Seven Circuits in Clement of Alexandria Revisited

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In an old post Seven Circuits in Clement of Alexandria I attempted an explanation of Clement’s puzzling reference to the seven circuits around the temple, which are made mention of among the Hebrews. My suggestion remains possible but I now think another explanation probably more likely.

The difficulty has always been the apparent lack of any ancient reference to seven circuits (or coverings) around the temple (or tabernacle). I have now discovered what I think is such a reference. In the preface to the Jewish Wars by Josephus, we have a reference to:

A description also of certain of their festivals, and seven purifications of purity (τὰς ἑπτὰ ἁγνείας), and the sacred ministrations of the priests, with the garments of the priests, and of the high priests; and of the nature of the most holy place of the temple; without concealing any thing, or adding any thing to the known truth of things.

The seven purifications of purity are ambiguous and might refer to a process of purification, but many scholars have regarded this as a reference to the successive degrees of purity as one approaches the temple. Reinach suggests what the seven purity levels may be, based partly on the text of Josephus (particularly Jewis War book 5) and partly on Mishnah Kelim. (See Kelim a and Kelim b)

Mishnah Kelim gives 10 or 11 levels of holiness. With strong evidence in Josephus Reinach has the 1st level as the holy city of Jerusalem (level 3 in the Mishnah) and the 7th level as the Holy of Holies entered only by the High Priest. Also with strong evidence the Court of the Gentiles AKA the Temple Mount, the Court of Women, the Court of Israel and the Court of Priests are placed at separate intermediate levels. To make up the seven we require one more. The Mishnah provides three possibilities, a/ giving the hel the steps leading up from the Temple Mount to the Court of Women (the Rampart) a separate level of purity between that of the Court of Gentiles and the Court of Women, b/ giving the ministering priests between the altar and the holy place a higher purity than the Court of Priests, c/ giving the Holy Place a level of purity higher than that of the ministering priests. Option c/ is disputed in the Mishnah (rejected by Jose) and is probably 2nd centuery CE. The choice is between options a/ and b/. Reinach chooses option a/ I would choose b/.

Josephus does not indicate that the steps leading up to the Court of Women have a less stringent purity requirement than the court itself, but he does distinguish between the Court of the Priests and the ministering priests. (Jewish War Book V)
Now all those of the stock of the priests that could not minister by reason of some defect in their bodies, came within the partition, together with those that had no such imperfection; and had their share with them, by reason of their stock: but still made use of none except their own private garments. For no body but he that officiated had on his sacred garments. But then those priests that were without any blemish upon them went up to the altar, clothed in fine linen. .
There is also the issue that the distiction in the Mishnah between the Rampart and the Court of Women involves the status of a tebul-yom (one who has immersed for purity but awaits evening for full purity). Using this distinction in Temple purity is unusual and may be relatively late, (there is no trace of this idea in the Tosefta to Kelim), and it would in any case be a piece of specifically Pharisaic halakhah which is unlikely in Josephus at the time of writing the Jewish War.

I would therefore list the seven purities of the temple in Josephus as 1/ Jerusalem the holy city, 2/ The Temple Mount, 3/ The Court of Women and the Rampart leading to it, 4/ The Court of Israel, 5/ The Court of Priests, 6/ The Ministering Priests at the altar and in the holy place, 7 The Holy of Holies.

One advantage of the idea that Clement’s seven circuits is based on Josephus is that we know, (Stromateis book 1), that Clement had read Josephus.

A Jewish-Christian Origin for 2 Enoch (Slavonic Enoch) ?

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The origins of 2 Enoch have always ben obscure. It exists in at least two Slavonic forms, the short and long recension, found in manuscripts dating from medieval times. Recently some Coptic fragments have been identified as coming from 2 Enoch, although the identification has been questioned. For the purposes of this post the Coptic fragments will serve only to support two positions which are IMO likely on other grounds; a/ that the short recension of 2 Enoch is the original b/ that 2 Enoch is considerably older than the medieval period.

The dates attributed to 2 Enoch have varied widely from the 1st century BCE to medieval times. Those supporting early dates have generally regarded 2 Enoch as a Jewish work, althought some scholars have regarded it as an early Jewish-Christian work, e.g. Danielou who suggests that Michael and Gabriel in the 7th heaven correspond to the Son and the Holy Spirit respectively.

This post arose from reading The Enoch-Metatron Tradition by Andrei A Orlov. Orlov regards 2 Enoch as a late second Temple Jewish work and would disagree with the proposal I am going to make. However, I wish to record my appreciation of his work and the help it has provided in giving me an understanding the polemics underlying the text of 2 Enoch.

Orlov describes 3 types of polemic in the text, polemics about Adam polemics about Moses and polemics about Noah. I am not going to deal with the polemic about Adam compared to Enoch. Although Orlov points out passages in both the short and long recension which can be understood in such a way, the passages about Adam are primarily found in the long recension of 2 Enoch, which I regard as secondary.

There is a clear polemic in the text exulting Enoch at the expense of Moses. 2 Enoch chapter 39 reads:

1 Oh my children, my beloved ones, hear the admonition of your father, as much as is according to the Lord’s will.
2 I have been let come to you to-day, and announce to you, not from my lips, but from the Lord’s lips, all that is and was and all that is now, and all that will be till judgment-day.
3 For the Lord has let me come to you, you hear therefore the words of my lips, of a man made big for you, but I am one who has seen the Lord’s face, like iron made to glow from fire it sends forth sparks and burns.
4 You look now upon my eyes, (the eyes) of a man big with meaning for you, but I have seen the Lord’s eyes, shining like the sun’s rays and filling the eyes of man with awe.
5 You see now, my children, the right hand of a man that helps you, but I have seen the Lord’s right hand filling heaven as he helped me.
6 You see the compass of my work like your own, but I have seen the Lord’s limitless and perfect compass, which has no end.
7 You hear the words of my lips, as I heard the words of the Lord, like great thunder incessantly with hurling of clouds.
8 And now, my children, hear the discourses of the father of the earth, how fearful and awful it is to come before the face of the ruler of the earth, how much more terrible and awful it is to come before the face of the ruler of heaven, the controller (judge) of quick and dead, and of the heavenly troops. Who can endure that endless pain?

This attribution of authority to Enoch on the basis of his direct vision of the face of God is in clear contrast to the passage about Moses in Exodus 33:

18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

Orlov links this exaltation of Enoch in comparison to Moses to general tendencies in the Enochic literature. However the glorification of Enoch in comparison to Moses is much more explicit in 2 Enoch than in the earlier Enochic works. Some scholars have questioned whether 1 Enoch genuinely glorifies Enoch at the expense of Moses, and those scholars who support an early conflict between Enochic and Mosaic theologies tend to regard this conflict as diminishing after the writing of Jubilees which presents Enochic material in a Mosaic context. 2 Enoch is certainly later than Jubilees and there are difficulties finding a plausible Jewish context for such an explicit glorification of Enoch at the expense of Moses in this time period.

The third polemic described by Orlov in 2 Enoch is the exaltation of Methusaleh and Nir the brother of Noah at the expense of Noah. Melchizedek becomes the (adopted) son of Nir after the posthumous delivery of Melchizedek following the death of Sofonima the wife of Nir. (Melchizedek was conceived without sexual relations). There is a widespread rabbinic and targumic tradition identifying Melchizedek with Shem the son of Noah, and I agree with Orlov that the two ideas of Melchizedek the son of Noah and Melchizedek the son of Nir the brother of Noah must be related, and that the unusual idea of Melchizedek as son of Nir is a response to the idea of Melchizedek as son of Noah rather than vice versa. Orlov seeks to find a context for this polemic within late second temple Judaism but does nor emphasise what I find striking here, that 2 Enoch deliberately separates Melchizedek from the ancestors of Abraham.

I am going to suggest that the combined exaltation of Enoch at the expense of Moses and the separation of Melchizedek from the lineage of Abraham are more plausible in an early Jewish-Christian context than anywhere else. We find somewhat similar ideas in early Christian writers. Tertullian An answer to the Jews says:

For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, He [God] translated from this world; who did not first taste death, in order that, being a candidate for eternal life, he might by this time show us that we also may, without the burden of the law of Moses, please God. Melchizedek also, the priest of the most high God, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God.

The survival of 2 Enoch only in Christian sources agrees with this suggestion and the bizarre conception and birth of Melchizedek may involve parallels with the conception and resurrection of Christ (although the story is so weird as to make drawing parallels very uncertain.)

JBL article on 2 Cor 2:1 published

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I am pleased to announce that my Journal of Biblical Literature article, On Paul’s Second Visit to Corinth: Πάλιν, Parsing, and Presupposition in 2 Corinthians 2:1 , has just been published.

Here is the abstract:

The supposition that Paul’s second visit to Corinth was a painful visit between the writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians is a staple of modern reconstructions of Paul’s biography, but its basis is surprisingly thin. It rests in large part on a presupposition generated by a particular parsing of the adverb πάλιν in 2 Cor 2:1 τὸ μὴ πάλιν ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλθεῖν. This article revisits the semantics and pragmatics of πάλιν from a contemporary linguistic perspective and concludes that πάλιν, in this particular context, cannot bear the exegetical weight placed upon it. Reconstructions of Paul’s travels need to look elsewhere for evidence.

Works on Greek Word Order

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I’ve compiled a list of the most important publications on Greek word order, grouped in four different approaches (though the latest publications tend to borrow from the others making the categorization somewhat imperfect/arbitrary).

Philological Approaches:

  • Henri Weil, The Order of Words in the Ancient Languages Compared with that of the Modern Languages, trans. Charles W. Super (Boston: Ginn, 1887).
  • Jacob Wackernagel, “Über ein Gesetz der indogermanischen Wortstellung” in Jacob Wackernagel, Kleine Schriften (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1953), 1–104.
  • Eduard Fraenkel, “Kolon und Satz: Beobachtungen zur Gliederung des antiken Satz, I” in Eduard Fraenkel, Kleine Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie (vol. 1; Raccolta di studi e testi 95; Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1964), 73–92; idem, “Kolon und Satz: Be-obachtungen zur Gliederung des antiken Satz, II” in Fraenkel, Kleine Beiträge, 93–130.
  • K. J. Dover, Greek Word Order (Cambridge: CUP, 1960).
  • M. H. B. Marshall, Verbs, Nouns, and Postpositives in Attic Prose, SCS 3 (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press).
  • Frank Scheppers, The Colon Hypothesis: Word Order, Discourse Segmentation and Discourse Coherence in Ancient Greek (Brussels, VUB Press, 2011).

Syntactic Approaches (incl. Generative and Cartographic)

  • Ann Taylor, “Clitics and Configurationality in Ancient Greek” (Ph.D. diss., U. Penn, 1990).
  • A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens, Discontinuous Syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek (New York: OUP, 1999).
  • Allison Kirk, “Word Order and Information Structure in New Testament Greek” (Ph.D. diss, U. Leiden, 2012).
  • David Goldstein, Classical Greek Syntax: Wackernagel’s Law in Herodotus, BSIELL (Leiden: Brill, 2015).

Functional/Pragmatic Approaches:

  • Helma Dik, Word Order in Ancient Greek: A Pragmatic Account of Word Order Variation in Herodotus, ASCP 5 (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1995).
  • Stephen H. Levinsohn, Discourse Features of New Testament Greek: A Coursebook on the Information Structure of New Testament Greek, 2nd ed. (Dallas: SIL, 2000).
  • Dejan Matić, “Topic, Focus, and Discourse Structure: Ancient Greek Word Order,” Studies in Language 27 (2003): 573-633.
  • Helma Dik, Word Order in Greek Tragic Dialogue (Oxford: OUP, 2007).
  • Nicolas Bertrand, “L’ordre des mots chez Homère: Structure informationnelle, localisation et progression du récit” (Ph.D. diss, Sorbonne, 2010).
  • Giuseppe G. A. Celano, “Argument-Focus and Predicate-Focus Structure in Ancient Greek: Word Order and Phonology,” Studies in Language 37 (2013): 241-266.
  • Rutger Allan, “Changing the Topic: Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order,” Mnemosyne 67 (2014): 181-213.

Prosodic/Phonological Approaches:

  • Mark Janse, “The Prosodic Basis of Wackernagel’s Law,” Actes du XVe Congrès des linguists (1993): 19-22.
  • A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens, The Prosody of Greek Speech (Oxford: OUP, 1994).
  • Mark Janse, “Phonological Aspects of Clisis in Ancient and Modern Greek,” Glotta 73 (1995): 155-167.
  • Brian Agbayani and Chris Golston, “Phonological Movement in Classical Greek,” Language 86 (2010): 133-167.
  • David Michael Goldstein, “Wackernagel’s Law in Fifth-Century Greek” (Ph.D. diss., UCB, 2010).
  • Tom Recht, “Verb-Initial Clauses in Ancient Greek Prose: A Discourse-Pragmatic Study” (Ph.D. diss., UCLA, 2015).

As one can see, there’s been quite a lot of interest in Greek word order over the past 20 years and it only seems to be increasing steam.

Hippolytus on Marcion and Mark

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In the Refutation of All Heresies Book 7 there is a puzzling passage about Marcion and Mark

When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets). For none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to Mark. But (the real author of the system) is Empedocles, son of Meto, a native of Agrigentum. And (Marcion) despoiled this (philosopher), and imagined that up to the present would pass undetected his transference, under the same expressions, of the arrangement of his entire heresy from Sicily into the evangelical narratives. For bear with me, O Marcion: as you have instituted a comparison of what is good and evil, I also today will institute a comparison following up your own tenets, as you suppose them to be. You affirm that the Demiurge of the world is evil— why not hide your countenance in shame, (as thus) teaching to the Church the doctrines of Empedocles? You say that there is a good Deity who destroys the works of the Demiurge: then do not you plainly preach to your pupils, as the good Deity, the Friendship of Empedocles. You forbid marriage, the procreation of children, (and) the abstaining from meats which God has created for participation by the faithful, and those that know the truth.(1 Timothy 4:3)

From parallels in other early texts Mark of the maimed finger kolobodaktylos means the Mark to whom is attributed the second Gospel. However, other writers from Irenaeus onwards associate Marcion with a version of the Gospel attributed to Luke rather than the Gospel attributed to Mark.

It is possible that Hippolytus is genuinely claiming (rightly or wrongly) that Marcion’s Gospel was a version of Mark. However, his account of Marcion suggests otherwise

Marcion, adopting these sentiments, rejected altogether the generation of our Saviour. He considered it to be absurd that under the (category of a) creature fashioned by destructive Discord should have been the Logos that was an auxiliary to Friendship— that is, the Good Deity. (His doctrine,) however, was that, independent of birth, (the Logos) Himself descended from above in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and that, as being intermediate between the good and bad Deity, He proceeded to give instruction in the synagogues.

This seems to be a reference to Luke 3:1 which other early sources regard as the beginning of Marcion’s Gospel.

Can we make sense of Hippolytus’ claim that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets) if Hippolytus knew that Marcion’s Gospel was a version of the Gospel attributed to Luke ? I think we can. When Hippolytus denies that Paul the Apostle taught the doctrines of Marcion, I don’t think he refers to Marcion using (a version of) Paul’s letters as well as his Gospel text. I think Hippolytus is referring to the tradition, found from Irenaeus on, that the Gospel of Luke derives its authority from Paul and his teaching. Against Heresies Book III

Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.[Paul]
…
But surely if Luke, who always preached in company with Paul, and is called by him “the beloved,” and with him performed the work of an evangelist, and was entrusted to hand down to us a Gospel, learned nothing different from him (Paul), as has been pointed out from his words, how can these men, who were never attached to Paul, boast that they have learned hidden and unspeakable mysteries?

Hippolytus goes on to quote from 1 Timothy, to support his claim that Paul’s teaching contradicts the doctrines of Marcion.

Similarly, when Hippolytus denies that Mark taught the doctrines of Marcion, I think that he refers to a tradition in which Luke used Mark as a source. We have no other references in ancient writers to Luke using Mark as a source, but the consensus of modern scholarship supports this source theory. If Luke actually did use Mark, then it is prima-facie plausible that a tradition to this effect would survive till c 200 CE.

If I am right, then Hippolytus is arguing:
i/ The Gospel tradition which Hippolytus, (but apparently not Marcion), attributes to Luke derives from Mark and Paul.
ii/ Marcion’s doctrine cannot be derived from Mark and Paul.
iii/ Therefore, Marcion’s doctrine cannot be regarded as a legitimate version of the Lukan Gospel tradition.

Did Origen know a Forty Day fast ?

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In the Homilies on Leviticux X 2 Origen says we [Christians] have forty days dedicated to fasting; we have the fourth [Wednesday] and sixth day [Friday] of the week on which we regularly fast The 4th century Canons of Hippolytus Canon 20 says The fast days which have been fixed are Wednesday, Friday, and the Forty The passages seem clearly related and at first sight appear to refer to Lent. However the Paschal Letters of Athanasius make clear that Lent was first introduced to Egypt around the 330s CE (exact dates controversial.) The Homilies on Leviticus were preached in Caesarea and it is theoretically possible that Origen refers to a custom in Palestine unknown during his time in Egypt. However we have no other evidence for Lent in the modern sense during the 3rd century in Palestine or anywhere else and this solution seems unlikely.

Various scholars (e.g. Talley and Bradshaw) have argued, from this and other evidence, for an ancient forty day fast, probably starting after Epiphany, replaced in Egypt by Lent during the time of Athanasius. One problem with using the Canons of Hippolytus is that it survives only in an Arabic translation of a Coptic translation of a Greek original. A more serious issue IMO with using the Canons as evidence for a forty day fast other than Lent is that it requires a rather early date for the Canons. The Canons of Hippolytus seem clearly to date between the Council of Nicea and the late 4th century Council of Constantinople and some scholars would date them early in that range. However the Canons seem to show an elaboration of Nicene orthodoxy with respect to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit which appears to require a later date maybe after the Letters to Serapion about the Holy Spirit written by Athanasius c 358 CE Canons of Hippolytus Canon 19 (about Baptism) He questions him a third time saying “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete flowing from the Father and the Son?” When he replies “I believe” he immerses him a third time in the water. And he says each time “I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, equal Trinity” If the Canons of Hippolytus date from the 350s or 360s CE then they are later than the introduction of Lent in Egypt and probably cannot be used as evidence for a forty day fast other than Lent.

The Homilies on Leviticus survive in a Latin translation by Rufinus, the relevant portion of which reads habemus enim quadragesimae dies ieiuniis consecratos which refers unambiguously to forty days of fasting. However Rufinus may have anachronistically mistranslated a passage referring to something else. In Eusebius Ecclesiastical History V 24 we have But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom and after many other words he proceeds as follows “For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.” This forty hours fast before Easter Sunday develops, in the late 3rd century into the fast for Easter week. I suggest that Origen in the Homilies on Leviticus spoke of a fast of forty hours ὥρα. Then, given the lack of familiarity with a forty hour fast in the late 4th century and the wide range of possible meanings of ὥρα, (as well as the late technical meaning of hour it can be used for a period of time), Rufinus mistranslated this as a fast of forty days.

Some might object that Rufinus translated into Latin the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius and would have been familiar from this with the idea of a forty hour fast. However, in his translation Rufinus renders the relevant portion quidam enim putant una tantum die observari debere ieiunium, alii duabus, alii vero pluribus, nonnulli etiam quadraginta, ita ut horas diurnas nocturnasque computantes diem statuant which translates roughly For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more, and some forty; and they count the hours of the day and night together as their day. (There is a discussion in Migne as to why this is a highly unlikely interpretation of the underlying Greek although not an impossible one.) If Rufinus misunderstood one reference to a forty hour fast in Eusebius as a reference to a forty day fast, then it is highly plausible that he would misunderstand a reference to a forty hour fast in Origen as a reference to a forty day fast.

Hence the Homilies on Leviticus probably cannot be used as evidence for knowledge by Origen of a forty day fast.

Pseudo-Dionysius Proclus and Thomas Taylor

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Dionysius the Areopagite is the alleged author of a set of important religious/philosophical/mystical works; various letters, a treatise on the Divine Names, a treatise on Mystical Theology and treatises on Celestial and Ecclesiastical hierarchies. It has been widely recognized since the Renaissance that these works were not composed by the convert of Paul mentioned in Acts 17:34. The first clear external evidence comes from around 530 CE and the religious and philosophical ideas are clearly post-Constantinian. The writer is now usually referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius.

It is now certain that the author knew and used the works of the pagan Platonist writer Proclus (412 to 485 CE) which, given clear attestation in the early to middle 6th century, makes the date of composition clear within quite narrow limits. (Previous to the discovery of dependence on Proclus the author was widely dated to the 4th century.)

The standard account attributes the proof that Pseudo-Dionysius used Proclus to Hugo Koch and Joseph Stiglmayr, who showed in 1895 that extracts from the treatise of the neo-Platonist Proclus, “De malorum subsistentia” (handed down in the Latin translation of Morbeka, Cousin ed., Paris, 1864), had been used by Dionysius in the treatise “De div. nom.” (c. iv, sections 19-35) See Pseudo-Areopagite and Pseudo-Dionysius

However this discovery was made much earlier, but no-one seems to have noticed. Thomas Taylor 1758 – 1835 was a controversial figure of the late 18th early 19th century. A devotee of Platonism in its late neo-Platonist form he was seen as marginal by the classical scholars of his day who were trying to restore the original Plato behind the neo-Platonist developments. His hostility to established Christianity also made him controversial.

In 1833 Thomas Taylor published Two Treatises of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, the former consisting of ten Doubts concerning Providence, and a Solution of those Doubts, and the latter containing a Development of the Nature of Evil. This contains the 1st English translation of “De malorum subsistentia” and has a note

What the Pseudo Dionysius says in that part of his treatise on
the Divine Names in which he shows that there is no such thing
as evil itself, is wholly derived from this treatise of Proclus, as will
be evident by comparing the one with the other. I give the follow-
ing extract from that work, as an obvious proof that what is said
by Proclus in this place, was taken from thence by Dionysius:
…
Hence, neither is evil in angels ;
unless it should be said that they are evil because they punish of-
fenders. But if this be admitted, the castigators of all those who
act erroneously will be evil ; and consequently, this will be the
case with those who exclude the profane from the inspection of di-
vine mysteries. It is not, however, evil to punish those that deserve
to be punished, but it is evil to deserve punishment. Nor is it evil
to be deservedly excluded from sacred mysteries, but to become de-
filed and profane, and unadapted to the participation of what is
pure.” The learned reader will find, on perusing the whole of
what is said by this Dionysius concerning evil, in the above-men-
tioned treatise, that the greater part of it is derived from the pre-
sent work of Proclus.

See two treatises of Proclus
It may be time to recognise Thomas Taylor at long-last as the first scholar to demonstrate the dependence on Proclus of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

Red Flags of Forgery: What ‘Archaic Mark’ and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife have in common

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In a recent article in Christianity Today, Simon Gathercole presents “5 Reasons Why the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Is a Fake“. It is well worth reading, not just because he has a shout-out to my work in The Gospel Hoax. In the article, he also briefly mentions another fake, “Archaic Mark,” and I thought it would be good to expand on that document and the lessons we can learn from both.

Archaic Mark has been discussed in some detail on the blogs. Briefly, 2427 is an illuminated manuscript of the Gospel of Mark purchased on the manuscript market in Greece in the early 20th century and brought to America. When one of the great American textual critics, Ernest Cadman Colwell, examined the manuscript, he noticed that this manuscript did not have the usual Byzantine text but rather a text very close to that of Codex Vaticanus (B). Equally baffling was the paleography: the hand was so odd that experts could not agree whether it was written in the thirteenth, fourteenth, or even up to the eighteenth century. Though he gave the name “Archaic Mark” to 2427 on account of its old text, Colwell could never shake the feeling that it was a fake and searched without success for a possible exemplar. Then in 1989 it was discovered that its illuminations contain significant quantities of a modern pigment, Prussian Blue, first synthesized around 1704, but this did not settle the question of its curious text, because it was claimed that the illuminations could have been repainted on an otherwise authentic manuscript. It wasn’t until that Margaret M. Mitchell and Patricia A. Duncan published their collation of the text in Novum Testamentum and put high-resolution images of the manuscript on-line in the hopes of stimulating research into Archaic Mark, that I was able to discover that its exemplar was a nineteenth century edition of the New Testament based on Codex Vaticanus, due to certain omissions of entire lines in the source text.

Though every forgery is unique, I believe that a study of forgery helps the critic to identify “red flags” that should cause greater skepticism and scrutiny over potentially sensational texts and valuable documents that come to light. Here is a list of some of them:

1. Poor Provenance. The lack of a solid provenance is a red flag because it provides an occasion to pass off a forgery as authentic. In these cases, both 2427 and the Coptic Gospel Fragments (that is, both the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and its fellow-lot member, the Coptic Gospel of John fragment) have verifiable provenances that only go back to the immediate collectors. Where they really came from before that is unknown. Forgers can be concerned about provenance and endeavor to fabricate a back-story to support, which is why the back-story must be checked. This is why when it was determined that when one of the Coptic Gospel Fragments was definitively shown to be a fake, the whole house of cards came down. Without a solid provenance for the collection, we were forced to trust that the collector or his sources were legitimate, and Askeland’s debunking of the Coptic John Fragment put that into question. To be sure, many authentic manuscripts also have dubious provenances, which leads us to the second red flag.

2. Too good to be true. This can be a difficult notion to grasp, but when a new text promises to be unusually relevant to present day issues in controversy, this creates a red flag. Most authentic finds are boring and are of limited relevance to all but a few specialists, but forgers may want something more interesting and valuable. In the case of the Coptic Gospel Fragment, this existence of a text mentioning a wife of Jesus was all but predicted by Karen King back in 2003: “It is true that from early on the possibility had existed that Mary Magdalene might emerge from the speculative fray as Jesus’ wife and lover.” (Gospel of Mary of Magdala, pp. 152-153). In the case of the 2427, the Alexandrian text was also too good to be true (though in this case I doubt that the forger had fully appreciated what text he chose to copy).

3. Poor Paleographical Hands. Both 2427 and the Coptic Gospel Fragments had atrocious hands and were difficult to date to a narrow range. Believe it or not, a poor paleographical hand sometimes makes a fake more difficult to debunk, because it becomes easier to explain away its anomalies as a lack of skill or competence. Archaic Mark had such odd feature as abbreviating the article as τ. with a modern period no less. As for the Coptic Gospel Fragments, the hand was so hard to date that it was able to be revised by four centuries when the carbon tests came in.

4. Anomalous Physical Tests. This is major red flag, but it has to be interpreted properly, and it is striking how easily defenders of authenticity find ways of explaining away adverse “scientific” results. In the case of 2427, chemical tests shows that the illuminations contained a modern pigment, yet hope for an authentically old text lingered on, because the illuminations could have been “enhanced” separately from the text. In the case of the Coptic Gospel Fragments, the papyri did not come from the fourth century as expected, but some centuries later. This should have been a red flag. Physical test results unpredicted by the paleography, codicology, and philology should increase, not decrease, our skepticism about the document.

5. Mismatch between Text and Date. Another red flag is that the text does not fit the time it supposedly dates from. In the case of Archaic Mark, a late medieval manuscript with a pure Alexandrian text plus other primitive readings was highly unusual. In the case of the Coptic Gospel Fragments, the dialect of the text did not match the age of the papyrus.

6. Dependence on Modern Editions. Both 2427 and the Coptic Gospel Fragments suffered from this. There was hardly anything in the texts that could not be explained by the dependence of an intelligent but not necessarily skilled forger. Though 2427 had an Alexandrian text and some spectacularly early readings, all of these were available in nineteenth century editions of the New Testament. As for the Coptic Gospel Fragments, nearly every word and phrase of the GJW except the most famous one could be found in the Gospel of Thomas, and the Coptic John followed the text of a published manuscript of John.

These red flags are not proof by and in themselves. The totality of the circumstances has to be weighed together, taking into account not just what an authentic document would look like but also the kinds of features that are common to forgers. These features I have identified as red flags, and upon finding one or more of them, the critic should be spurred on to investigate the matter in more detail. And when that happens, more definitive proof may be discovered. For example, the line break of modern editions doomed both Archaic Mark and the Coptic Gospel Fragments. In the case of the former, the forger accidentally skipped over entire lines of Buttmann’s New Testament edition. In the case of the latter, both Coptic Gospel Fragments perpetuated the line breaks of texts that were buried in antiquity and then became available in the twentieth century: the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife shared a line break with the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, and the Coptic Gospel of John fragment shared every other line break but one with the Qau codex. This goes to show that critics concerned about forgery should consult the editions available to forgers and look for coincidences.

Slavery and the Limits of Obedience

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In the book of essays Early Christian Families in Context there is an interesting essay by Carolyn Osiek Female Slaves Porneia and the Limits of Obedience which argues that Christian teaching on the duty of obedience of slaves to their owners might well have meant that slaves (particularly female slaves) were vulnerable to abuse (particularly sexual abuse).

Carolyn Osiek emphasises in her essay the absence of explicit treatment of these issues in pre-Nicene Christian writing. (There is a discussion in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus concerning the issues raised by stable long-term concubinage between a slavewoman and her owner, but this is rather different from sexual abuse.) I agree that we know little of the reality of slavery for early Christians and it was undoubtedly often bleak, however I think we can know a little more about early Christian teaching on the issue than the article suggests.

I have been reading Ronald Heine The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. This translates the Latin commentary of Jerome on Ephesians and the Greek catena fragments of Origen on Ephesians and shows how much of Jerome is based on Origen. In the commentary of Jerome on Ephesians 6:5-8 (On the duties of slaves to owners) we read And when he [Paul] commands that servants be obedient to their masters he adds excellently ‘as if to Christ’ and again ‘as servants of Christ doing the will of God’ so that, of course, the servant should not listen to his master in the flesh if he wants to command things contrary to the precepts of God…that he [Paul] by no means might teach that masters are to be heeded if they command things that are wicked and impious.

This passage has no parallel in the surviving catena fragments of Origen. However the hermeneutic is very similar to the commentary on Ephesians 6:1-3 (On the duties of children to parents). Here Jerome reads It is ambiguous whether children ought to obey in the Lord their parents or perhaps children ought to obey their ‘parents in the Lord’. This is to be done in each case so that we obey both those parents who have begotten us in the Lord, such as Paul and the apostles, and we do those things which they have commanded, and that we also submit, in the Lord, to our parents from whom we have been born in the flesh by fulfilling those things which are not contrary to the will of the Lord The surviving fragment of Origen is closely parallel The saying is ambiguous. It is necessary either that ‘children obey their parents in the Lord’ or that ‘in the Lord children obey their parents’. One need not reject either of the interpretations, for one must obey ‘the parents in the Lord’, of the sort that Paul was to the Corinthians [and one must obey the parents according to the flesh], but ‘in the Lord’ when they command things not in opposition to the will of the Lord.

Since the way in which Jerome uses the clause ‘in the Lord’ to put limits on obedience to parents derives from Origen, it is highly probable that the way that Jerome uses ‘as if to Christ’ and ‘as servants of Christ doing the will of God’ to limit obedience to owners also derives from Origen. If so, then in the early 3rd century, Christian teachers were concerned to avoid interpreting the Scriptures in a way that made the duty of slaves to obey their owners open-ended and unlimited.

Were Andronicus and Junia regarded by Paul as Apostles ?

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Romans 16:7 reads:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my compatriots and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

alternatively

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

(There has been dispute as to whether the second name should be Junia or Junias i.e. a woman or a man. I am assuming with most modern scholars that the correct rendering is a woman called Junia.)

The different translations above, do not reflect differences in the underlying Greek, which reads:

ασπασασθε Ανδρονικον και Ιουνιαν τους συγγενεις μου και συναιχμαλωτους μου, οιτινες εισιν επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις, οι και προ εμου γεγοναν εν Χριστω.

The translation issue is whether επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις means well known apostles or well known to the apostles.

There has been a good deal of sometimes acrimonious recent debate on the issue, mainly because if Junia was a prominent woman apostle, this may have implications for modern controversies about the ordination of women. However the dispute about the right translation of επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις is longstanding. Most but not all scholars would agree that both translations are possible but that well known apostles is prima-facie more likely. Most of those who have supported the translation well known to the apostles have done so because they have, for one reason or another, found difficulties with the idea of these two otherwise unknown Christians being called by Paul well known apostles. (e.g. they have thought it unlikely that Paul would use the term apostle of someone other than himself and the twelve, or that Paul would call a woman an apostle, or more generally that Paul would call otherwise utterly unknown figures prominent apostles.)

It seems clear that some of these grounds for having difficulties with the translation well known apostles are rather weak. Paul seems to have had a wider idea of apostle than just himself and the twelve, and in principle I belive he could have regarded a woman as an apostle. However Paul probably did confine his usage of the term apostle to those he regarded as directly commissioned by the risen Christ and this may have implications for how we understand Romans 16:7.

Two separate claims appear to be made about Andronicus and Junia. Firstly that they are either well known to the apostles or well known apostles themselves. Secondly that they became Christians before Paul did. It seems that these are regarded as independent claims without the first claim necessarily entailing he second claim.

If the meaning of the first claim is well known to the apostles then this is straightforward. Andronicus and Junia are well known to the apostles and also very early converts to Christianity.

If, however, the meaning of the first claim is well known apostles then there is a problem. If Paul confined his usage of the term apostle to those directly commissioned by the risen Christ, then, since Paul regarded himself as the last to be so commissioned, (see 1 Corinthians 15), everyone who Paul regarded as an apostle must have been commissioned before Paul was. Hence there is no room for an independent second claim by Paul about an apostle that that apostle became a Christian before Paul did. All apostles apart from Paul became Christians before Paul did.

If the above argument is valid, (it depends both on how we understand Paul’s idea of apostleship, and how we understand the relation of the two clauses about Andronicus and Junia), then it supports translating επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις as well known to the apostles.