texts with Translation, Introduction and Notes (Jerusalem, 1971), 12 – 13.

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God makes eternity; eternity makes the cosmos; the cosmos makes time; time makes becom‑ ing . . . the essence of eternity is identity . . . of time, change . . . eternity is the essence [of all things] . . . eternity is the power of god . . .

The divinization of Aiōn in the Hellenistic and Roman world is well attested. Aiōn is not only identified with Helios, but also with the Phoenician Baal Shamin. As a divine hypostasis, the word also appears, often in the plural, in various gnostic texts and traditions. In these texts, the eons usually represent the various heavenly cir‑ cles that the soul of the gnostic must cross in order to return to its heavenly abode. Zostrianos, one of the gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi, for instance, and which Plotinus may have known, offers such a description of the eons. In the Chaldean Oracles, texts from the second century c.e. that reflect what has been called »the Pla‑ tonic underworld,« Aiōn is not only a divinity, but also a noetic hypostasis. It is also represented in statuary, as a naked, lion-headed man with four wings on his back, as well as in Mithraism. Side by side with its interface with the Greek and Greco-Roman world, the Iranian conceptions of time and eternity had a long and powerful impact on attitudes toward time and history in biblical and post-biblical Israel, both directly and through Greek intermediaries. Beyond clear traces of Iranian dualism in Deutero-Isaiah as well as in some of the Qumran texts, Iran’s impact upon biblical views of the final apocalyptic times at the end of history are easily recognizable. As hinted above, the roots of Jew‑ ish apocalypticism, which stems from prophetic literature, are to be found in Iranian conceptions of the Endzeit. The same is true of the very idea of messianism, which is directly related to eschatology.22 Such a deep influence on central tenets of religion continued for a long time. Let us mention here only the rabbinic contradistinction between »this world« (ha-‘olam ha‑ze) and »the world to come« (ha-‘olam ha‑ba), which reflects the Greek oppo‑ sition between the present and the future aiōn. The roots of the theologization of history in biblical Israel, then, can be found in Iranian conceptions of time. While nascent Christianity carried on Israelite Heilsgeschichte, it did so with a major twist: its acme, the coming of the Messiah, was now no longer situated in the future, but in the past, and the idea of a Second Coming (parousia) of Christ had to be invented in order to explain the fact that history had not ended with the coming of the Messiah. But Christianity, which presented itself as the heir to Israel, soon became deeply indebted to various popular philosophies in the Greco-Roman world, thus convey‑ ing Iranian ideas through this channel as well. The visit to Bethlehem of the three Magi also highlights the importance of the Iranian element in early Christian con‑ ceptions of salvation of the world at the end of times. I cannot deal here with the case of Gnosticism, which has been called a »revolt against Time.« This rather parabolic expression alludes to the dualist rejection of the 22   See the convincing phenomenological analysis of Jonathan Ben Dov, »Apocalyptic Temporal‑ ity: The Force of the Here and Now,« Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 5 (2016), 289 – 303.

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Old Testament and description of the God of Israel as an evil God, or at least a medi‑ ocre one, certainly not the good, supreme God, father of Jesus Christ. It also refers, however, to the immediate, interior conception of salvation for the gnostic elect, for whom Heilsgeschichte has no meaning, as he lives in a constant present. In the deli‑ cate balance between myth and memory, the overgrowth of the first element has fully swamped the second. Gnosticism, a cluster of dualist religious trends both adjacent and inherent to the earliest stages of Christianity, may be conceived as a revolt against history.23 It has been suggested that it emerged among Jewish-Christian groups as a reaction to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and an expression their inability to oth‑ erwise cope with the eradication of traditional visions of the end of history. Such an approach oversimplifies the complex intertwining of religious ideas that led to the crystallization of the gnostic myths. It is nonetheless significant that some Jew‑ ish-Christian traditions, for instance those incorporated in the apocryphal II Enoch (known as the Slavonic Enoch) also reflect Iranian eschatological traditions.24 Although such Jewish-Christians remained small minority groups in late antiq‑ uity, one cannot overemphasize the impact of their theology on religious history. The evidence of the Cologne Mani Codex now confirms that Mani grew up in just such a Jewish-Christian group, as had long been supposed. Manichaeism represents a grandiose reinterpretation of Iranian dualism and eschatology, reflected through the prism of Jewish and early Christian visions of the end – visions, as we said, that are themselves deeply indebted to Iranian traditions. The fact that Jewish-Christian traditions can also be identified in some Qur’anic passages (including some dealing with eschatology) highlights the dramatic extent of the impact of those Iranian tradi‑ tions.25 In their deeply different ways, then, the complex myths of Time and Eternity so strikingly developed in the Bundahishn would prove to be a major catalyst in the history of religions. For the Zoroastrian worldview, the threefold structure of time in cosmic history puts the emphasis on the mythical Urzeit and the eschatological Endzeit, before and after the tragic mixis between the realms of Ohrmazd and Ahriman, which represents the essence of history. The originality of the Israelite perception lies elsewhere: in putting the emphasis not on either the cosmic origin or its end, but rather on what happens between these two asymptotic points. In other words, it is what may be called the religious dimension of history that the biblical texts seek to emphasize. After many, 23   See for instance H.‑C. Puech, En quête de la Gnose, I. La Gnose et le temps (Paris, 1978), esp. »La Gnose et le temps,« 215 – 270. Cf. G. G. Stroumsa, »Mythos und Erinnerung: Jüdische Dimen‑ sionen der gnostischen Revolte gegen die Zeit,« Judaica 44 (1988), 15 – 30. 24   See for instance S. Pines, »Eschatology and the Concept of Time in the Slavonic Book of Enoch,« in his Collected Works, IV, ed. G. G. Stroumsa (Jerusalem, 1996), 21 – 36. 25   See G. G. Stroumsa, The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2015), ch. 8: »Jewish-Christians and Islamic Origins,« 139 – 158.

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the Egyptologist and historian of religions Jan Assmann has been able to identify the »theologization of history,« as the crucial contribution of ancient Israel to religious attitudes to time. Assmann has argued, moreover, that the dramatic entry of this new dimension would eventually be recognized as the prime element in the monotheis‑ tic approach to religious history, and that this dimension would eventually prevail over other dimensions of religion in society: the cosmic, cultic, and mythical ones.26 God was no longer identified with eternal time. Rather, he was now the main figure active in human history, often behind the scene, but occasionally appearing at the very front of it, through miracles – for instance, at the crossing of the Red Sea (where the waters parted) or at the battle of Gibeon (where the sun stood still). The way in which the Hebrew Bible perceives and describes the leading role of God of Israel in history represents a real novum in ancient historiography. This history, then, becomes historia sacra, the history of the revelation of God not only on Sinai, but throughout the life of his people, and of nations in general. This obvious fact has been so often and so well studied that it needs no elaboration here. To be sure, the creation myths with which Genesis opens, although they clearly have a character of their own, echo other such myths from other ancient literatures. But what is more directly relevant for us here is the saga of Israel and its forefathers, starting with Abraham to the history of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, and the return from the Babylonian exile. This genealogy of the Hebrews is more the love (and repeated betrayal) story of Israel and its God than the chronicle of dynasties – the history of prophets, not of kings. The Jewish reading of the Bible, as reflected in hermeneutics and ritual, has always tended to give primacy to the origins of the Jews rather than to those of the cosmos. Now it is only for short periods that the people identifying itself as Israel lived in political and cultural independence. During most of their history, already in antiq‑ uity, the Jews, even in their country, were subjects to foreign political power. At a time when the foundations of post-biblical Judaism were being laid, the leading imperial power in the Near East was the Seleucid Empire (312 – 63 b.c.e.). In order to run their empire, the Hellenistic Seleucids, who replaced the Persians in the Near East, to be overthrown only by the Romans, generated a real revolution in chronological thought, a fact brilliantly argued by Paul Kosmin in a recent book.27 Kosmin explains how the formal time structures projected by the Seleucid administration (above all, era-counting) confronted local, subaltern temporalities, »which responded to, resisted, and ultimately undermined« these time-structures. Apocalyptic eschatology, in particular, may be considered as the major reaction to the Seleucid time system, 26   These were famously expressed by the Roman polymath Varro (116 – 27 b.c.e.) as theologia tripertita: materialis (kosmikē), civilis (politikē), and fabularis (mythikē). See J. Assmann, »Monothe‑ ism and Polytheism,« in S. Iles Johnston, ed., Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), 17 – 31. 27   P. J. Kosmin, Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire (Cambridge, Mass., London, 2018).

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certainly in terms of its deep and long-standing impact, as it became foundational to our own worldview. As subject peoples reacted to the new imperial time frames, the interaction between their own perception of time and history and those of the Seleucid rulers created a dynamic tension between the conflicting systems. In Kosmin’s terms, this tension was that of »living between incompatible histories, between an empty time of state and the call of an ending . . .«28 This approach studies in context the forced embrace between two systems of time, that of the conqueror and that of the conquered, is infinitely more useful than the usual misconception about Greek circularity versus Hebrew linearity. It permits us to better understand the birth of unexpected fruit, eschatology, and the dream of the collapse of brutal power and what it represents – and, together with it, the end of history altogether. The conflict between the Hellenistic Empire and Judea would be reenacted at a greater scale in the meeting of the Roman Empire and early Chris‑ tianity. The Christians considered themselves to be the inheritors of Hebrew sacred his‑ tory.29 They were, in their own terms, verus Israel. Eusebius of Caesarea, the most famous among the Christian chronographers, wrote his Chronicle around 300. His Chronological Tables (chronikoi kanones) »are part of a long-standing Christian project of synchronizing the new sacred history with the old profane history of pagans and the old sacred history of the Jews. The goal was to create a new, truly universal human history, the divine«economy of salvation.«30 The main effect of this synchronizing effort was to neutralize the eschatological perception of earliest Christianity, for which the return (parousia, or Second Com‑ ing) of Christ, this time in glory, was imminent. Apocalyptic expectation of the end, a major trait of early Christian literature, was pushed back from the front of the scene, and had almost disappeared (or, more precisely, gone underground) by the end of the fourth century, once the Empire had become officially Christian. It is also during the early Christian centuries, both in Roman Palestine and in Sasanian Mesopotamia, that the classical rabbinic approach to time emerged and crystallized. Just like patristic literature, the Talmudic and rabbinic texts of late antiq‑ uity reflect a clear disengagement from the expectations of apocalyptic literature and a neutralization of messianic hopes. As is well known, religious traditions are particularly loath to erase former claims, by far preferring aggiornamento to open 28

  Ibid., 236.  On early Christian conceptions of history, see E. Dinkler, »Earliest Christianity,« and R. H. Bainton, »Patristic Christianity,« in R. C. Denton and R. H. Bainton, eds., The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East (New Haven, 1955), respectively 169 – 214 and 215 – 236. 30   See D. Feeney, Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2007), 28 – 32. On the fasti and social time, see further J. Rüpke, The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine: Time, History and the Fasti (Chichester, 2011; German original 1995). 29

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reform and revolution. Hence, the Jews, after the destruction of their temple at the end of their war with the Romans, and even more after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, seem to have retreated from intense messianic expectations, putting them on the back burner, as it were, while the main focus of their time-experience became the reinterpretation of their ancient history, and the ›presentification,‹ in rit‑ ual and myth, of its founding moments, such as the exodus from Egypt.31 The refer‑ ence to the exodus in the opening ritual of the Sabbath, side by side with the obvious reference to the first chapter of Genesis, reflects the simultaneous existence of two time-systems, the cosmic and mythical system and the genealogical and historical one (although this too includes various mythical elements, of course). What does one mean when one speaks of Judaism as a »religion of time« or as a »historical« religion (beyond the obvious fact that, like all religions, it has a history, in which it constantly changes and transforms itself)? Probably, that in both the herme‑ neutics of its foundational texts and in its core rituals, the dimension which coming to the fore is that of the history of Israel – and of its relationship with its God. In that sense, both the myths of the Urzeit and the messianic expectations of the Endzeit are to an extent neutralized, or deactivated. The Jewish calendar, true, starts at the creation of the world, but this calendar seems to be a medieval invention.32 In that sense, it is a response to both the Christian computation of time Anno Domini and the Islamic Hijri calendar, highlighting not only the antiquity of Judaism, but also its absolute character. Zachor, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s study of Jewish collective memory, soon became a cult book, a fact that may have led the understanding of Jewish reflection on the past in somewhat misleading directions.33 We too often forget that an essen‑ tial dimension of Jewish memory is the wish to reenact certain key moments and elements of the past, such as the exodus from Egypt or the existence of the Jerusalem Temple. In this context, Amos Funkenstein has observed that two related but different perceptions of time cohabit in traditional Jewish consciousness. Apocalyptic thought puts all the focus of history on the single goal: expecting and preparing the imminent end of time (including rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple). Eschatological thought, on 31   On conceptions of time in rabbinic literature, there are some recent interesting studies. See for instance L. Kaye, Time in the Babylonian Talmud: Natural and Imagined Times in Jewish Law and Narrative (Cambridge, 2018). See further S. Kattan Gribetz and L. Kaye, »The Temporal Turn in Ancient Judaism and Jewish Studies,« Currents in Biblical Research 17 (2019), 332 – 395. Kattan Gribetz’s book on the topic will be published soon. Contemporary research on traditional Jewish approaches of time is much indebted to the work of S. A. Goldberg; see in particular her La clepsydre II: Temps de Jérusalem, temps de Babylone (Paris, 2004). 32   See E. Carlebach, Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe (Cam‑ bridge, Mass., London, 2011). On the Jewish calendar and its early history, see S. Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, 2nd Century be to 10th Century ce (Oxford, New York, 2001). 33   Y. H. Yerushalmi, Zachor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, London, 1996).

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the other end, constantly pushes the Endzeit back (or rather, ahead), to an undeter‑ mined future. So doing, it permits the re-entry of human agency in the very heart of history.34 Christianity, too, is often said to be a historical religion. In a sense, as Verus Israel, it obviously partakes in the biblical Heilsgeschichte. At the same time, however, it is obvious that the historical nature of Christianity (should we speak of its régime d’historicité?) is different from the Jewish one: for the Christians, the ultimate goal of salvation history, its peak, has already been reached. With Jesus Christ, history has essentially come to an end. What happens after the coming of the savior refers back to Christ, who is also the last prophet, the last envoy, or apostle, of God to mankind. Hence, in Christian eyes, Muhammad – Rasul Allah, God’s Apostle – can only be a false prophet. It would be of course overly simplistic to imagine that all escha‑ tological tension and expectation of the end disappeared instantly within the ear‑ liest Christian communities. Christians, certainly as long as they were persecuted minorities, had intense hopes for Christ’s return (parousia) before the eschatological war and the final defeat of all unbelievers and sons of Satan. But such expectations eventually weakened, and the Christian emperor’s glory in the present weakened the urgency of the need for Christ’s future return in glory. By the time of Augustine, the present City of God had come to replace His future kingdom. The case of Islam is rather different, in that sense that although the Qur’ān names the various prophets sent to mankind before Muhammad, the Torah and the Gos‑ pel (Injil), those books, which mention the deeds of those prophets, do not formally belong to God’s Scripture – while the Old Testament always remained, pace Marcion, an integral part of the Christians’ divine revelation. Indeed, these books cannot be fully trusted, as they were manipulated, a fact proven by the presence of Satanic verses in these texts. Salvation, therefore, starts with the establishment of Muham‑ mad’s community, of the Islamic ›nation,‹ or umma. One may be tempted to argue that there is no real Heilsgeschichte in Islam, at least not in the Jewish or the Christian sense.35 As a consequence of the swift pace of the Islamic conquest (fath al‑islam), Jewish and Christian communities in the Near East were soon perceived as tolerated minorities of those Scripture-possessing peoples (ahl al‑kitab), and the mode of their 34   A. Funkenstein, Heilsplan und natürliche Entwicklung: Formen der Gegenwarsbestimmung im Geschichtsdenken des hohen Mittelalters (Munich, 1965); quoted according to P. Simon-Nahum, Les Juifs et la modernité: L’héritage du judaïsme et les Sciences de l’homme en France au XIXe siècle (Paris, 2018), 35 – 36, who speaks of »time’s double helix« (32). This duality of time presented by Funken‑ stein is different from that analyzed by S. A. Goldberg, La clepsydre I: Essai sur la pluralité des temps dans le judaïsme (Paris, 2000), where the author focuses on the two calendars in which Jewish com‑ munities have measured time, their own and that of the cultures in which they lived throughout history. 35   On conceptions of time in Islam, see D. Mallet, »Zaman,« Encyclopedia of Islam XI (2002), 434a – 438a, as well as W. Montgomery Watt, »Dahr,« Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition), II (1991), 94b – 95a.

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perception was the present, not the past. The historical dimension of their identity, in that sense, was blurred. A bit later, the Zoroastrians, and then even the Hindus living within the realm of Islam (dar al‑islam) would be granted the status of ahl al‑kitāb, which entitled them, for a fee, the jizya, a more or less autonomous communal life as tolerated minorities, or dhimmis. Like Christianity in the first century, Islam was born in the seventh during a period of intense eschatological activity, which was essentially triggered by the esca‑ lating conflict between the Roman and the Sasanian empires and their respective cronies in the fight for supremacy in the Near East.36 A variety of Christian and Jewish texts of the sixth and seventh century reflect this eschatological tension, a ten‑ sion also clearly expressed in a number of Qur’anic passages. In sharp contradis‑ tinction with the first Christian communities, however, the Islamic umma imme‑ diately became a leading political actor. In other words, Islam became from its very beginnings the religion of a thriving empire. This fact goes a long way in explaining a major difference between Christian and Islamic approaches to the political dimen‑ sions of religion, which typically do not have in Islam the deep ambivalence char‑ acterizing them in Christianity. A direct consequence of this Islamic attitude is the insistence upon the present tense in Islam: the just society can be built hic et nunc, and not only hoped for in the asymptotic future of the kingdom of God. This is not to say, of course, that there is no eschatological tension whatever in Islam. Rather, it highlights the very different balance between the valences attributed to the present life of the community in both religions. In summary, the Islamic attitude to both past and future is strikingly different from what obtains in both Judaism and Christianity. In brief, one might characterize the different attitudes to time for Jews, Christians and Muslims by noting that for the Jews, despite longings for the idealized past and the concreteness of life in the present, reflecting the central role of the mitzvoth in Jewish life, the Archimedean point lies in the messianic future. For the Chris‑ tians, everything goes back to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though these events are constantly reenacted in both liturgy and in consciousness. The Muslims, on their side, constantly come back, in both Hadith and Sunna, to the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and also expect the coming of the Mahdi and the ensuing eschatological battles. And yet, their core experience remains in the present, in the constant effort to perfect personal and collective life in the umma. It would be perfectly silly to argue that to each of the Abrahamic religions belongs a mode of time – past, present, and future. It would be equally silly to ignore the profound differences in emphasis on these three modes in each of the Abrahamic communi‑ ties – provided, of course, that we remember the various caveats about all different historical and cultural contexts. 36   See for instance H. Amirav, E. Grypeou, and G. Stroumsa, eds., Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity: Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th – 8th Centuries (Late Antique History and Religion, 17; Leuven, Paris, 2017).

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And yet, despite these sharp differences, there is a clear common kernel to the perception of time in the three Abrahamic religions. This kernel lies, precisely, in the core importance of the figure of Abraham for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. As has been often noted, this figure is different for each of these religious groups. But for them all, Abraham is central to their identity. Abraham is the forefather par excel‑ lence, the figure emerging from myth into history: he rejected his father’s idols, he travelled afar, adventurously, to a new, promised land. On the one hand, he dared to bargain with God in order to save the inhabitants of Sodom. On the other hand, the knight of faith, as Kierkegaard called him, was willing to sacrifice his son. Both Israel and Ishmael are his offspring, so that followers of Moses, of Jesus, and of Muham‑ mad all have excellent reasons (different in each case) to see themselves as his true offspring. The figure of Abraham provides the main axis of theological time for each of those religions, and represents, for each of them, the historical nature of its central myth, as well as the mythical nature of its history. As argued above, moreover, ritual time represents a different dimension of the experience of time, that of re-presenta‑ tion of the past, which one may call its presentification. In religion, as we have seen, the two parallel time systems, theological and ritual time, function as the Doppelgänger of one another. One ever rises at the rhythm of the other’s descent. Historical analysis, however, cannot satisfy itself with the duality of time systems in each reli‑ gion. As we have seen, no religion is an island, as religions do not exist in autarkic space and time. We must always further complicate our model of the intercultural system network existing, in perpetual transformation, between religions.

List of First Publications The following chapters of this book, published here with permission, are revised ver‑ sions of texts originally published as: 1. »Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus,« in S. Shaked, D. Shulman and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Gilgul: Transformation, Revolution and Permanence in the History of Religions, in Honour of R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Suppl. to Numen, 50; Leiden: Brill, 1987), 309 – 323. 2.  »The Early Christian Fish-Symbol Reconsidered,« in I. Gruenewald, S. Shaked and G. G. Stroumsa, eds., Messiah and Christos: Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity, in Honour of David Flusser (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 199 – 205. 3. »The Afterlife of Orphism: Jewish, Gnostic and Christian Perspectives,« in Historia Religionum 4 (2012), 139 – 157. 4.  »To See or not to See: On the Early History of the visio beatifica,« in P. Schäfer, ed., Wege mystischer Gotteserfahrung / Mystical Approaches to God (Schriften des His‑ torischen Kollegs. Kolloquien 65; Oldenburg: Historisches Kolleg München, 2006), 67 – 80. 5. »Mystère juif et mystère chrétien: le mot et la chose,« in Y. Lehmann, L. Pernot, M. Philonenko, eds., Les mystères: nouvelles perspectives. Actes des Entretiens de Strasbourg (Recherches sur les Rhéthoriques Religieuses; Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 45 – 62. 6. »In illo loco: Paradise Lost in Early Christian Mythology,« in S. Shaked, ed., Genesis and Regeneration: Essays on Conceptions of Origins (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2005), 110 – 126. 7. »Christ’s Laughter: Docetic Origins Reconsidered,« in Journal of Early Christian Studies 12 (2004), 267 – 288. 8. »The Greek and Jewish Origins of Docetism: A New Proposal,« in Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity 10 (2007), 423 – 441. (Co-author Ronnie Goldstein.)

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List of First Publications

9. »Sacrifice and Martyrdom in the Roman Empire,« in Archivio di Filosofia  76 (2008), 145 – 154. 10. »Les martyrs chrétiens et l’inversion des émotions,« in P. Borgeaud, A.‑C. Rendu Loisel, eds., Violentes émotions: Approches comparatistes (Recherches et rencon‑ tres 27; Droz: Geneva, 2010), 167 – 181. 11. »The End of Sacrifice Revisited,« in P. Jackson and A.‑P. Sjödin, eds., Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice: Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece and Beyond (The Study of Religion in a Global Context; Sheffield: Equinox, 2016), 99 – 121. 12. »Les sages sémitisés: nouvel ethos et mutation religieuse dans l’empire romain,« in C. Bonnet and L. Bricault, eds., Penthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013), 293 – 307. 13.  »Cultural Memory in Early Christianity: Clement of Alexandria and the History of Religions,« in S. N. Eisenstadt, J. P. Arnason and B. Wittrock, eds., Axial Civilizations and World History (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 4; Leiden, Bos‑ ton, Köln: Brill, 2005), 293 – 315. 14. »Moses the Lawgiver and the Idea of Civil Religion in Patristic Thought,« in G. Filoramo, ed., Teologie politiche: modelli a confronto (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005), 135 – 148. 16. »On the Roots of Christian Intolerance,« in F. Prescendi and Y. Volokhine, with D. Barbu and P. Matthey, eds., Dans le laboratoire de l’historien des religions (Religions en perspective, 24; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2011), 193 – 210. 17. »Titus of Bostra and Alexander of Lycopolis: A Patristic and a Platonist Refuta‑ tion of Manichaean Dualism,« in R. T. Wallis, ed., and J. Bregman, ass. ed., Neoplatonism and Gnosticism (Studies in Neoplatonism, Ancient and Modern, 6; Albany: S.U.N.Y. Press, 1991), 339 – 351. 18.  »The Words and the Works: Religious Knowledge and Salvation in Augustine and Faustus of Milevis,« in S. N. Eisenstadt and I. F. Silver, eds., Cultural Traditions and Worlds of Knowledge: Explorations in the Sociology of Knowledge (Knowledge and Society, 7; Greenwich, Conn., and London: JAI Press, 1988), 73 – 84. 19. »Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and under Early Islam,« Harvard Theological Review 81 (1988), 37 – 58. (Co-author Sarah Stroumsa.)

Index of Selected Topics and Names Abraham, Abrahamic  VII, 70, 72, 97 – 98, 100, 102 – 106, 133, 213 – 214, 216, 219, 223, 287 – 300 Achsenzeit (Axial Age)  7, 34, 51, 152, 176 – 178, 206 Adam  22, 79, 81 – 90, 117, 275 Ahriman  274, 291, 294 Ahura Mazda  274 Aiōn  292 – 293 Akedah  97 – 107 Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic conceptions  56, 64, 118 Asclepius  190 Augustine  16, 21 – 22, 24, 78, 82, 84, 88 – 89, 99, 135, 161, 179, 184, 193 – 194, 205, 230, 251, 2252, 256 – 266, 267, 270 – 271, 276 – 276, 285, 298 Avicenna  205 Baal Shamin  293 Bar Kokhba  297 Basilides  43, 92, 95, 110, 116, 119, 132 Buddhism  6, 31, 177, 216 – 217, 220 Canonization  156, 209, 214 Christianization  1, 81, 158, 161, 216, 244 Civil religion  181 – 185, 193 – 205, 241 Clement (of Alexandria)  19, 47, 60, 72, 74, 92, 100 – 101, 104 – 105, 109 – 110, 122, 134, 138, 146 – 147, 159, 174, 176 – 192, 199 – 205 Codex  8, 61, 128, 154,177, 199, 210, 217, 219, 226, 230 Dionysus  37, 40 – 46, 49, 57, 190, 200 Docetism  4 – 5, 91 – 93, 96, 101, 108, 109 – 111, 115, 120, 123 – 125, 132, 144 – 145, 148 Dorotheos  61 – 62 Eden  79, 81, 83 – 84, 86 – 87 Elijah  27, 29

Epiphanius  44 – 45, 84 – 86, 121, 247 Erikepaios  39 – 42 Eusebius  35, 92, 184, 192, 194, 199, 203 – 205, 213, 296 Eve  45, 79, 81, 83, 86 – 87, 95, 117 – 119 Eschatology  33, 34, 79, 83 – 84 Essenes  19, 35, 36, 38, 39, 220 Faustus of Milevis  256 – 266 Gnosticism  14, 21, 43 – 46, 89 – 92, 109, 123 – 125, 293 – 294 Gospel of Judas  130 Gregory of Nyssa  57, 60, 63 Hekhalot  39, 57, 59 – 76 Helen  112 – 114, 118 – 122 Helios  294 Hellenism  69, 167, 171, 215 Hellenistic Judaism  37, 106, 182 – 183, 197 – 198 Herakles  11, 114,121, 125, 127 Hermes, Corpus Hermeticum  16 – 17, 36, 113, 163, 292 Herodotus  31, 187, 190 Hesiod  13 – 15, 112, 114, 124, 190 Homer  62, 80, 112, 114, 121 Iamblicus  128, 135, 292 Irenaeus of Lyon  58, 92, 95, 110, 116, 121, 130, 229, 253 Isaac  97 – 108, 123 – 125, 132 – 122, 145 Jerome  26, 84, 86, 135 Jewish-Christian groups, traditions  92, 125, 156, 294 John of Damascus  273, 278 – 280, 284, 287 Jonah  26, 29 Joshua ben Nun  26 – 27 Julian the Apostate  17, 127, 157, 160, 241 – 242, 277

304

Index of Selected Topics and Names

Justin Martyr  188 – 189, 202, 213, 257 Justinian  134, 162, 219, 224 Kalām  269, 274 Lucian of Samosata  15 – 18, 128, 132, 134, 187, 190 Marcus Aurelius  132, 153 Maccabean martyrs  133 Maimonides  56, 135, 159, 205 Mani  9, 73, 76, 156, 159, 168, 206, 217, 246, 249, 253 – 254, 256, 269 – 281, 294 Manichaeism  2 – 9, 89, 246 – 300 Marcion, Marcionism  92, 110, 157, 216, 269, 298 Martyrdom  126 – 148 Melito of Sardis  98, 237 Metatron  59 Midrash  26 – 29, 72, 85, 155, 161, 210, 213, 219 Mithras, Mithraism  134, 293 Monotheism  2 – 3, 31, 33, 47, 152, 168, 181, 183, 187, 195, 200, 209, 216, 225, 233, 240, 243, 267, 281 – 205 Moses  27 – 29, 35 – 41, 58, 60, 64, 88, 106, 128, 156, 180, 182, 185, 187, 190 – 192, 193 – 205, 218, 164, 264, 300 Musaisos  36 Muʿtazila  267 – 286 Mysticism  6, 52 – 56

132, 135, 180, 185, 193 – 205, 214, 242, 249, 255, 257, 261 – 262, 274 – 277, 284 – 285, 296 Perpetua  131, 133, 139 Philo of Alexandria  38, 57, 64, 79, 101, 104 – 108, 132 – 134, 189 – 190, 200 – 205 Plotinus  2, 53, 114, 121, 246, 249, 250, 254, 279, 293 Plutarch  37, 189, 233, 249 Porphyry  45, 53, 126, 128, 251 Proclus  157, 179, 252, 272 Prometheus  13 – 23 Pythagoreanism  38, 43 Qumran  18, 42, 64, 71, 73, 75, 155, 159, 162, 226, 229, 235, 244, 293 Qur’an  9, 28 – 29, 155 – 156, 209, 213 – 214 Rabbinic Judaism  52, 102, 128 – 129, 151, 155, 180, 185, 106, 214, 236 Roman Empire  1 – 2, 8, 33 – 34

Ohrmazd  291, 294 Origen of Caesarea  21, 27, 46, 60, 62, 81, 84, 86 – 87, 98 – 99, 102, 104, 133, 185 – 186, 202, 204, 240 – 241, 249, 277 Orpheus, Orphic communities, texts  26, 30 – 51 Osiris  45, 127

Sa’adya al Fayyumi (Sa’adya Gaon)  64 Sabazios  41 Sacrifice, sacrifices  7, 13, 15, 18, 33 – 35, 40, 50 – 51, 77, 81 – 82, 97 – 108, 112, 124, 126 – 136, 141 – 148 Sammael  119 Sanskrit  151 Sarah  106, 133 Sasanian Empire  8, 176, 180, 211, 214, 246, 291, 296, 299 Satan  2, 14, 18, 22, 159, 213, 231, 235, 238, 262, 298 Saturninus  116 Second Commonwealth  20, 155, 184, 229 Seneca  184, 193 Septuagint  27, 123, 125, 153, 211 Sibylline Oracles  39 Simon of Cyrene  92, 97, 110, 116, 119, 132 Simon Magus  116, 121 Simplicius  269 – 270, 272, 275, 279 Sophia  95, 117 – 120 Symmachus  241

Paradise  78 – 90, 139 Patristic Christianity, thought, authors  28, 55, 62, 65, 78 – 79, 85, 95, 97, 100, 116,

Tacitus  37, 187 Talmud  72, 78, 155, 172, 219, 288 Targum  103

Nag Hammadi  19, 44, 75, 85, 93, 293 Neoplatonism  134, 246, 253 New Testament  49, 83, 97, 104, 123, 165, 203, 217, 219  231, 249, 290 Numa Pompilius  182, 192, 198 – 200, 202 Numenius of Apamea  26, 128, 167, 190

Index of Selected Topics and Names

Tertullian  19, 21, 24, 27, 61, 90, 116, 118, 185, 193 – 194, 241 Theodore Abu Qurra  283 – 284 Theodosian Codex  128, 218, 226 Therapeutae  38 – 39, 69 Titus of Bostra  246 – 255 Valentinus, Valentinians  43, 58, 92, 95, 110

305

Yaldabaoth  20 Zalmoxis  32 Zeus  113, 15 – 17, 21, 40, 112 – 113 Zoroastrianism  2, 9, 155, 211 – 212, 214, 228, 267 – 268 Zurvan  291 – 292