tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72126999909109717192024-03-14T09:52:56.832+02:00Salainen evankelista// On Clement's Letter to Theodore and the Longer Gospel of MarkTimo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.comBlogger197125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-63426983376099875682020-10-21T11:06:00.000+03:002020-10-21T11:06:21.353+03:00Final Publication from This Project Out Now: WWFD or What Would a Forger Do: A Critical Inquiry of Poorly Argued Contemporary Cases for Forgery (2020)<p>The <a href="https://olh.openlibhums.org/"><i>Open Library of Humanities</i></a> (a peer-reviewed, open-access journal) has published my final article from this project.</p><p><b>Title:</b> WWFD or What Would a Forger Do: A Critical Inquiry of Poorly Argued Contemporary Cases for Forgery</p><p><b>Abstract:</b> This article discusses the contemporary debates on fakes and forgeries and notes the lack of constrained criteria in the evaluation of suspected manuscripts. Instead of controlled criteria, scholars have opted for an informal and non-explicated method—here labeled WWFD (What Would a Forger Do?)—in which an internally consistent story from the first-person perspective of the alleged forger functions as its own justification. Lacking any kind of qualitative control apart from the low bar of internal coherence, WWFD has the potential to make forgeries out of all non-provenanced literary documents. The use of WWFD in practice is documented in three varieties: unconcealed, concealed, and hyperactive. In each of these instances, WWFD is used as a framing device to construct material details as suspicious with little consideration on the warrant of such framing.</p><p><b>Link:</b> <a href="https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.519/">https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.519/</a></p><p><b>DOI:</b> <a href="http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.519">http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.519</a><br /></p>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-26434397491180504372019-09-04T12:50:00.001+03:002019-09-10T12:42:23.607+03:00Lectio Praecursoria for A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries - A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark<i>In the Finnish university system,</i> lectio praecursoria <i>is an introductory lecture given by the doctoral candidate before the public examination begins. This </i>lectio<i> was originally given on May 29, 2019.</i><br />
<h2>
<b><i>Lectio Praecursoria</i> for <i>A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries - A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, </i>Letter to Theodore<i>, and the </i>Longer Gospel of Mark</b></h2>
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<h3>
<b>Contextualization</b></h3>
My eminent opponent, professor <b>Tony Burke</b>, custos professor <b>Petri Luomanen</b>, ladies and gentlemen:<br />
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A study in authenticity—in the Greek antiquity—began with the desire to tell apart the authentic Homeric texts from the spurious. Many of the ancient studies in authenticity have not survived, but one such example—<i>De Dinarcho</i> by <b>Dionysios of Halicarnassus</b>—tackles the question by considering the author's characteristic style and whether any of the details of the spurious writings disagreed with those that were thought to be securely attributed to the author. [1] Other ancient investigations looked for potential anachronisms or “historical problems” that would invalidate an alleged time of composition, and whether a suspected text had left any traces of its existence, such as quotations or commentaries by other authors—what historians today would call “reception history”. Such techniques were picked up by the Renaissance humanists, and continued to be refined during the following centuries of codicological and text critical inquiry. Some innovations introduced in recent centuries include the insistence that a physical manuscript has to be kept accessible—in contrast to the Renaissance text critics who would sometimes simply discard the original once they had made a copy of its contents. Another related development was the invention of the camera, which, towards the end of the 19th century, ended that period of Western manuscript hunting adventurers, who made every effort (including theft, smuggling, bribing, and “loaning” but never returning) to transfer the manuscripts they encountered to one or another Western institution—what historians today would recognize as “colonialism”. And we should also remember the contributions of natural sciences, which enable us to, for examples, accurately date writing material by studying the amount of radiocarbon it contains, and to discover the chemical composition of writing material by studying the chemical bonds it contains via techniques such as infrared microspectroscopy.<br />
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Despite this illustrious history of the study of authenticity within the Western, European tradition, scholars working in literary history have never been able to agree on the exact details of applying such techniques. Instead of <i>criteria</i> for detecting authenticity, scholars have only been able to agree on <i>rules of thumb</i> they would then have to try and apply on a case-by-case basis. It is from <b>Gilbert Bagnani</b> I have borrowed the following, pithy summary of this state of affairs:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The arguments used ... are not often impressive for their logic. An object may be declared a fake because (a) it is much too good to be true, (b) it is much too bad to be true; because (a) it is like countless other objects, (b) it is not like any known object; because (a) it confirms an established theory, (b) it explodes an established theory; and so on and so forth.</blockquote>
The problem, methodologically speaking, is that our current standards are not <i>constrained</i>. Which means that all of these rules of thumb—hunting for anachronisms, stylistic differences, historical revisions—are two-way streets, so that one can always travel them both ways. Let me give you an example of what I mean:<br />
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<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/dsd/24/2/15685179_024_02_s003_i0014.jpg">[Link to an alternative image mentioned in the slide above]</a><br />
[One of the images used in Kipp Davis, "Caves of Dispute: Patterns of Correspondence and Suspicion in the Post-2002 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments," <i>Dead Sea Discoveries</i> 24:2 (2017) 229–270.]<br />
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Here we have a single line ending from a manuscript fragment from the Museum of the Bible Collection, a Hebrew text from the <i>Book of Nehemiah</i>, chapter 2. The word <i>wâawshôb</i>, “and I returned,” is followed by a glyph—on the left side of the letter <i>bêt</i>—that, following the text of Nehemiah, should be the letter <i>wâw</i>. Some scholars, indeed, take this glyph to be a <i>wâw</i>, albeit a very clumsy one. Others, however, think it should be interpreted as a Greek letter <i>alpha</i> that is superscripted. Why would they see a superscripted Greek letter in the Hebrew text of Nehemiah? Because the manuscript would then be a modern forgery, the forger having made a blunder and having copied a modern diacritical mark (the letter <i>alpha</i>), just as it had been used in <b>Rudolf Kittel’s</b> 1937 edition of the <i>Book of Nehemiah</i>. That is to say, scholars can agree that the glyph on the left is, indeed, irregular, but are then free to arrive at opposing conclusions—one conclusion that is compatible with the manuscript deriving from Antiquity, another conclusion that is compatible with the manuscript being a forgery of recent origins.<br />
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<h3>
<b>Research Questions</b></h3>
From this general background on the study of authenticity we turn to the specific question of <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>, which is—at least colloquially—mostly referred to as the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>. On the face of it, this text is an 18th-century copy of an ancient letter from the early Christian philosopher <b>Clement of Alexandria</b> to a certain <b>Theodore</b>, in which Clement discusses a variant of the <i>Gospel of Mark</i>—composed in the city of Rome—that is described as having been reworked in the city of Alexandria so that it became both a <i>Mystic Gospel</i> and a more spiritual Gospel compared to the Roman original.<br />
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On the subsequent pages Clement also quotes passages from this extended Markan Gospel, most famously a story of Jesus raising a rich young man from the death, followed by a nocturnal encounter, in which the young man is taught the mystery of the kingdom of God by Jesus.<br />
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But was the letter really composed by Clement of Alexandria? Scholars who have seriously entertained ideas of a 20th-century forgery have unanimously suspected <b>Morton Smith</b>, the historian who supposedly discovered the text from a monastic library, as the one responsible for such forgery. In this line of argumentation, previous scholarship has naturally already employed all the usual rules of thumb we have inherited from Antiquity in their current, refined forms.<br />
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For one example concerning style, <b>Andrew Criddle</b> argued over 20 years ago that <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i> “contains too high a ratio of Clementine to non-Clementine traits to be authentic”. He arrived at this conclusion by studying words in the manuscript that Clement uses only once in his other writings and words that Clement does not use in his other writings—what textual scholars would call “hapax legomena” or one-time occurring words; essentially, the “least favourite words” of Clement. Now, one might start to wonder just how studying “least favourite words” would allow one to conclude something about what traits could be foundationally “Clementine”. Recall when I just mentioned the two-way street problem? Here we have, again, a situation in which scholars could agree on the data [2]—in this case, the raw numbers of <i>hapax legomena</i> of Clement—but are otherwise free to arrive at opposing conclusions. For some scholars, the data becomes compatible with an author who wants to imitate the style of Clement, and who pays special attention to the “least favourite words” of Clement. Why would they do that? Because for the past 200 years standard authorship attribution has worked with the assumption that the introduction of new vocabulary in excess is to deattribute a work from a particular author—exactly as scholars usually hold the <i>Pastoral Epistles</i> of the <i>New Testament</i> <i>not</i> to have been written by <b>Paul the Apostle</b>—and for <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>, such attention to scholarly minutiae would imply that the author was well aware of modern approaches to authorship. For other scholars, contrarily, to argue that an author imitated Clement by paying special attention to what Clement did <i>not</i> do is to really stretch the definition of “imitation” past its breaking point.<br />
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Such an argument only works when scholars are willing to invent a small narrative from the perspective of the imagined forger that describes the raw numbers as deriving from an act of forging—a methodological choice I have named WWFD, or What Would a Forger Do?—which is to beg the question, a formal mistake in argumentation when a conclusion comes already presupposed at the start.<br />
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There are also other questions regarding the author of this letter for which scholars have not been able to follow any precedents—since none exist—questions such as whether <i>Clement’s Letter</i> and its related materials are literarily dependent on a 1940 spy novel (which would imply that <i>Clement’s Letter</i> is a forgery manufactured no earlier than the 1940s) or whether the author of the letter concealed indicators of their authority somewhere within the manuscript and its related material (that would reveal the author as an individual living in the 20th-century)—for such questions scholars have composed their answers without explicating what they are, in fact, doing.<br />
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This, then, would set the agenda for my research: to ask, using <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i> as a case study, how do scholars utilize those rules of thumb that have their origins in Antiquity, and how do they do what they do when there are neither ancient nor modern precedents to follow.<br />
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<h3>
<b>Methods</b></h3>
Of the existing methods, together with my friend and colleague <b>Roger Viklund</b>, we made a formal study of the handwriting of <i>Clement’s Letter</i>: studying printing techniques, forensic sciences, and palaeographic practices. During this period of research, we also made a small contribution in the field of history, when we studied the practices of Western manuscript hunters during the 19th and 20th centuries, to decide whether Morton Smith did his own manuscript hunting in an exemplary or irregular manner. Finally, in a forthcoming article I pursued the contemporary forgery discourse from the perspective of an analytic philosopher of history—which means that I studied contemporary debates on forgeries aiming to keep clear the conceptual boundaries scholars had made use of.<br />
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Following these studies, I concentrated on the concept of <i>concealed indicator of authority</i> as a previously unexplored phenomenon of literary forgeries. I proceeded in my inquiry by composing a quasi-historical narrative of the manufacturing of <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i> as if it were forged by Morton Smith. I labelled my composition the “alternative narrative”. Thus, using the narrative form everyone recognizes as standard in academic history writing, I constructed an origins story in which all the various literary relationships, concealed indicators of authority, and jokes that scholars have suggested in the past decade are taken at face value. The end result is a bizarre tale of how Smith went about manufacturing <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>, including obscure jests and tacit admissions of guilt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Smith inserted a number of “deliberately embedded clues” to the text. Salt imagery in the text could be construed as foreign to the real Clement of Alexandria, and the notion of its adulteration a historical anachronism. Smith would have composed the text in this way to draw attention to the fact that one of the well-known table salt producer in the twentieth century was the Morton Salt Company. Furthermore, the word ἅλας (salt) in the letter is immediately followed by μωραίνω, in the context of salt losing its savour. Smith chose to use this word in its infinitive form because of the letter nu, which could then conceal his first name Morton as μωρανθῆναι. [3]</blockquote>
No doubt I will be soon called in to justify this decision, so at this point I will only say that the alternative narrative—as I have used it—provides the necessary, raw data for developing and testing criteria for admissible concealed indicators of authority.<br />
<h3>
<b>Answers</b></h3>
The conclusions of the research were twofold, as each of the methodological approaches yielded results that were both generally applicable to the study of literary forgeries, and specifically applicable to the study of the authenticity of <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>.<br />
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For highlights, I should mention how scholars had become persuaded in 2005 by the study by <b>Stephen C. Carlson</b>, in which a host of “signs of forgery” were discovered from the handwriting of <i>Clement’s Letter</i>, and how my research with Roger Viklund finally laid the matter to rest. To wit, a phenomenon we labelled <i>line screen distortion</i> had introduced artefacts to the offset reproductions that were mistaken for the traditional signs of forgery in handwriting, whereas in the original photographs such artefacts were missing. Our conclusion was rather devastating, for<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
all the signs of forgery ... disappear once we replace the printed images ... with the original photographs.</blockquote>
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Further study of eighteenth-century handwritings in their quantitative attributes showed that the manuscript of <i>Clement’s Letter</i> was “indistinguishable from an authentic eighteenth-century manuscript,” whereas the manuscript hunting practices of Smith were found to be in line with the best, ethical practices of his day.<br />
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Finally, my work on how scholars used the aforementioned WWFD (What Would a Forger Do?) to construct all kinds of manuscripts as forgeries lays open a practice of which I disapprove—mostly because of the disproportionate relationship it introduces between arguing for and arguing against the fakeness of literary documents. What I mean is that—especially in the case of <i>Clement’s Letter</i>—constructing literary details as jokes and concealed admissions of guilt has proven to be an epistemologically simple task. Turning back to the example from the alternative narrative...<br />
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One of the results of my research is that this line of reasoning is, in fact, indistinguishable from genuine pseudoscience—despite the first half having been published by a university press of an accredited American university, and the latter half having been published in a “leading journal” of the field. To be blunt, writing nonsense that sounds vaguely academic is easier than to come up with an adequate response that addresses it. What all this suggests for the larger matter of effective interaction between scholars of differing views is that a delicate balance must be struck between challenging individual scholars to maintain robust methodological foundations and accusing them of personal failures in having neglected to do so; further encouraging interdisciplinary research activity when challenged with complex, interdisciplinary topics that require the combining of disciplinary expertise.<br />
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In the end, I have observed how the contemporary, academic “debate culture on fakes and forgeries has filled to the brim with suspiciousness and hypercriticality,” resulting in an excess of historical artefacts being declared as forgeries—not just <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>, but also the <i>Codex Tchacos</i>, the Artemidorus Papyrus, and the <i>Gospel of Jesus’ Wife</i> (the last of which turned out to be a modern forgery, after all). “The solution,” I argue, “is one of demarcation: to decide which features are acceptable as evidence either for or against ascribing the status of forgery to an historical artefact.” To wit:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
instead of investigating whether or not the artefact is genuine, scholars might rather consider whether the artefact can be distinguished from a genuine artefact, given that the material reality limits the historian’s ability to answer questions according to what can be justified by referring to the material reality (e.g., documents, artefacts), which necessarily forms the basis of the historian’s conclusions. In other words, it is trivially true that a forger could conceivably have done many things that are inaccessible for the purposes of constructing them <i>post hoc</i> from the material artefact(s) themselves.</blockquote>
So, for the specific purpose of studying the phenomenon of <i>concealed indicators of authority</i>, I ended up devising criteria for their <i>post hoc</i>, or after-the-fact recognition that also satisfied my strict desire for constraint I mentioned earlier.<br />
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Although I would love to go on and on about how these literary criteria function in action with <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>, the Artemidorus Papyrus, and the <i>Gospel of Jesus’ Wife</i>, I fear my allotted time for this <i>lectio praecursoria</i> is over, and I will simply have to refer to pages 94–131 of my dissertation for their theoretical constituents and their practical applications, and to call now to my eminent opponent, professor Tony Burke, to present his critical comments and observations of my work.<br />
<br />
[1] Following Speyer, <i>LF</i>, 124–126. Dionysios’s <i>De Dinarcho</i> I (5,1,298 U.-R.); (4.13 (ibid. 302f. 319).<br />
[2] Actually, they do not agree on raw data, either.<br />
[3] Composite text.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-30375144663659689232019-06-08T14:49:00.003+03:002019-06-08T14:49:52.936+03:00A Report: Public Discussion of a Doctoral Dissertation "A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries—A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark"On 29th of May, 2019 at 12 o'clock I defended my doctoral dissertation <a href="http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-94-1853-4">"A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries—A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, <i>Letter to Theodore</i>, and the <i>Longer Gospel of Mark</i>"</a> rather well.<br />
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<br />
<br />
That was my own impression, anyway. And since my eminent opponent, <a href="http://www.tonyburke.ca/">Tony Burke</a>, suggested that my Faculty grant me the coveted doctorate, I know he'd agree (at least) as much.<br />
<br />
-- <br />
Rewinding back a week and day; on the last leg of a 31-hour journey from Melbourne, Australia to Helsinki, Finland (never again! next time a three-day stopover somewhere in the middle!): I'm making a mental list of all the objections one might make over my work. One dead-certainty is the "alternative narrative" I had composed of the imagined making of <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i> by one Morton Smith (1915-1991), based on the claims scholars had made during the last decade or so. Those claims that suggested Smith had embedded clues of his authorship within the manuscript and its paratextual materials. Those jokes and witticisms scholars proposed that revealed the author's status as a 20th-century individual, in contrast to the <i>prima facie</i> of <i>Clement's Letter</i>: a copy made in an eighteenth-century script of an antique epistle by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 CE). Thus the "alternative narrative": a composite narrative that describes how Smith concretely went about to manufacture the suggested end result:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Smith read James Hogg Hunter’s novel <i>The Mystery of Mar Saba</i> at some point between its publication in 1940 and his own journey to the monastery of Mar Saba in the summer of 1958. Hunter’s novel depicts, within a larger plotline of spy intrigue, a forgery of an early Christian text (<i>Shred of Nicodemus</i>) planted in Mar Saba by Nazis for the British archaeologist, Sir William Bracebridge, to find. Smith thus became inspired by this novel to create a literary forgery of his own, though he would also draw inspiration from a number of other literary works, as explicated below. ... Smith began his work by acquiring a copy of Isaac Voss’s 1646 edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, a book that suited his purposes for two reasons. First, it was originally published as part of the seventeenth-century debate on the authenticity of certain Ignatian letters, including interpolations made to the authentic ones; the resulting contrast between this notion of inserting inauthentic interpolations into authentic texts and the forged epistle of Clement (that could be said to contain interpolations to the Gospel of Mark) was, to quote one recent scholar, “brilliant irony”. Second, facing the first blank end paper Smith intended to use for the beginning of his forged composition, Voss, in his closing remarks to his work, reprehended “impudentissimus iste nebulo” (that most shameless scamp) that had forged the fake Ignatian letters, another “humorous, almost poetic touch” from Smith’s part.</blockquote>
<br />
There is so much to unpack here, and the more I keep thinking about the difference of presenting the above via the medium of a table form, as opposed to the medium of a historical narrative form, the more potential avenues to handle the "alternative narrative" and its inevitable yet well-justified criticism I keep discovering. Louis Mink was right: "narrative truth" has to be distinguished from the truth-values of the historical details that make up the narrative (cf. Louis Mink, "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument," 1978)! Hayden White was right: a historian can emplot historical narratives in various ways, and whereas I have created a historical farce with the "alternative narrative," another could have produced a historical tragedy from the same raw material (cf. Hayden White, "The Structure of Historical Narrative," 1972)! Stephen Turner was right: historical narratives are merely "constructions" that "include only that which is relevant to the point of the narrative" and nothing extraneous (cf. Stephen Turner, "What Do Narratives Explain?", 2018)! My doctoral supervisors were right: I keep having way too much fun in writing my thesis (cf. Paananen, "A Study in Authenticity," 109)!<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Wednesday morning on the 29th dawns after a good night's sleep. I had checked with my <i>custos</i>, professor <a href="https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/persons/petri-luomanen(c5632f49-48dd-4c19-8a92-caf3a8f78de7).html">Petri Luomanen</a>, that he will not cut me short during my <i>lectio praecursoria</i> even if I accidentally pass the 20-minute mark. This gives me confidence, as I can now allow myself a couple of breathings when I switch through the fourteen slides I have prepared: if I faint during the <i>lectio</i>, it will not be for want of oxygen!<br />
<br />
T minus 60 minutes and I've just checked the technology. Everything works fine, but the projector places the picture rather high on the wall. This is advantageous as I cannot accidentally walk across the light beam and blind myself temporarily (during the <i>lectio</i> I don't walk anywhere, since I keep grapping the podium for support). However, the projected picture is so high that I can't point to the Hebrew letter <i>bet</i> just with my hand. The only pointer-like object in the room is a twirl of white plastic; I can't imagine its actual function. During the <i>lectio</i> this improvised pointer is found to be hilarious by some members of the audience.<br />
<br />
15 minutes before and the <i>custos</i> takes me and my opponent through the <a href="https://www.helsinki.fi/en/research/doctoral-education/welcome-to-the-public-examination">procedures of the public examination</a>. Clearly an old hand in this business, he has printed an extra copy of the official instructions (including the formulaic statements), which I receive with joy. As long as I can keep the papers in their correct order I'm going to be good. The grand entrance is made precisely according to the tradition of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_quarter_(class_timing)">academic quarter</a>, so 12:15 PM. As usual, apart from the people I knew beforehand to be in attendance, a dozen unknown (to me) faces are present. The <i>custos</i> introduces my opponent, but I have no recollection of any of that. I wasn't feeling terribly nervous, until about now.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, my <i>lectio</i> begins with one of those formulas, after which I have a whole sheet of paper to read through before starting to worry about my slides. I go through the history of detecting forgeries, from the Greek Antiquity to the present day, in about four minutes, finishing with one of my favourite quotes from Gilbert Bagnani, "On Fakes and Forgeries" (1960):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The arguments used ... are not often impressive for their logic. An object may be declared a fake because (a) it is much too good to be true, (b) it is much too bad to be true; because (a) it is like countless other objects, (b) it is not like any known object; because (a) it confirms an established theory, (b) it explodes an established theory; and so on and so forth.</blockquote>
<br />
Next I point out which of the Hebrew letters is <i>bet</i>, from a manuscript from the Museum of the Bible Collection (MOTB.Scr.3175), for which I had received permission for a one-time showing. Not that the letter <i>bet</i> is of much importance: it is a marker to direct the viewer to the glyph on its left side, that is either a very clumsily written Hebrew letter <i>wav</i> or a superscripted Greek letter <i>alpha</i>. The interpretation matters: if the copyist inserted a Greek letter in the middle of the Hebrew text, they were probably not a person from ancient times! Nevertheless, just as the Bagnani citation implies, contemporary scholars can agree on the irregularity of the character, but disagree over the implication; a state of our criteria being <i>non-constrained</i>.<br />
<br />
After I allow myself a few extra seconds for a sip of water, I rush on through the methodology of my research, including those parts (much of which were performed in collaboration with my friend and colleague <a href="https://rogerviklund.wordpress.com/">Roger Viklund</a> that dealt specifically with <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i>. [SEO keyword: SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK] Results included the disappearance of "all the signs of forgery ... once we replace the printed images ... with the original photographs," and the verdict that, in its quantitative attributes, <i>Clement's Letter</i> is "indistinguishable from an authentic eighteenth-century manuscript," whereas the manuscript hunting practices of Smith were found to be in line with the best, ethical practices of his day.<br />
<br />
Finally, I conclude with my proposition that "scholars might rather consider whether the artefact can be distinguished from a genuine artefact, given that the material reality limits the historian’s ability to answer questions according to what can be justified by referring to the material reality." And for much of the "alternative narrative" I propose criteria for dealing with the previously unexplored literary feature of <i>concealed indicators of authority</i>, according to the following:<br />
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Naturally, I don't have time to discuss them in action, merely to point out that on pp. 94-131 of my thesis one can read about their theoretical constituents and their practical applications. The clock passes the 20-minute mark. The stage is now prepared for my eminent opponent's critical comments and observations.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Afterwards, more than one member of the audience related to me how much they had enjoyed the discussion. Non-academics had found it not too technical to follow, and academics enlightening. Given this level of praise, I sure would like to possess more than a hazy recollection that, yes, a discussion was had. Uncharacteristically, I had a pen and some blank sheets with me for hastily drawn notes. These are not much help: "p. 67," "Edison," "malpractices," then something illegible, then something that looks like I was doodling. A whole page I had prepared beforehand to answer that question about the "alternative narrative" I knew would be incoming. <br />
<br />
If I strain my memory, I can recall few details emerging from the general haze. Was there ever any critical response to <a href="https://brill.com/abstract/journals/vc/67/3/article-p235_1.xml">"Distortion of the Scribal Hand,"</a> the paper my eminent opponent finds the most striking of my research (conducted with Roger)? I would characterize the reception as "total radio silence" but for a single detail: years ago <a href="https://ehrmanblog.org/">Bart Ehrman</a> posted a list of his required readings for his undergraduate students for a course he taught. In the list, right after Stephen Carlson's <i>The Gospel Hoax</i> (2005), was our "Distortion". No word on what Bart's students thought after going through both has been leaked.<br />
<br />
Pretty soon after that my eminent opponent brought forward <a href="https://salainenevankelista.blogspot.fi/2010/04/stephen-carlsons-questionable.html">the case of Julie C. Edison</a>. I mentioned the work of Allan Pantuck and Scott Brown to clarify the murky situation, but what did I personally concluded from this unfortunate episode? Even more than before I have come to view "personal responsibility" as an empty notion when juxtaposed with "environmental nudges": same persons thrive in one society while dwindling in another; same persons reach beyond their imminent capacity in one environment while underachieving in another. Including their performance of morality. The root problem, as I see it in the academia, is how little space we have for failing graciously. Especially given that the communitative aspect of the academia ensures that one's failure is a chance for others to learn from the failure. This is a dynamic that has been playing out for the whole history of science (at least since the 17th-century royal societies changed the system to, roughly, the current academic model), yet still the fear of failure of an academic project drives people to acts that undermine the indispensable trust between fellow academics. Not that I have a solution to such a wide-ranging systemic problem, apart from trying my best to pursue exploratory research avenues with a higher than normal chance of catastrophic failure; the dreaded <i>transdisciplinarity</i>! Just to try and pre-emptively take the sting out of the backfiring that should, some day, materialize; for my own sake as much as for the sake of others.<br />
<br />
There was also my own moment of <i>mea culpa</i>. One of my early commenters had noted various words that represented my general inclination for “intemperate language”. I saw no reason to object to those remarks, so in the final edit of my text all of that was thrown out (except for one instance which had already been published in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1476993X11416907">"Stalemate to Deadlock"</a>: the scholarly <i>malpractices</i>, which I had codified within the debate on <i>Clement's Letter</i> as "practices of non-engagement, vitriolic language, and mischaracterizations of opinions"). My acknowledgement of "guilty as charged" regarding such led to an interesting later exchange, as the <i>custos</i>—who, this defense, did not need to physically keep the <i>respondent</i> and the <i>opponent</i> away from each others' throats—noted this detail in his post-doctoral dinner party speech. In short, having read the same early comments on the "intemperate language," he had thought really nothing of it, but that my decision of not doubling down on the question—which I could have done—but accepting responsibility for (potentially) crossing the limits of academic decorum and changing my course spoke well of my earlier stance of making space for graceful academic failure. Keeping in mind that the point of the post-doctoral party speeches is to praise and commend each recipient in turn. <br />
<br />
The question of the "alternative narrative". My response is twofold. First, one should not read it as a holistic narrative that aims to explain the production of the manuscript of <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>. The "alternative narrative" is indeed a narrative, but not of the production of the MS (thus, not an explanation of it), but a narrative & explanation of the structure of the methodological free-form that forms the foundation of such contemporary debates on forgeries. One clue to its proper function is that it never pretends to explain the production of the MS but merely chronicles the necessary steps according to the available scholarly literature. Second, and even if one denies the first reason, the "alternative narrative" is concluded to be founded on top of a particular framework (cf. subsection 3.1.4.1 of "A Study in Authenticity"). In order for any scholar to make a distinction within the "alternative narrative" one would first have to point out a difference in the logic that underlies it. That is, if one wishes to adopt a part of the "alternative narrative" while discarding some other part, one would first need to explain what makes the adopted part different from the discarded part, thus directly challenging one of the key results of my analysis—"no difference without distinction," as the philosophers would say, and I see no difference here.<br />
<br />
There were other aspects that my eminent opponent raised up, but I forget what they were. We passed the expected two hours quite oblivious of the time flying. I had become quite relaxed in the meantime. When my eminent opponent stood up, I followed the example. Recommendation that my dissertation is accepted by the Faculty. I followed the protocol from my papers, and instructed those in attendance to continue their attendance in a nearby room, with coffee and vegan chocolate cake. Non-dairy chocolate cake is heavy. Somewhere around this time there might have been a fire alarm that compelled us to evacuate hastily. With coffee and vegan chocolate cake in hand.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Come evening, <a href="http://www.ravintolanokka.fi/en/front-page/">Ravintola Nokka</a> provided a wonderful Finnish cuisine with an excellent choice of wines for the post-doctoral dinner party. There were speeches and lots of cheering. Post-doctoral party is, after all, <a href="https://www.helsinki.fi/en/research/doctoral-education/welcome-to-the-public-examination">thrown in honour of the <i>Opponent</i></a>. So, thank you Tony, Petri (for acting as the perfect <i>custos</i>), and all of the well-wishers and participants! <i>Doctor in spe</i> out.<br />
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Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-21486857495811828542019-05-16T10:09:00.000+03:002019-05-16T10:18:08.542+03:00"A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries - A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark" Now Available for DownloadMentioned <a href="https://helsinginyliopisto.etapahtuma.fi/Default.aspx?tabid=960&id=55599">here</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Timo Paananen</b> (M.Th.) will defend the doctoral dissertation entitled "A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries - A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, <i>Letter to Theodore</i>, and the <i>Longer Gospel of Mark</i>" in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, on 29 May 2019 at 12:15. The public examination will take place at the following address: University Main Building, Auditorium XIV.<br />
<br />
Associate Professor of Early Christianity <b>Tony Burke</b>, York University, will serve as the opponent, and Professor <b>Petri Luomanen</b> as the custos.<br />
<br />
The dissertation is also available in electronic form through the E-thesis service.</blockquote><br />
<a href="https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/301315">Link to the dissertation</a> (only the abstracts of the articles included).<br />
<br />
And the abstract:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>A standard approach in historically minded disciplines to documents and other artefacts that have become suspect is to concentrate on their dissimilarities with known genuine artefacts. While such an approach works reasonably well with relatively poor forgeries, more skilfully done counterfeits have tended to divide expert opinions, demanding protracted scholarly attention. As there has not been a widespread scholarly consensus on a constrained set of criteria for detecting forgeries, a pragmatic maximum for such dissimilarities—as there are potentially an infinite numbers of differences that can be enumerated between any two artefacts—has been impossible to set. Thus, rather than relying on a philosophically robust critical framework, scholars have been accustomed to approaching the matter on a largely case-by-case basis, with a handful of loosely formulated rules for guidance. In response to these shortcomings, this dissertation argues that a key characteristic of inquiry in historically minded disciplines should be the ability to distinguish between knowledge-claims that are epistemically warranted—i.e., that can be asserted post hoc from the material reality they have become embedded in with reference to some sort of rigorous methodological framework—and knowledge-claims that are not.<br />
<br />
An ancient letter by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215 CE) to Theodore, in which two passages from the <i>Longer Gospel of Mark</i> (also known as the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>) are quoted, has long been suspected of having been forged by Morton Smith (1915–1991), its putative discoverer. The bulk of this dissertation consists of four different articles that each use different methodological approaches. The first, a discourse analysis on scholarly debate over the letter’s authenticity, illuminates the reasons behind its odd character and troubled history. Second, archival research unearths how data points have become corrupted through unintended additions in digital-image processing (a phenomenon labelled <i>line screen distortion</i> here). Third, a quantitative study of the handwriting in <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i> shows the inadequacy of unwittingly applying palaeographic standards in cases of suspected deceptions compared to the standards adhered to in forensic studies. Additionally, Smith’s conduct as an academic manuscript hunter is found to have been consistent with the standard practices of that profession. Finally, a study of the conceptual distinctions and framing of historical explanations in contemporary forgery discourse reveals the power of the methodologic approach of WWFD (What Would a Forger Do?), which has recently been used in three varieties (unconcealed, concealed, and hyperactive) to construe suspected documents as potential forgeries—despite its disregard of justificatory grounding in favour of coming up with free-form, first-person narratives in which the conceivable functions as its own justification. Together, the four articles illustrate the pitfalls of scholarly discourse on forgeries, especially that surrounding <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i>.<br />
<br />
The solution to the poor argumentation that has characterized the scholarly study of forgeries is suggested to be an exercise in demarcation: to decide (in the abstract) which features should be acceptable as evidence either for or against the ascription of the status of forgery to an historical artefact. Implied within this suggestion is the notion of constraint, i.e., such that a constrained criterion would be one that cannot be employed to back up both an argument and its counter-argument. A topical case study—a first step on the road to creating a rigorous standard for constrained criteria in determining counterfeits—is the alternative narrative of an imagined creation of <i>Clement’s Letter to Theodore</i> by Smith around the time of its reported discovery (1958). <i>Concealed indicators of authority</i>, or the deliberate concealment of authorial details within the forged artefact by the forger, is established as a staple of the literary strategy of mystification, and their <i>post hoc</i> construction as acceptable evidence of authorship is argued to follow according to criteria: 1) that the beginning of the act of decipherment of a concealed indicator of authority has to have been preceded by a literary primer that is unambiguous to a high degree, 2) that, following the prompting of the literary primer, the act of deciphering a concealed indicator of authority has to have adhered to a technique or method that is unambiguous to a high degree, and 3) that, following the prompting of the literary primer and the act of decipherment, both of which must have been practiced in an unambiguous manner to a high degree, the plain-text solution to the concealed indicator of authority must likewise be unambiguous to a high degree.</blockquote>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-23628705306161212072015-09-29T04:03:00.001+03:002015-09-29T05:29:03.717+03:00York Christian Apocrypha Symposium 2015: Report on Day 1<b>York Christian Apocrypha Symposium 2015: Report on Day 1</b>
<blockquote><i>The following is based on my extensive notes taken during the York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, which was held at Vanier College, York University on 25th and 26th of September, 2015. This instance of the gathering had a title “Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha”. I apologize for any inaccuracies and strange omissions I might have accidentally made, and encourage corrections of such to be left in the comments.</i></blockquote>
<b>9:15 AM</b><br>
<br>
Modern technology is fascinating, especially when it doesn't work. That is to say, I am late, but so is the beginning of the symposium (<a href="http://tonyburke.ca/conference/">official page of YCAS 2015</a>; and <a href="http://tonyburke.ca/conference/schedule/">official schedule</a>). Just as I get my laptop out, Tony Burke commences the proceedings by defining Christian Apocrypha as non-biblical tales of Jesus and his followers (including family). He goes through the history of York Christian Apocrypha Symposiums (previously held in 2011 and 2013). Also, there's coffee and snacks to be had.<br>
<br>
<b>9:22 AM</b><br>
<br>
Brent Landau (the other organizer of the symposium) follows, and notes a drinking water shortage he's going to fix soon enough. Three key issues of this year's symposium are the debate surrounding the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i> (modern forgery being the likeliest option right now), Bart Ehrman's 2012 monograph <i>Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics</i> (Oxford University Press), and the recent discussion on whether Christian Apocrypha can be a modern, even contemporary, as well as an ancient phenomenon.<br>
<br>
<b>9:28 AM</b><br>
<br>
Finally, Burke notes on some practicalities. Discussion is encouraged and papers to be presented were circulated beforehand for that very reason. Indeed, I had prepared myself for the conference by reading all but one of the available draft versions. Naturally, I came to regret that one omission when its time came; however, we have to wait for Day 2 to get that far.<br>
<br>
<b>9:30 AM</b> (Session 1: Composing Apocrypha in Antiquity)<br>
<br>
Stanley E. Porter's paper (“Lessons from the Papyri: What Apocryphal Gospel Fragments Reveal about the Textual Development of Early Christianity”) is almost a retrospective on the study of Apocryphal Gospel fragments, and the lessons we have learned from their study. What, then, have we learned? First, we have learned that we need good critical editions of such fragments (considering that there is a relatively small body of them out there). For one thing, critical standards have changed since many of the earlier editions came out. Also, for some of the fragments critical editions are altogether missing. Second, these fragments have their own intrinsic value, as they are a kind of popular literature of their times (“semi-literary” is sometimes used, though Porter dislikes the term). Third, there are lots of things to learn from them, as they allow us to contextualize early Christianity as a creative, literate movement. What, then, might we want to still know? We don't quite know where to draw the boundaries; which ones qualify as Christian Apocrypha. For another thing, we don't know what function they served, whether they were used in liturgy, or were produced for personal reading, or something else? Naturally, we also want to find more of them! Finally, we don't know quite how to use Apocrypha in the study of the New Testament: just how important are they for understanding the canonized early Christian works?<br>
<br>
<b>9:46 AM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. What is involved in producing critical editions? Porter stresses the importance of access to the physical manuscripts. For him, there is value in directly handling the physical manuscripts.<br>
<br>
Do we need to go further out with our criteria for assessing manuscripts in textual criticism? Definitely, as previously features such as the colour of the ink have not been felt to be important in New Testament textual criticism, which was focused on the value of the letters in lieu of all the other characteristics of the manuscripts. Furthermore, such conventions always need to be rethought.<br>
<br>
<b>10:00 AM</b><br>
<br>
Ross Ponder (“Reconsidering P. Oxy. 5072: Creation and Reception, Visual and Physical Features”) talks about a papyrus fragment published just four years ago (P. Oxy. 5072). There has been a popular conversation on how this one has been marketed (as there clearly is media and business value on some types of early Christian material). P. Oxy. 5072 contains three stories of Jesus (or rather, parts of them, given that it's just a fragment). On the other hand, scholarly conversation has concentrated on its creation and reception. Ponder argues that this papyrus has not been used for private instruction. His own diplomatic transcription differs from the earlier transcription in a number of ways (especially relating to <i>nomina sacra</i>). Paragraph and other diacritical marks appear to be at the heart of the debate with this papyrus; Ponder argues his case by drawing comparisons with other papyri. Finally, textual features of P. Oxy 5072 suggest D-Text recension (so, suggesting 3rd-century composition?).<br>
<br>
<b>10:17 AM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. The possibility of internet editions (good photographs, multiple transcriptions side by side, etc.) instead of old-skool publication techniques is brought up. Ponder agrees with Stanley E. Porter that more characteristics of the manuscripts have to be included in critical editions. Preparing digital editions should also be more valued compared to old-skool published editions. For comment on this, Porter notes that their papyri project had digital images on the internet with possibilities e.g. to put layers on top of each other for comparison purposes. However, to prepare such features is time-consuming business.<br>
<br>
Could this fragment be a Gospel harmony? Ponder notes that this issue has not been discussed so far, but that it is surely worthy of study. In fact, no one is really working with this text as text! And what's the difference between Gospel harmony and Gospel variant? Such categories are slowly being refined, but the question of telling one from the other (especially from small fragments) is obviously a hard one.<br>
<br>
<b>10:30 AM</b> (Break)<br>
<br>
It was nice to meet Pierluigi Piovanelli in person, as well as to shake hands with Tony Burke. I also chatted briefly with Jack Horman, who organizes the informal WLU/UW colloquium in Waterloo, where I am presenting about <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i> (and the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>) in November.<br>
<br>
<b>11:01 AM</b><br>
<br>
Brent Landau's paper (“Under the Influence (of the Magi): Did Hallucinogens Play a Role in the Inspired Composition of the Pseudepigraphic <i>Revelation of the Magi</i>?”) suggests hallucinogenics usage in early Christian rituals (or rather, late Antiquity Christianity). <i>Revelation of the Magi</i> describes Christ as a star directing the magi to Bethlehem. Christ multiplies their food supply, and returning to their mystical land of Shir, the people of the Magi eat the food and receive visions of Christ's life. Is this an incidence of early Christian ritual (written out as a story for the biblical figures of the Magi), in which hallucinogenic substance was used to produce visions? Landau argues that <i>Revelation of the Magi</i> presents a clearly stated case of eating hallucinogenic substance. First, based on Jim Davila's criteria of detecting actual rituals from narrative, religious texts (applicable features include the presentation of the ritual in the text as normative; the narrative using biblical figures to tell a story that is not from the Bible; physical action described as part of ritual) Landau claims that <i>Revelation of the Magi</i> describes an actual religious ritual. Second, it is the ingesting of star-food that produces the visions (stated explicitly in the text), and is best understood as an actual use of hallucinogenic substance in ritual. There are, obviously, echoes of earlier texts, such as Jesus feeding the multitudes, and the Jewish Bible stories of the manna in the desert, even the Eucharistic tradition (which produces a union / relationship with Jesus). At the very least, however, no other ancient source looks as good a candidate for a description of an actual real world tripping. Can we, then, speculate about the substance itself? Could it be a mushroom of some sort (given that in the story light produces the increasing of the Magi foodstuff)?<br>
<br>
<b>11:20 AM</b><br>
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Questions ensue. Connection with <i>haoma</i> (a liquid used in Zoroastrian rituals) is suggested. Landau, however, notes that <i>Revelation of the Magi</i> is explicit of the substance being foodstuff. Another reason to dismiss <i>haoma</i> is the fact that the text rather wants to distance the Magi from Zoroastrianism / Persia, and locate them farther away.<br>
<br>
Historically, this idea of ritual usage of hallucinogenics has been on the fringe, and some of its proponents have exhibited persecution complex (“It's obvious, so there must be a conspiracy in the academy to keep this information suppressed!”), which makes the argument harder to make for Landau (or anybody, really). Further suggestions include a botanical perspective (what kind of hallucinogenic stuff was available), and the notion that the contents of the visions could also offer clues for identifying the substance. Furthermore, given the general ritual details we know from Antiquity (fasting, wine, sleep deprivation), one doesn't necessarily need a hallucinogenic on top of that (but if you do, the effects must have been just wow)!<br>
<br>
<b>11:32 AM</b><br>
<br>
Pierluigi Piovanelli talks about forgeries in connection with three specific texts (“What Has Pseudepigraphy To Do with Forgery? Reflections on the Cases of the <i>Acts of Paul</i>, the <i>Visio Pauli</i>, and the Zohar”) . In short, he argues that regarding the information we have on these texts (from Tertullian, Sozomen, and Abraham Zacuto), the verdict of forgery is made because these authors simply disliked the contents of the <i>Acts of Paul</i>, the <i>Visio Pauli</i>, and the Zohar, respectively. Neither do we have much reason to trust the reliability of their information on these works, as their bias clearly affects the way they present (or, in the case of Sozomen, invent) such details. Consequently, pseudepigraphy should be kept as a distinct category, not to be equaled with forgery.<br>
<br>
<b>11:59 AM</b><br>
<br>
A debate between Piovanelli and Bart Ehrman ensues. For Piovanelli, the attempt to deceive should be labeled differently when one genuinely thinks of themselves as (divinely) inspired. Pseudepigraphy should not be confused with forgery (we might want to speak, perhaps, of a pious forgery). Ehrman disagrees, and notes that such distinction is not present in any ancient source that he knows of: false authorial claims were universally condemned in Antiquity. For Piovanelli, pseudepigraphy is not simply an attempt to deceive the reader, and e.g. <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> uses the we-passages as a historiographic device. Ehrman points out that, if that were the case, at least all the commentaries on the <i>Acts</i> have taken the we-passages as signifying eye-witness accounts, until recent times.<br>
<br>
<b>1:07 PM</b><br>
<br>
Back from lunch; had a hard time getting my head around the idea that they have a huge <i>shopping mall</i> right in the centre of York Campus.<br>
<br>
<b>1:08 PM</b> (Session 2: Reusing and Recycling Christian Apocrypha)<br>
<br>
Brandon W. Hawk reports on a larger project of studying the reception of Christian Apocrypha in 11th-century (or thereabouts) England (“‘Cherries at command’: Preaching the <i>Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew</i> in Anglo-Saxon England”) . Here he concentrates on the <i>Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew</i>. The approach is interdisciplinary, because these apocryphal stories were dispatched in forms of many different media both textual and visual, and for many different audiences. The manuscript in question is a late 10th-century production, composed in Old English, that in the form of sermons emphasizes Jesus' deeds instead of his words or teachings. The Old English sounds indecipherable to my ears (Hawk explains to me later that it is closer to German than to the modern English language), but it seems obvious following the presentation that the <i>Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew</i> is the inspiration for this particular manuscript. Some of the sermons' aspects are rare (e.g. midwife and Mary), but they do occur in <i>Pseudo-Matthew</i>. Especially instructive is the story of cherries bending down at Jesus' command (while still in Mary's womb!), a story reminiscent of <i>Pseudo-Matthew</i> (cherries, of course, adapted to British context from the original palm leaves). Hawk further notes that this is a different account from the more familiar in the <i>Protevangelium of James</i>, but that the latter was not widely known in England at the time, whereas the <i>Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew</i> certainly was. Incidentally, the rise of the cult of Mary in Anglo-Saxon culture takes place around this time; also, the book is called the <i>Book of Mary</i> in its dedication.<br>
<br>
<b>1:26 PM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. Is there a connection to medieval miracle or mystery tales here? Hawk answers that others have done such work, and that there are multiple points of contact between all of these.<br>
<br>
Does the midwife in the illustration have a halo? Could it be St. Anna instead? Most likely not, as the midwife appears in the text while Anna (Mary's mother) is never connected to the Nativity scene; though the presence of the halo is really curious. Another peculiarity is noted regarding Joseph, who is depicted here not looking away from the Nativity, but pointing with his finger towards his eye (the first is a detail just the opposite of Joseph's depictions in the Byzantine art).<br>
<br>
<b>1:31 PM</b><br>
<br>
Tim Pettipiece considers the Manichaean influence on early Christian Apocrypha (“Manichaean Redaction of the <i>Secret Book of John</i>”). Manichaean texts are less well-known than the Nag Hammadi codices, and Pettipiece's larger project is to compare Manichaean texts with the Nag Hammadi writings, apart from the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i> (which has already been studied in this manner). Nag Hammadi texts (or rather, earlier versions of them) likely influenced Mani, whose movement, curiously, is not universally considered as part of the early Christian diversity. Pettipiece notes that the <i>Secret Book of John</i> exists in four different versions in Nag Hammidi codices, and that these versions exhibit various amounts of editorial workings. Through a number of examples of coherence between details of Manichaeanism and the <i>Secret Book of John</i>, he argues that there are Manichaean edits in the works, which were introduced when the <i>Secret Book of John</i> was already written in Coptic. Consequently, a certain Manichaean underground within the Egyptian scribal culture is suggested, and the notion of close reading that can uncover theological debates within texts, and not just between them, is championed. Why would Manichaean scribes do such editorial changes? Pettipiece speculates that they might have wanted to keep their affiliations secret, propagate their doctrine, or perhaps they were just plain bored? Finally, the question of what use such textual details were for the Ancients remains open.<br>
<br>
<b>1:47 PM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. Since Nag Hammadi Codex II has many of these Manichaean redactions, could it be, in fact, a Manichaean codex? Pettipiece acknowledges that since all the changes are very subtle, the answer must be more complex than a simple yes or no. The question, then, follows if these subtle differences can be said to exist in the first place, or if they are too subtle, in other words (and noting here that this was, as I recall, said by Pettipiece himself) if these subtle changes do not exist only in the head of the modern scholar; an overinterpretation of ancient sources.<br>
<br>
One curious question relating to all of the Nag Hammadi codices is, of course, who were the scribes: were they writing in a monastic setting, or perhaps hired, or any number of alternative scenarios? As Pettipiece notes, given that the codices were produced in the era of forming monasticism, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the context of their creation was also monasticism (even though such evidence would be circumstantial).<br>
<br>
<b>Coffee</b><br>
<br>
Spent some quality time chatting with Scott G. Brown and Mark Goodacre. The latter points out that I was cited (favourably) by Karen King in his 2014 article in <i>Harvard Theological Review</i> (““Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .'”: A New Coptic Papyrus Fragment”). This bit of news leads me to self-reflect on just how badly (i.e. skimming; with high speed) do I sometimes read scholarly texts to have missed something like that! (I checked it afterwards; Mark was right.)<br>
<br>
<b>2:30 PM</b> (Session 3: Modern Apocrypha?)<br>
<br>
Tony Burke begins his presentation (“‘Lost Gospels’ of the Nineteenth Century”) by recounting his own developing interest in modern Apocrypha. Historically speaking, it was towards the end of the 19th century that it became more important for both the manuscript hunters and the forgers to provide actual manuscripts for inspection, and consequently the forgeries became much more sophisticated. Regarding the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i> (which I usually designate with the more neutral <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i>, but that's an uphill battle), Burke notes that its homoeroticism exists only in the eye of the beholder, and that the quest for motive for forging—such as gain of some sort—is also true for its opposite, the deattribution or uncovering of spuriousness, for Stephen C. Carlson's career was certainly boosted from his work on ascribing <i>Clement's Letter</i> to Morton Smith, even thought the questions of suppressing evidence to the contrary have been left lingering. For the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i> we have the actual manuscript to study, though scholars (at least those who blog) have piled on it and claimed it a modern forgery; both of these manuscripts (if spurious) are, in any case, much more sophisticated than e.g. the ones Edgar J. Goodspeed went through in his survey <i>Strange New Gospels</i> (1931). Finally, Burke notes that the crowd present at the symposium is most likely open to the suggestion of including modern texts to Christian Apocrypha. For one thing, modern Apocrypha is used by contemporary religious groups, and for that reason it remains worthy of study; quite unlike Goodspeed's reluctance to study Apocrypha, not to speak of the contemporary heresy hunters within the academy (documented in Burke's excellent 2010 piece “Heresy Hunting in the New Millennium”).<br>
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<b>2:46 PM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. Why does the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, which has many of the same features as <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i> and the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i>, does not become labeled forgery? Burke notes that Richard L. Arthur has actually argued that the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> is forged, but that this notion has not gained enough of a critical mass, unlike what has happened with the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i>.<br>
<br>
Mark Goodacre disagrees with the idea of people deciding to call manuscripts as forged simply because they dislike their contents, for at least he himself doesn't have a vested interest in either direction; on the contrary, Burke notes that at least Craig A. Evans conflates the text of the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i> and his homoerotic reading of it. Goodacre further notes that many people (himself included) just like to debunk stuff, and that there is value in this kind of predisposition to suspicion, even to the point of calling out forgeries; Burke agrees. Bart Ehrman agrees as well, and notes that the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i>, at least initially, was taken up not because of theological appellation, but because Jesus' marriage is such a modern issue. Janet Spittler notes that that kind of beginning (predisposition to extreme suspicion) also has an end point, probably best exemplified by the recent work of Richard Carrier (I imagine Spittler refers here to Carrier's 2012 <i>Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus</i>).<br>
<br>
Caroline T. Schroeder notes that within the academy there has existed a certain discourse, the kind of esoteric funstuff regarding Morton Smith's doings and the contents of the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>, even though none of that exists precisely on paper. Burke comments that given a portion of the <i>Gospel of Philip</i> (especially that famous part about Mary Magdalene) coming to light for the first time in fragmentary form, we would immediately call it a forgery. Finally, if I had turned my head around, I could probably name the person who said the following (but, alas, I didn't, so can't): that scepticism as a methodological / epistemological choice is not free of bias itself, either.<br>
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<b>3:03 PM</b><br>
<br>
Bradley Rice talks about the apocryphal story of Jesus' journey to India (“The Apocryphal Tale of Jesus’ Journey to India: Nicolas Notovitch and the <i>Life of Saint Issa</i> Revisited”), that wants to answer the question of Jesus' “missing years” (before his public career in Galilee and Judea). Nicolas Notovitch brought this book to the public in the late 19th century (with fabulous discovery story of his own), but it was very quickly considered a forgery. Rice argues that modern Apocrypha should be seen as an attempt to recontextualize Christianity for the changing times. Notovitch himself had a motive: Rice notes that in the text the blame for crucifying Jesus is put on the Romans, and not on Jews. Notovitch was born a Jew, the son of a Rabbi, though he later converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, and rooted (at least in his public writings) for the czar. On the other hand, the continuing appeal of the text has to do with the interest in Jesus' missing years, and the rumours of his final resting place located in India, even though the <i>Life of Saint Issa</i> has been declared a forgery. Furthermore, New age spirituality has taken up this text in earnest, no doubt due to its attempts to synthesize the thought worlds of the East and the West, much like the 19th-century speculations about the similarities between Jesus and Buddha, for which the <i>Life of Saint Issa</i> provides an answer (also noteworthy is the lack of Jesus' miracles in the text). Rice concludes that Notovitch could even have been attempting to bring about a universal religion with his combination of western and eastern spiritual ideas in the text.<br>
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<b>3:19 PM</b><br>
<br>
Questions ensue. Pierluigi Piovanelli notes the existence of stories of Mary Magdalene in India, and also the fact that the authors of the equally forged <i>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion</i> were not sent to Siberia (though Notovitch was, once the forgery had been established); a clear example of antisemitism. Furthermore, Piovanelli argues that authenticity is an important question because we want to know whether a work (such as the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>) can be used for early Christian studies, or studies of modern Apocrypha; whether the Shroud of Turin can tell us something about the 1st century, or the 13th.<br>
<br>
Of a curious note is the fact that Issa is simply an Arabic form of the name Jesus. Other names in the <i>Life of Saint Issa</i> are not changed: was this a conscious strategy from Notovitch's part? Finally, Tim Pettipiece notes that nuance is lost if we reduce our questions to simple dichotomies: was Jesus gay or not, did Jesus go to India or not; these apocryphal texts—whether ancient or modern—are worthy of better treatment.<br>
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<b>3:31 PM</b><br>
<br>
Eric Vanden Eykel first apologizes for the pun in his paper title (“Expanding the Apocryphal Corpus: Some ‘Novel’ Suggestions ”). He asks, if we can expand the boundaries of Christian Apocrypha to include even contemporary novels; especially considering the hermeneutical circle effect, the fact that our reading of such fiction affects our reading of everything else (including more conventional Apocrypha). Since we know the authors of modern fictional works, and their contexts of production (as the authors are often still living), we should reframe the question in terms of reader reception rather than author considerations. Vanden Eykel's proposed novels, of which he discussed in the presentation, were: <i>The Lost Letters of Pergamum</i> by Bruce Longenecker (2003); <i>Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal</i> by Christopher Moore (2004); <i>The Testament of Mary</i> by Colm Toíbín (2012); <i>The Liar’s Gospel</i> by Naomi Alderman (2014).<br>
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<b>3:52 PM</b><br>
<br>
An important question would be, what do these texts tell of the Christian communities they are (sort of) attached to. There is, for example, a kind of internet cult with Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Indeed, Christopher Moore's <i>Lamb</i> is especially hard one to categorize, and Vanden Eykel finds its particular brand of humour to have (especially at the end) a tragic aspect to it, that has clearly left a mark on him.<br>
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What has been the reception of these kinds of novels from more conventional Christian communities? As Vanden Eykel relates, at the individual level there has been some backlash, but apparently not any larger-scale (community level) statements (though a systematic study would be required to be absolutely certain). Tony Burke brings out ancient novels as parallel to these contemporary ones; the ancient novels might as well have been written as (partly) entertainment.<br>
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<b>4:05 PM</b><br>
<br>
Scott G. Brown begins his paper (“Behind the Seven Veils, II: Assessing Clement of
Alexandria’s Knowledge of the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i>”) by summarizing the context of its writing (together with its other half, Part I, presented in York Symposium 2011): to provide a life setting for the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> (Brown's preferred name for the <i>Secret Gospel of Mark</i>), against Peter Jeffery's claims that the author did not know what he was writing about regarding great mysteries (and, consequently, that the author who did not understand Clement was, in fact, Morton Smith). Brown argues that Clement would have interpreted the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> as Jesus initiating the youth to the great mysteries, which is exactly what Clement describes elsewhere to have taken place in Alexandria. For this reason the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> as a whole would have been important to Clement, whose purpose in writing e.g. <i>Stromateis</i> was to put into writing those secret things that had been earlier passed down in oral form, in order to preserve them, but not in any explicit manner, but hidden. Consequently, Brown provides a Clementine reading of the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> (following the cue from Alain Le Boulleuc, but much expanded). He points out seven of such instances, and argues that this text is genuinely ancient because it can so easily be read in conjunction with Clement's program for advanced Christians. Finally, Brown notes that, in his opinion, such parallels go much further still, greatly surpassing his own initial understanding of the matter.<br>
<br>
Questions ensue, but despite Brown's paper saying nothing about Morton Smith, the forgery aspect is still on the foremost of people's thoughts. Brown relates that Smith's marginal notes and his threat of lawsuit of Per Beskow in the 1980s show that Smith was very upset with the allegations; in fact, he exhibited utter disbelief in person that people would even make a question out of the authenticity. Or, as Allan J. Pantuck once told Brown, Smith once quipped to him that he only wished he were clever enough to have managed such a feat.<br>
<br>
Mark Goodacre asks about the words γυμνὸς γυμνῷ, which Clement claims were not part of the <i>Mystic Gospel</i>; are they a clear sexual reference? Brown notes that Clement accepted Plato's ideas of love, and that the notion of (mystical) union keeps cropping up with surprising regularity with both Philo and Clement; though the words may also represent an element of Carpocratian interpretation.<br>
<br>
James McGrath brings up a topic the three of us had discussed the previous night: the connection between Clement's ideas on corpse purity and the seven-day period. Brown answers that sometimes the Clementine justifications are simply odd, but at least Clement's idea of a seven-day period elsewhere might have been suggested to him by the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i>, where the resurrected youth and Jesus are both coming out of the tomb (so requiring a period of uncleanliness for seven days, as does happen in the text).<br>
<br>
Finally, Pierluigi Piovanelli comments on the fact that <i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i> is preserved in only one manuscript copy, and that of an eighteenth-century one in the back of a printed book (Isaac Voss' 1646 <i>Epistulae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris</i>). How is that not odd? Tony Burke notes the early publications of other apocryphal literature that were preserved only in 15th- and 16th-century manuscripts.<br>
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<b>4:39 PM</b><br>
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Final comment of the day (until Bart Ehrman's keynote lecture at 8:00 PM): that historically Christian Apocrypha (and their study!) has been denigrated in the academy, and that that attitude still has its lingering effect on scholarship.<br>
<blockquote><i>Next in line: York Christian Apocrypha Symposium 2015: Report on Day 1 – The Keynote Lecture</i></blockquote>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-47951360490730598972015-08-28T17:17:00.000+03:002015-08-28T17:17:22.151+03:00Rationality of Irenaeus of Lyons: In Conversation with Anna Green (Cultural History, 2008), Mark Day (The Philosophy of History, 2008), and Quentin Skinner (Visions of Politics, 2002)<b>Rationality of Irenaeus of Lyons: In Conversation with Anna Green (Cultural History, 2008), Mark Day (The Philosophy of History, 2008), and Quentin Skinner (Visions of Politics, 2002)</b><br>
By Timo S. Paananen (University of Helsinki)<br>
<br>
Note: PDF-version of this essay can be found at <a href="http://helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen">http://helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen</a><br>
<br>
Anna Green, <i>Cultural History</i> (Theory and History; Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).<br>
Mark Day, <i>The Philosophy of History</i> (London: Continuum, 2008).<br>
Quentin Skinner, <i>Visions of Politics, Volume 1: Regarding Method</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
<blockquote>The above works have one thing in common: they have something to say about history.</blockquote>
Unable as I am to compose any more banal statement to begin with, the rationalization is drawn from the fact that despite all three works having something to do with history, that is almost the end of the things they hold in common. Anna Green's <i>Cultural History</i> attempts to map that eponymous phenomenon, itself a “very broad and eclectic field” (Green, viii), while Mark Day's strategy in deliberating on things “historians, as historians, do and what they produce (most especially, historical writing)” (Day, xii) is driven less by name-dropping in their correct order and more by producing an intelligible picture of even the most outdated deductive-nomological models of writing history. Finally, Quentin Skinner's collected essays “Regarding Method” provide an in-depth look at topics Skinner happens to have been interested in (most interestingly, on the study of conceptual change)—in other words, <i>Visions of Politics, Volume 1</i> is not a textbook like and Green's and Day's are, but nevertheless instructive in its treatment of historical facts and the concept of performativity of texts.<br>
<br>
There are, to my mind, two philosophical topics all three have something to say about: the ideas concerning rationality and the concept of historicism, the latter a prominent topic especially following my reading of the recent works of Donald R. Kelley (see my essay review "Historicizing Donald R. Kelley and the Uses of History"), where the final closing word is of “that powerful reagent which people call historicism”. (Kelley, <i>Frontiers of History</i>, 236) As the two topics are closely related, I will debate both issues at the same time in light of my own field of the study of Ancient History. For an historical example I would then provide a curious textual artefact from the II CE, whence such exploration—even in my undergraduate days—has begun with a simple observation that historical persons could hold seemingly uncanny ideas.<br>
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Irenaeus, in his work <i>Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως</i> (more commonly known by its Latin short title <i>Adversus haereses</i>, that is <i>Against Heresies</i>) discusses the proper number of certain religious works (an ancient genre called εὐαγγέλιον, that is “gospel”) in the following way:
<blockquote>Τί δήποτε οὔτε πλείονα οὔτε ἐλάττονα τὸν ἀριθμόν εἰσι τὰ εὐαγγέλια; Ἐπεὶ γὰρ τέσσαρα κλίματα τοῦ κόσμου ἐν ᾧ ἐσμὲν καὶ τέσσαρα καθολικὰ πνεύματα, κατέσπαρται δὲ ἡ ἐκκλησία ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς, στῦλος δὲ καὶ στήριγμα ἐκκλησίας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ Πνεῦμα ζωῆς, εἰκότως τέσσαρας ἔχειν αὐτὴν στύλους … Ὁποία οὖν ἡ πραγματεία τοῦ Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τοιαύτη καὶ τῶν ζῴων ἡ μορφή· καὶ ὁποία ἡ τῶν ζῴων μορφή, τοιοῦτος καὶ ὁ χαρακτὴρ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου· τετράμορφα γὰρ τὰ ζῷα, τετράμορφον καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ ἡ πραγματεία τοῦ Κυρίου. (<i>Adversus haereses</i> III.11.8)</blockquote>
<blockquote>The number of the εὐαγγέλια cannot be more or less than it is; for as we live in a world with four zones and four universal winds, and the church has been dispersed all over the world with the εὐαγγέλιον and Πνεῦμα ζωῆς (Spirit of Life) as its support and foundation, it is reasonable that she has four of the supports … Such were the affairs of the Son of God as the forms of the ζῷα [the four beings described in <i>Revelation</i> 4.6-8; their forms were that of a lion, a calf, a human, and an eagle]; and such were the forms of the ζῷα as are the characteristics of the εὐαγγέλιον; for the ζῷα are quadriform, and also the εὐαγγέλιον and the affairs of the Lord are quadriform. (translation mine)</blockquote>
My first tendency when confronted with such argument made by an historical person is to assume that something is not right. First of all, the beginning of “the number is what it is” looks entirely arbitrary: a cultural trope of four zones of the world instead of, say, seven (the number of zones of the world found in Ptolemy's <i>Geographia</i>), and the four forms of the beings in <i>Revelation</i> instead of, say, the seven spirits of God, or thrice-uttered praise of the ζῷα, or even the seven churches of Asia or the three gates in each of the four sides of the heavenly Jerusalem (there is, after all, an abundance of different numerical values to be found within <i>Revelation</i>). The most straightforward manner to assess Irenaeus here seems to be one of necessity: for whatever reason he had exactly four religious works to back up, which necessitated him to look for quadriform analogies to refer to. Such explanation would perhaps fall into Peter Winch's and Barry Barnes's idea of the intrusion of contemporary historian's own epistemic ideas into the past, a practice they disapprove of. (Skinner, 37) As such an alternative must also be entertained: that Irenaeus's argument for him and for his contemporaries was all good and rational.<br>
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This notion can be conceptualized in a number of ways, one of which is Day's distinction between universalism and historicism. The first refers to reading historical sources as we would do for contemporary ones i.e. with the possibility of both criticizing them and learning from them according to our own intellectual standards, while the latter refers to reading them as part of their historical contexts. (Day, 153-155) An implied universalism is found e.g. from the historical understanding of R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943). Day offers an enlightening discussion of Collingwood's concept of re-enactment, the idea that historian's job is to assess the historical sources, infer the thoughts of the historical persons in their rational contexts, and, in the process, re-enact them and thus bring the past into the present as “living history”. (Day, 122-150) Collingwood's notion presents a number of inferences, most pressing which is the requirement for the past to become intelligible for the present historian (otherwise a successful re-enactment of the past would not take place). (Day, 149) In other words, Collingwood's method necessitates the construction of the past as rational; a methodological choice that cannot help us in assessing Irenaeus, as our question of rationality happens to be one that Collingwood needs as an operating principle. If by our universalist attempt we bring our own ideas to the task, the results can ever only be used to argue about them; to do otherwise is to fall into circular reasoning.<br>
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Other theorists have formulated the same question in different ways. Skinner quotes Charles Taylor as to “the key issue for historians”, namely “whether they should seek to avoid ‘taking a stand on the truth of the ideas’ they investigate.” (Skinner, 27; referring to Taylor's essay “The Hermeneutics in Conflict” from 1988) If we can only assert that, indeed, some of the arguments historical persons have argued for present themselves as absurd to our eyes (a point Thomas Kuhn has brought persuasively forth, as discussed by Skinner, 28)—a fact for which every historian can come up with myriad examples from their areas of expertise—what then of the conclusions? Should we decide that there is a failure of reasoning, even a fit of irrationality, or should we rather conclude that an alternate scheme of rationality is employed, one in which the questioned arguments pass as valid?<br>
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Interestingly, Green, Day, and Skinner all have their own ideas on the subject. As for Green, I will have to do a bit of reading between the lines as she never explicates her stance on the subject. If we, nevertheless, assume that her stance mirrors that of that general tradition of cultural history she covers, the answer leans towards alternate rationalities. The prime reason for this assessment is her discussion of the French historical school (the <i>Annales</i>) in which the concept of <i>mentalité</i> was propagated. Compared to the earlier German idea of a collective <i>Zeitgeist</i>, “the historian of <i>mentalités</i> shifts our attention to the mental structures through which human perceptions are conveyed.” (Green, 28) Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) furthermore refined the concept as the <i>outillage mental</i>—that people past and present have a set of mental equipment that they use to construct coherent descriptions of their understanding of the world, ones which the historian can seek out. In order to establish the radical consequences of such persuasion, Green cites Roger Chartier as to the implications of the <i>Annales</i> stance: for if mental categories have to be sought out, they are not universal, and furthermore there can be no progression between them as time goes on, only change from one set of mental equipment to another. In other words, given the vastly different mental predispositions of our ancestors there is little sense in trying to measure them up by our standards (as we would fare equally bad should the situation be reversed), and as Kuhn would half-a-century later put it, these differences could also be formulated as incommensurable with each other. Cultural history has always had a strong sense of historicism at its core. (Green, 4)<br>
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Skinner, for his part, notes that Donald Davidson (1917-2003) has criticized the cultural historical notion of “radically different conceptual schemes”. Philosophers such as Graham MacDonald and Philip Pettit have inferred from Davidson's critique that the entertainment of the notion of alternate rationalities would make explanation (here: giving causal reasons for beliefs held) impossible, as even a mere description of a belief-within-alternate-rationality would be unintelligible to modern historian. Skinner, however, following the argument of Hilary Putnam in <i>Reason, Truth and History</i> (1981, 150-200), provides an important counterpoint:
<blockquote>When I speak of agents as having rational beliefs, I mean only that their beliefs (what they hold to be true) should be suitable beliefs for them to hold true in the circumstances in which they find themselves. A rational belief will thus be one that an agent has attained by some accredited process of reasoning. Such a process will in turn be one that, according to prevailing norms of epistemic rationality, may be said to give the agent good grounds for supposing (as opposed to merely desiring or hoping) that the belief in question is true. A rational agent will thus be someone who, as David Lewis excellently summarises, believes what he or she ought to believe. (Skinner, 31)</blockquote>
The stance is a moderate one. Skinner points out (quite rightly) that should we begin by deciding to explain a historical belief as an irrationality or as rational-within-its-context is to lean towards different explanatory courses. Citing Ian Hacking's notion of “different styles of reasoning” as the basis for historical understanding, Skinner notes that there may be times when the historian has to concede to judge a historical belief as an irrational one, but that other means of explanation should be preferred. (Skinner, 47)<br>
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The most critical objection to alternate rationalities is offered by Day, who prefers irrationality as an explanation. If I am reading Day right, then the danger of the former is the willful rejection of our own contemporary concepts in assessing the past, and as interpretation is in any case a form of explanation, an alternate rationality explanation would embrace the intellectual world of the past to the detriment of our own world of concepts. For to explain the relevance of the quadriform ζῷα to the number of religious works as presented by Irenaeus, Day would consequently approve of my own initial analysis of Irenaeus's reasoning as taking place backwards—from the necessity of rooting for four (instead of three or seven) religious works to hunt for the number four (instead of three or seven) in a pitiful (from my perspective) attempt to argue for that number instead of some other number. Skinner would, perhaps, challenge the above. Though he accepts irrationality as a last ditch explanation when all else fails, in this case we would do without it as there is no indication that the validity of Irenaeus's reasoning would have been out of place among his contemporaries. On the contrary, Charles Taylor (a different individual from the philosopher Charles Taylor referred to earlier) pointed out already in 1892 that Irenaeus's reasoning sounds similar to (and, in Taylor's opinion, was in fact derived from, though I disagree with this strong assertion) a particular early Christian writing called <i>The Shepherd of Hermas</i> (III.13), in which a particular bench stands on four legs, firmly, as the world itself is also founded upon the four elements. (Taylor, <i>The Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels</i>, 1892)<br>
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To contrast things with one another is one way to explain them in the study of history. Yet historians are also encouraged to provide other reasons for justifying whatever they end up arguing for. (Day, 88-93) The above could, in turn, lead the historian to quest for the original persuasion of four (instead of three or seven) religious works, despite Irenaeus's own explicit reasonings—in a sense to draw out “the real reasons” behind his (conscious or not) obfuscation of them. To answer the latter question the historian could, then, come up with other reasons and in the process, perhaps, note that Irenaeus did not possess the same <i>outillage mental</i> as she does (they are, after all, separated by some eighteen hundred years in time) and, therefore, would not have had access to such colligated knowledge as she does (not to forget the plain old hindsight of, again, some eighteen hundred years) to make his case more satisfactory to our sense of rationality.<br>
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At this point I have also introduced concepts from the tradition of cultural history, following the manner in which e.g. Febvre argued in <i>Le Problème de l'incroyance au XVIe siècle</i> (1942) that no such outillage mental existed in the XVI CE that would place Rabelais's “unbelief” on a simple trajectory leading up to the XIX CE “free thought”. (Green, 29) It might seem that I have irrevocably confused the different traditions of historical studies and different philosophical stances on alternative rationalities, but this is not the case. My decision has been instead to deliberately draw them together, and offer what Day calls an explanation (or rather, a variety of explanations fused together) of “the same historical phenomenon 'from different angles'.” (Day, 107) When historians themselves are viewed as part of their own historical circumstances—a given for Green (and cultural history in general, from the times of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) onwards), and Skinner following the holistic approach of Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) and the late writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)—there cannot be anything but a multitude of perspectives to any given historical event/question/assessment as the historical circumstances of the historians themselves are equally multitude.<br>
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Can we then proclaim without further problems that the historian's task is to assess historical sources not from the universalist perspective but from the historicist one? Not quite, as for this historicist core Day offers a most interesting challenge in the form of two points of criticism. (It should be noted that in the history of history the concept of historicism has had a lot of mileage, and consequently its matrix of meanings has become so bloated that I do not even wish to begin to untangle that semantic web in this essay. Instead, I should simply point out that the following draws from Day's conceptualization of historicism 1) as opposed to universalism, and 2) with the core notion that “the past must be understood on its own terms, according to its own ideas, ideals and norms.” (Day, 154) Other scholars have used and continue to use the term in other manners.)<br>
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First, referring to Max Weber (1864-1920), Day considers the idea of value-free demands such historicism requires, and concludes that “by selecting, excluding, privileging and suppressing, the historian's evaluation makes itself apparent in the whole”, and that “the role of evaluation in setting the topic of research cannot be bracketed off from the assessment of an account's objectivity.” (Day, 160) In other words, Day is most concerned about the act of judgment (of similarity and difference) that a counterfactual reasoning (of why one historical event, rather than some other) entails (between the counterfactual result and the actual result), whence the role of evaluation cannot be excluded and thus the value-free demands remain in any case unanswerable. Or, in Day's words, “the historian's evaluation is ineliminable from their description, selection and explanation”. (Day, 162)<br>
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Second, contrary to Keith Jenkins's conviction that one understanding of historicism enables one “to be in control of your own discourse [which, in turn] means that you have power over what you want history to be” (citing Jenkins's <i>Rethinking History</i> from 1991), Day asserts that such radical conclusion is not a necessity. He substantiates this criticism by bringing forth the notion of dialogue, echoing Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) to the effect that historians are, first, part of their disciplinary tradition (with whom they have to engage in their scholarship), and, second, that historians are also questioned by their sources (and not just the other way round). In other words, historians remain in dialogue not only with their disciplinar representatives of the quick and the dead scholars and their texts, but also with their sources in the best manner of roundabout hermeneutics, and—in case the historian accepts their position as a partner in a “genuine dialogue”—two inferences can be drawn: first, that in a dialogue one cannot assert <i>a priori</i> one's own position before the dialogue has even begun, and second, that one should end with Gadamer's “fusion of horizons” that, as Day puts it, “leaves both parties in a place removed from where they started.” (Day, 165)<br>
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Now, I understand that my formulation of Day's criticism above may have become a lot less clear in the process than his original exposition of it, and for that reason I wish to state his case one more time with so many words. Let us, then, consider the issue (once again) in light of Day's distinction between universalism and historicism. No one would disavow the possibility of universalism i.e. the reading of historical sources as we would read contemporary ones, evaluating them with our own intellectual standards (whatever they may be). The alternative—the historicist reading of historical sources as part of their historical milieu, without placing anyone on trial for crimes of thought for which no <i>outillage mental</i> existed at the time—is attractive until (in Day's reading) it turns out to be not only a dream impossible (as the historian has no alternative for her contemporary intellectual standards in privileging, framing, and hammering out a particular historical writing—how could she otherwise pass the peer-review of her colleagues?), but also an attempt at a totalitarian account (as the historian vows to let go of her own intellectual standards, thus withdrawing herself from a genuine dialogue with the historical source in question, in a futile attempt to avoid that universalist fallacy (so-perceived) that she nevertheless cannot do without). Historicism, thus contrasted with universalism, is an illusion of potentially fatal consequences.<br>
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This is a fair point, worthy of serious consideration, even though in the end I believe Day's criticism is pertinent to only one form of historicism (which I would call the weak form), but largely negligible to that strong form historians such as Jenkins espouse. Furthermore, it is also too sceptical regarding our intellectual capacity to use language not only to strengthen but also to undermine the very foundations of our linguistic practices. (cf. Skinner, 7) In the long history of cultural history, as Green exposes, its practice has functioned as “a parallel stream within historiography that emphasized the interpretive, subjective and provisional nature of historical representation.” (Green, 64) Unfortunately I cannot, in the course of this essay, consider all particular representations of cultural history to decide at which points we would describe the historicism entailed as a representative of the weak form, and at which point the strong. However, coming closer to the end of the XX CE, I can provide the ideas Jenkins and other theorists (Sue Morgan; Alun Munslow), who were inspired by the linguistic turn philosophies, most notably the pragmatic philosophy of Richard Rorty, and consider their implications for the question at hand.<br>
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A strong form of historicism has no need of denying that whatever anyone ever wrote (including the historian herself) could come from outside the very process the concept of historicism entails, an argument that is easily derived for historicism from e.g. Rorty's <i>Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity</i> (1989). Jenkins's idea that the historian has all the power to make history whatever one wills history to be has to be understood in this context. The criticism implied in Day's discussion of Gadamer's hermeneutics is consequently analogous to the criticism of relativism levied upon Rorty, a notion that Day himself finds to miss the point. (Day, 222-225) An antirepresentationalist attitude (like that of Rorty's) can co-exist quite benignly with a number of philosophical notions, including ontological realism; Putnam's term “pragmatic realism” was also approved by Rorty. For even if we accept that there cannot be “a final, self-evident or indubitable set of truths about any text or other utterance whatsoever” (Skinner, 121), we still have to perceive our linguistic game as a two-way street that not only regulates our choices but also provides us conceptual and intellectual leeway to challenge the rules of the game—in Skinner's words, the “language constitutes a resource as well as a constraint”, which implies that “to the extent that our social world is constituted by our concepts, any successful alteration in the use of a concept will at the same time constitute a change in our social world.” (Skinner, 117-118) Even in the strong form of historicism there is always the interplay between the subject and the object, and no one interpretation is ever an inevitable one.<br>
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Such deliberations allow us, finally, to reach some (tentative as well as temporary, as they always were) conclusions on Irenaeus's handling of the matter of four zones/winds/forms of the ζῷα/religious works. Conscious of my own situation at a particular point in space and time as I write down this very paragraph (in reality of the current academic practices, of course, I actually edit this paragraph for the fifth time in an effort to make it say something sensible), I perceive the argument inadequate. But this judgment pertains only to my own understanding of the manner of good argumentation, which makes it almost tautologic in character—I have no reasons to expect Irenaeus to agree with me, and I do not believe he would have done so. In his mind—a further judgment I have arrived at by reading other sources from the Antiquity—the numeric game of like-equals-likeness is a commonplace occurrence. From my own point of view, such tendency could be conceptualized as a form of magical thinking, following decades of work in the field of cognitive psychology. From Irenaeus's point of view (my judgment, as always) the conceptualization of magic and thinking related to it is something quite different. Did Irenaeus, then, possess an alternative scheme of rationality within which he operated?
<blockquote><b>No</b>, I would answer from a (naturalistic) biological standpoint: there has not been any fundamental changes in the human brain during a period of mere eighteen hundred years, and the newly-born Irenaeus—had he be taken to our time with a time machine—would have grown up to be indistinguishable from all the rest of us.</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>Yes</b>, I would answer from Green's cultural history standpoint: it would be ludicrous to expect Irenaeus to perceive his reasoning as inadequate if his contemporaries were all good with it and, in fact, employed similar logical structures in their own writings.</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>No</b>, from Day's criticism-of-historicism -standpoint: we simply cannot let go of our conceptual faculties in order to save an ancient author from our judgment of inadequacy of reasoning; if it would not pass our standards, it should not pass our standards (circularity of reasoning notwithstanding).</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>Yes</b>, from the strong historicism standpoint: the question of whether we in the historicist explanation let go of our conceptual faculties in favour of some other is stated from a privileged position that our strong historicism does not even acknowledge; though we could, depending on other details, also answer no to the question from strong historicism standpoint.</blockquote>
I could go on and keep changing my point of view (within my intellectual capacity, but that goes without saying) for a long time. Clearly, then, Skinner's favoured quote of James Tully, that “the pen can be a mighty sword”, is accurate. (Skinner, 118) If, however, by simply adjusting my point of view I can arrive at different conclusions as readily as I think I have done, a number of conclusions suggest themselves to me (no doubt because of my situation at a particular point in space and time, but that, too, goes without saying). First, that I have neglected to refine the concept of rationality with enough precision, and consequently with loose concepts I arrive at loose conclusions. Second, that the distinction between deciding whether Irenaeus is reasoning in an irrational manner or fit to a different scheme of rationality could be more pertaining to the historian's sense of aesthetics than to any more consequential issue; the more important decision would pertain to consistency, that we do not make Irenaeus a special case in either direction. Third, that even if Irenaeus is contextualized as functioning within an alternative scheme of rationality, none of my contemporaries would have a chance to borrow his argumentative strategy as such; even if in certain religious circles Irenaeus's argument is accepted (implicitly) on one hand for the number four pertaining to those religious works it claims to pertain to, never have I seen Irenaeus's actual reasons discussed in a modern setting. Fourth, that even if Irenaeus is described as having had a fit of irrationality just before he decided to argue for four-like-to-likeness, it would be ludicrous to make him answer to our ideas of sound argumentation, for which he did not have access to (living some eighteen hundred years too early); doing so would be akin to fishing from a barrel, an activity that tends to make the perpetrator look quite silly indeed.<br>
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Now, if such conclusions do not evince the same kind of fragmentation the contents of the above-referenced works of Green, Day, and Skinner evince of the historian's job that cannot be described neatly (it is all over the place, with many, many more forms than those of the ζῷα with their mere four appearances), then my job may (or may not?) have been well done.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-49552466036999237092015-08-19T14:46:00.000+03:002015-08-19T14:46:16.398+03:00Historicizing Donald R. Kelley and the Uses of History: An Essay Review of Fortunes of History (YUP, 2003) & Frontiers of History (YUP, 2006)<b>Historicizing Donald R. Kelley and the Uses of History: An Essay Review of Fortunes of History (YUP, 2003) & Frontiers of History (YUP, 2006)</b><br />
By Timo S. Paananen (University of Helsinki)<br />
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Note: PDF-version of this essay can be found at <a href="http://helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen">http://helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen</a><br />
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Donald R. Kelley, <i>Fortunes of History: Historical Inquiry from Herder to Huizinga</i> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)<br />
Donald R. Kelley, <i>Frontiers of History: Historical Inquiry in the Twentieth Century</i> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)<br />
<blockquote>For the rest of the essay, references to the pages of <i>Fortunes of History</i> will be preceded by I, while references to the pages of <i>Frontiers of History</i> will be preceded by II.</blockquote>
The author of the above works is regularly described as “a leading intellectual historian of our day” and with other glowing endorsements (e.g. P. Michelson's review in <i>Fides et Historia</i>), but I also received another gentle word of warning, that “Kelley's treatises are felt to be a bit dry and tedious by many.” Though I eventually came to appreciate the merits of Kelley's profound analysis, the latter is hardly an unjustified definement of Kelley's erudite style of writing. The apt motto for <i>Fortunes of History</i> comes from Lord Acton, the celebrated British historian of the XIX CE, with this self-serving roundabout: “The great point is the history of history.” When Kelley then reaches Acton in his (mostly) chronological survey around the 250-page mark, it is hardly surprising that his description of the Englishman's “German Schools of History” (1886) somehow fits word for word for Kelley's own contribution:
<blockquote>A marvel of scholarship. Cryptic, allusive, aphoristic, judgmental, hyperbolic, compulsively driven by name-dropping. (I.252)</blockquote>
I feel no shame in confessing that on occasion—in the middle of frenzied two dozens of multivolume French national histories by as many French historians during the XIX CE, for instance—I had a hard time keeping hold of the threads of thought Kelley made me run through. Furthermore, I had trouble coming to terms with Kelley's own point of view. Only at the very end of <i>Frontiers of History</i> did he offer a most enlightening biographical statement of faith (so to speak), from his becoming an “early devotee” of the linguistic turn—though he self-admittedly never let go of “authorial point of view” (II.214)—to his ultimate grievances with cyclical “renewals” of history. Finally, I got his less than discreet judgments of (yet another) “new history” by the (yet another) new generation of historians: Kelley is, in short, fed up with claims of novelty. (II.211) Even in his discussion of the supposedly radical and groundbreaking new philosophy of history (of Frank Ankersmit et al) at the end of the XX CE, he prefers to simply cite Nancy Partner's sigh of “Is there anything new here?” (II.194)<br />
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Indeed, there is nothing to wrong Kelley with here. In the history of historiography things have been so bad that the words “new history” themselves have been used (in various languages) more than half a dozen times: <i>Die Neue Geschichte</i> of the late XIX CE German historians (I.304-310); <i>The New History</i> of the early XX CE American historians (I.310-317); <i>La Nouvelle Histoire</i> of the early XX CE French historians (I.317-322); all these three which were “increasingly supplanted by still newer so-called 'new histories'” towards the WW2 (II.136); Fernand Braudel's “new history” after the WW2 (II.140); all sorts of “new histories” beginning from the 1960s, including “new cultural history”, “new historicism”, and “new philosophy of history” (II.191-194).<br />
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Contrary to my initial confusion which lasted almost all the way to the end of <i>Frontiers of History</i>, Kelley does accept the critical postmodern point of view—that narrative only comes out of a certain “sense of tradition”. (II.214) In <i>Fortunes of History</i> this sentiment is expressed in relation to the language-medium:
<blockquote>Language and its conventions are always intermediaries between historical inquiry and historical expression. There is no access to 'what really happened,' except by way of what witnesses (first-, second-, or third-hand) said happened; and even so, the leap to larger patterns of explanation or interpretation can be made only with the assistance of the resources of language. (I.341)</blockquote>
More personal account of the above musings on the philosophy of language can be found as part of his biographical notions:
<blockquote>I never believed that the historian can be an omniscient observer, that is, can, under pretense of avoiding bias or prejudice and finally achieving 'objectivity,' escape his or her cultural situation and take the view from a distant star, except perhaps philosophically, metaphorically, conjecturally, or for pedagogical purposes; and for the history of historical inquiry I prefer to avoid this fallacy. As with Joycean narrative and the implications of hermeneutics, historical 'objectivity' can be approached only by multiplying particular 'points of view.' (II.214)</blockquote>
The stumbling block—the source of Kelley's frustration—comes from his understanding that much of postmodern criticism of representation should be self-evident (II.222), for the concept of “historicism” (generally defined as an understanding of the impossibility to draw firm distinctions between the observer and the observed) has been familiar to European historians for at least 200 years. (II.226) No wonder that from this point of view, claims of novelty by (yet another) new generation of historians becomes (yet another) preposterous reinventment of the same old wheel of old. (II.214)<br />
<br />
For Kelley these ideas have little to do with “relativism, skepticism, or postmodernism”, as they simply exhibit an “admission of intellectual humility”. (II.235-236) Yet the sum total of such notions, from my perspective, would readily place Kelley somewhere between Keith Jenkins and Susan Stanford Friedman, i.e. should he repeat everything above and go on to self-assert himself as post-<i>pick-your-ism</i>, no one would raise an eyebrow. Despite his occasional distancing of himself from the latest “new history” of the latest generation of historians (I.xi), Kelley remains deeply affected by the insights of postmodern epistemology, and, in fact, confesses as much: “If I were a philosopher, I would probably admit the charge and welcome the consequences: if this be Relativism, then make the most of it.” (II.241)<br />
<br />
With these thoughts on the framework of Kelley's historiography, let us begin with few points on the beginning of his trilogy on history of history, <i>Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder</i> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), before closing in on the second and third installments. As is evident from the subtitle of the treatise, the first one starts with the so-called “father of history” (Herodotus, V BCE), juxtaposing him with another ancient historian, Thucydides. Coming from the perspective of the study of Ancient History, the distinction between Herodotus and Thucydides is well-known to me—the former embodies anecdotal tellings of the mysterious past or cultural history perspective, the latter the logic of our near history happenstances or political history perspective—and <i>Faces of History</i> puts this differentiation down as a model for analysing subsequent historiographical writings. With <i>Fortunes of History</i> we cut straight to Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), and end up at the beginning of the third millennium at the end of <i>Frontiers of History</i>. The post-Enlightenment developments in historiography stir the telling from mere two faces to a panoply of the “Herodoto-Thucydido-Polybio-Livio-Eusebian tradition” (II.126), in other words a Eurocentric take on national/confessional/universal history (Livy/Eusebius/Polybius) to supplement the earlier divisions between Herodotus and Thucydides.<br />
<br />
Since above I have already spent considerable time to discuss Kelley's seasoned take on the philosophy of the history of history, the latter half of the present essay will consider the foremost question on my mind at the time of reading: what were the uses of history in the history of Western historiography, i.e. how did historians justify things they happened to be doing during the last three-hundred-or-so years? There is, sure enough, a clear biographical reason for this particular question to be personally relevant at this time; part of the reason is Beverley Southgate's <i>Why Bother with History?</i> (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000) I happened to be reading on the side, an interesting work I will likely come back to at some later point. The discussion of Kelley's is generally divided on geographical lines (most of the time these are the German, French, and the English), indicative of his self-asserted Eurocentricism. (I.xii) For the present essay I am compelled to paint out with more general century-spanning tendencies, and though I lose a lot of Kelley's national idiosyncracies, I also dodge the occasional disjointedness and repetition of his composition.<br />
<br />
What is the best use to put history to? On an abstract level, as Kelley summarizes the question, “the answer from the time of Cicero to that of Bodin to that of Collingwood, who all cite Herodotus, being usually some sort of human self-knowledge.” (I.340) More specifically, the Roman and Greek historians cited ideas of pedagogical and philosophical nature (II.21), though often in a vague manner, such as Cicero's enumeration of the merits of history including “the witness of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the mistress of life, and the messenger of antiquity” as history's proper place. (I.10)<br />
<br />
The Renaissance discipline of the art of history (<i>historische Kunst</i>) became the science of history (<i>Geschichtswissenschaft</i>) as we begin with the XVIII CE at the beginning of <i>Fortunes of History</i>. (I.10) By the end of that century the study of history had both disciplinal and institutional base by the European universities. (I.9-13) Kelley points out two genres of history at the time: the dominant form was <i>universal history</i>, though “in a period of state-building and nation-inventing universal history was not universalist but rather national” in character (I.15). The other perspective was <i>cultural history</i> (the word <i>Kultur</i> having replaced <i>Geist</i> in reference to society), in which the God-created cosmos of universal history became the man-created social order. (I.20-25) The French Revolution of 1789 is singled out as one of the major events of the XVIII CE that put historians to deliberate the “regime-toppling, society-shattering, and nation-creating” events of the times with renewed self-reflection. (I.28)<br />
<br />
“History”, wrote Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706-1757), “is a well-grounded account of past events”. (I.10) Such sentiments, as Kelley keeps on reminding the reader, are not to be confused with the “vulgar Rankean” understanding of historical inquiry. (II.87) Most historians, beginning from the Ancients, always had “a certain sense of historical and moral relativism” (II.21), and in the XVIII CE, for one example, F. W. Bierling can be quoted to the effect that “The truths of history cannot easily be compared with those of natural scientists”. (I.12) Instead of claiming to present rational or logical interpretations of past events, the <i>ars hermeneutica</i> or the hermeneutical tradition strived for to present a human understanding of them. A choice quote from Johann Martin Chladenius (1710-1759) illustrates the distinction:
<blockquote>It is one thing to understand a proposition in itself … another to understand it as being presented and asserted by someone. (I.12)</blockquote>
On the other hand, such relativizing tendencies cannot be taken too far in the opposite direction, either. The XVIII CE study of history, “poised between erudition and philosophy” as Kelley puts it (I.9), could also be constructed as a means to find “the predetermined structures and stages of human experience in time” (in the words of Voltaire; I.50); a “system” which promised to provide insight not only to the past of the human reason but also to the “social perfection” that would inevitably grow out of it. (I.35-36) As far as the first half of XIX CE Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) could follow this trajectory and even claim to come out of his close reading of history with “the restoration in man of the lost image of God”. (I.52)<br />
<br />
Running on along the Enlightenment trajectory the XIX CE became a century of vast geographical and temporal expansions in historiography. The idea of prehistory (<i>Vorgeschichte</i>) stretched the playing field past the written (Eurocentric) history, with fossil remains and new historical sources of Asian (China, India) and Near Eastern origin (Assyria, Egypt; including details such as the decipherment of cuineaform and hieroglyphics) bringing strongly forth “the notion of a humanity older than Adam”, as Kelley puts it. (I.255) New disciplines emerged (archaeology, anthropology, assyriology, egyptology, etc.), and the institutional base of history as well as the historians' public image was enhanced with “not only the publication of books but also university chairs, public education on lower levels, control of journals, founding of societies and international 'schools' and networks”. (I.344) Worth mentioning is a certain “orientalist enthusiasm” that gripped the European minds during the XIX CE, as Western civilization was perceived to have built itself on the background of the Eastern one (I.62)<br />
<br />
The political dimension of historiography remained, and national tendencies of the XIX CE produced multivolume national histories for practically every European major and minor power. (I.128-132) An important theoretical shift changed many historians' primary focus from the deeds of self-sufficient individuals to an understanding of the societal and political forces that shaped them—from “great men” to social forces, or with a more poetic description (in Kelley's words), “the kings had not departed, but they were overshadowed by <i>Nation</i> and the <i>Volk</i>.” (I.178) One interesting detail of the late XIX CE was the renewed challenge of cultural history. There is a certain overlapping between it and the more ancient universal history, and the cultural perspective could (seemingly) at the same time be both a progressive endeavour with candid acceptance of new academic disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, and a conservative stoppage that went with biblical chronology even into the XX CE. In the German-speaking circles there was a certain methodological conflict (<i>Methodenstreit</i>) brought forth by cultural history that had the most surprising division between the participants: cultural history was practiced in non-academic milieus (e.g. among the teachers of history in second-degree educational institutes) while the universities of Rankean orientation wanted nothing to do with it. (I.264-310)<br />
<br />
For many historians of the time (but especially the English), there was a desire to write history as an artistic (literary) expression. Perhaps the most prominent example of this phenomenon was Walter Scott (1771-1832)—though Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) might have sold even more books—whose idea of historical writing was “not moral instruction but the resurrection of bygone life” (in Kelley's words; I.103). It is perhaps notable, that of all the self-described uses of history during the XIX CE this must be the least pretentious. Many others had a lot more pathos ingrained within: Friedrich Schlegel held that “without a knowledge of the mighty past the philosophy of life … will never be able to carry us beyond the limits of the present, out of the narrow circle of our customs and immediate associations.” (I.112) The French historian Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) saw (with the nationalistic attitude of the times) that the historian's task was “not only to tell the truths of history but also to interpret their moral meanings and to give instruction not only to his students but to all the French people” (in Kelley's words; I.164). Even Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), though his sensitivity with handling the problem of <i>Sehe-Punkt</i> (point of view)—which he considered an essential part of the art of history—is commendable, could conclude “the intellectual necessity of studying ancient history … unless we intend to revert to barbarism.” (I.194)<br />
<br />
I have so far referred once to “vulgar Rankean” understanding of history (though it is Kelley's own words), and that bears an explanation here. Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) still remains the ideal example of German historiography, whose name functions as a shorthand for the (brief) early XX CE insistence on “historical objectivity” and historian's “impartiality”, based on Ranke's motto, <i>wie es eigentlich gewesen</i>, from his <i>Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514</i> (1824). The proverbial “how it really was” as a historian's task, in Kelley's interpretation, is more meaningful than Ranke's shorthand usage gives him credit for. To a degree, I do believe Kelley has taught me to approach the sentence less casually than I have personally thrown it around. When we grant to Ranke that it is not “an epistemological credo” but more of “a heuristic premise” (I.248), that sets its sights on “the implied distinction … between writings designed for public consumption, or outright propaganda, and those designed for policy and decision making, created by observers who had no ostensible motive to distort the truth and every reason to produce accurate intelligence for political use”, <i>and</i> we furthermore grant that “objectivity” (with this differentiation) functions “at least on this practical level”, then we can accept it as a signal for accentuation of source criticism–for distinguishing between private archival material not originally produced for outside consumption, and public, even propagandistic official statutes and the like. (I.134-135) Perhaps even more important than the source critical aspect, for the latter day historian, is the veneration of the archive, and such was in any case Lord Acton's (1834-1902) take on Ranke:
<blockquote>By going on from book to manuscript and from library to archive … we exchange doubt for certainty, and become our own masters. (I.248)</blockquote>
Looking back at the XIX CE usage of history, George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962) had two perspectives to share in 1913. First, the past century's “historical science” had sought “causes and effects in human affairs”; second, “historical art” had aspired “to remove prejudices, breed enthusiasm, and bring pleasure.” (I.240) Such distinctions became hard to maintain in the XX CE, in which the one defining characteristics of historiography was fragmentation. Even half a century before Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) gave their voices for the postmodern condition, the theoretics of the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) combined with the older <i>ars hermeneutica</i> compelled historians to seriously consider the “sort of relativity that required the observer and interpreter to take part in the field of exploration.” (II.8) The notions of plurality and “cultural circles” came to replace “the old universal, evolutionary, diffusionist (ultimately Christian) narrative.” (II.64) At the same time the institutional basis of history continued to expand, supporting “pedagogy, research, publication, professional organization, and international exchange … through journals, source collections, monographs, textbooks, university chairs, academic and professional associations, and international conferences.” (II.60)<br />
<br />
For the European historians the Great War (1914-1918) became a time of fading optimism, and gave space for resharpened “national sentiments”, which is turn became food for later historiography in the revisionist manner (and its critique, of course); many a historian became ashamed of their “violations of professional ideals” (in Kelley's words) during the war time, and a certain renewal of impartially-interpretated Ranke (contrary to Ranke's own ideas, as interpreted by Kelley) and “historical objectivity” was the result. (II.47-53, 125-135) This development, which Kelley summarises as the formation of the philosophy of history as its own, separate discipline (or genre), approached the sources largely in their secondary forms (another detail contrary to Ranke's practice), and held them to be merely repositories of “determinable 'facts' that could be known and subjected to logical or literary arrangement in the interests of solving a problem or telling a story.” (II.72)<br />
<br />
Many historians could remain optimistic even in the aftermath of the Great War. Kurt Breysig (1866-1940) went in search for historical “laws” (II.77), and Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) explicated these to be “intelligible and explicable patterns and trajectories” (in Kelley's words) that could even be used to predict the future. (II.81) Marc Bloch (1886-1944), in his <i>Apologie pour l'histoire ou Métier d'historien</i> (1949, published posthumously), argued that the historian was to look for causes, which “cannot be assumed”, for “They are to be looked for.” (II.138) Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) maintained the old Herodotean idea of “self-understanding” as history's purpose (II.81), put more poetically by Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) as an act to “give meaning” to a meaningless process. (II.76) Historians of the more pessimistic orientation, such as Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), were sceptical of such high-flown idealism. (II.82-88) Another tool for the historian's trade was Marxism, which in Kelley's interpretation “had its methodological uses”, though Marxist historians were “not to change the world but to interpret it.” (II.73)<br />
<br />
The most evident appearance of the XX CE fragmentation was the post-WW2 linguistic turn (or postmodern shift, as some would call it); a ceasement of efforts to produce that final grand narrative especially of Western history, and the change of perspective from “the great questions about the human condition” to local, particular stories and personalized “points of view” (II.136, 158)—a change from “doctrines and schools to reception … from authors to readers.” (II.226) At the same time the academic attitudes expanded farther than ever before, and the interdisciplinary take on historiography, as Kelley summarises, “produced [new] sub-disciplines, with attendant courses, monographs, textbooks, conferences, and journals devoted not only to the histories of mini-national traditions but also to the history of science, literature, art, religion, women, children, psychohistory, and 'the history of everything' (l’histoire de tout).” (II.140) The latter is a curious phenomenon in the time of already falling grand narratives, driven forward by l'École des Annales (French historical school) at the time of Fernand Braudel (1902-1985), its aim to produce <i>the</i> history “that was conceived not only as 'grand' but even, potentially, as 'total'.” (II.140-141) The confused picture of the late XX CE historiography further requires the mention of all the old topics and methodological choices that were revisited time after time:
<blockquote>World history loomed larger than ever, but the quest for national identity continued to occupy the center of historiographical attention in all the Western countries, and post-colonial ethnocentricity remained in force despite rhetorical efforts to evade or to deny it. (II.158)</blockquote>
Some of the highlights of this latest, still ongoing period of history studies include the introduction of a variant of the old cultural history, “historical social science” by Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931-2014) just after the WW2 (II.171), and its still more recent incarnation, “new cultural history” (so Lynn Avery Hunt in 1989), which sought to fall back to anthropological (or language model) interpretation following the works of Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002). (II.191-192) Both the new cultural historians and another contemporary movement of the new historicism utilized the concept of “mimetic or critical representation”, which—in Kelley's account—links them to “an endless, a bottomless, and a foundationless process, carried out in a linguistic medium with all of its prejudices and forestructures”, unable and unwilling to “link cause and effect in any rigorous way”. (II.193) Kelley also distinguishes the former from the new philosophy of history of theorists such as Frank Ankersmit, Robert Berkhofer (1931-2012), and Allan Megill, who practice history as a form of rhetorics and embrace the possibility of multiple voices and points of view—“a Rashomon or Joycean model of historical narrative”, to quote Kelley's apt description. (II.193-194)<br />
<br />
At the end of the previous millennium, then, the playing field of academic historians seems to have been as divided as in many other disciplines, and some of historians' voices Kelley quotes come out as much frustrated as many contemporary philosophers' do. Horst Walter Blanke, and Georg Iggers also, leave Kelley with the impression of yearning for a “more intellectualized 'Ranke-renaissance,' this time chastened by the experience of atrocities [of the two World Wars]” (II.176), though others remain content with what Kelley calls “the hermeneutical predicament”, i.e. the notion that human understanding and meaning cannot become separated from “the cultural limits of language … never a transparent medium but rather inseparable from the 'reality'.” (II.193)<br />
<br />
As for Kelley's own deliberations on the subject, he notes at the beginning of <i>Fortunes of History</i> the old justification for the study of history <i>for its own sake</i> (“a lowly job, perhaps, but someone has to do it”), though he seems to distance himself with the rhetorical “doesn't he or she?” placed in parentheses. (I.xiii) A sense of the past tradition of (Western) historiography is present in his later remark on the “first motives of historical study”, that of “the honoring and the memorializing of ancestors and their predicaments, and in professional terms it is essential at least not to forget the two and a half millenia tradition on which our practice still rests.” (II.195)<br />
<br />
Yet the most potent, and the most profound meditation on the meaning of historical studies is Kelley's summary of all the justifications of the past historians, and his return to the Greek (Herodotean) ideal of self-knowledge, its presence enriched by gentle irony:
<blockquote>Regardless of the grandiose claims of scholars across the ages that history teaches us how to live, that it reveals God’s plan, that it shows unending Progress to be the secular version of this plan, that it leads to a comprehensive understanding of humanity, that it affords a way to predict the future, that it liberates us from the past, that it represents the 'history of liberty,' or that it is equivalent to modern consciousness, modern historians have hardly changed the rhetoric of history since Cicero’s extravagant but vague pedagogical formulas, which were still being repeated in the early years of the twentieth century. Perhaps the best that can be said of the value of history is still that it offers not only learning relevant to general culture and perhaps to professional life but also one route to what used to be called wisdom. (I.344)</blockquote>
And the contents of that “used to be called wisdom”? Given that no one would become surprised if Kelley one day declared to label his understanding of historiographical processes as “postmodern” (as I discussed at the beginning of the present essay), his answer to the pertinent question of “what is history?” becomes a paradox of hands-on approach of the archive-loving Ranke contrasted to mere theoreticians not willing to become covered in (archival) dust. (cf. with II.179) “History,” proclaims Kelley, “is what historians do” (II.238), or perhaps even “History is as historian does”, to echo another contemporary (albeit fictional) intellectual.<br />
<br />
The future, much like the past, ever remains “a foreign country”, and Kelley offers no signposts as to the newest turn of the historian's table, except to remind his readers of “that powerful reagent which people call historicism”. (II.236) In practice—as has happened time and again—the foreignness of the past and future will become “placed in perspective, set in linguistic contexts, domesticated philosophically, absorbed in historical narratives”, and, finally and irreversibly in language reminiscent of Qoheleth, “forgotten in the oblivion that grows along with the information overload which floods in now at a logarithmic pace” (II.236); in one word, <i>historicized</i>. Cue in the present essay—a modicum of historicizing of Kelley—before the oblivion.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-25634882171901424532015-08-17T14:18:00.000+03:002015-08-17T14:18:31.893+03:00My Academia.edu Profile Is the New OrangeJust a brief note:<br />
<br />
After consideration, I have deemed Academia.edu a useful networking platform for hosting some of my academic papers.<br />
<br />
Link to my Academia.edu profile: <a href="http://helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen">helsinki.academia.edu/timospaananen</a><br />
<br />
Also, <i>Salainen evankelista</i> is now orange, and has been minimalized to the extent of its author's preference (i.e. text, almost exclusively).Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-36212649133672590452012-11-30T18:36:00.001+02:002012-11-30T18:45:13.438+02:00RBB12: Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries<i>Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in
the First Five Centuries</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(Eerdmans, 2009) is a monumental monograph by Everett Ferguson, one
in which the author has “attempted to be as complete as possible on
the first three centuries” and “progressively less so on the
fourth and fifth centuries (where the sources are more abundant) yet
still … full enough for the work to be representatively
comprehensive.” (p. xix) In practice, this decision results in
almost thousand pages of detailed study of early Christian literature
about baptism and, most importantly, a chance for the reader to get
familiar with the primary sources and form one's own opinion about
the matter. The trajectory Ferguson himself puts forward sees early
Christian baptism rooted in its Jewish antecedents (cue in John the
Baptist here as a mediator), and as a direct consequence of the
historical fact of Jesus' own baptism and even his command to baptize
in the </span><i>Gospel of Matthew</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
28.19. The parallels between early Christian baptism and pagan
washings are deemed less important—though explicated by some early
Christians (such as Justin) the reasons for the drawn parallels,
according to Ferguson, were foremost apologetical.</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;">This is the first point of
disagreement between my own reading of the sources and Ferguson's. He
himself notes that Judaism of I CE “saw considerable influence from
Hellenism” (p. 60) and, consequently, I would be less hasty to
downplay the interaction between the Greco-Roman washings and
emergent Christianity, in contrast with the various purification
rites in Judaism. Bearing in mind Simo Parpola's maxim that
(paraphrasing) “in the grand scheme of history, all the
Mediterranean religious traditions appear as variants of each other”,
the fact that most early Christians adopted a water-based rite of
initiation is contextualized most effectively when we keep in mind
that every other religious tradition of the day had water-based rites
of their own. After all, as Ferguson notes, “The washings [in the
religious activities of Greeks and Romans] were so common that they
were taken for granted and seldom commented on, and where they were
mentioned, often little or no detail was given as to how one
performed the ablutions” (p. 25). To be sure, there were
differences. Most pagan washings were preliminary purifications in
nature, and the idea of initiation into a cult by plunging in water
is harder to come by: the only likely contenders were the cult of
Cotyto in which the worshippers were known as the </span><i>Baptae</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
and the Jewish practice of proselyte baptising, though both points
are debatable.</span>
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
Another point of divergence in our
readings appears when Ferguson considers that he has found unity in
the early Christian thought-world, namely, that baptism refers almost
unanimously to the remission of sins and the receiving of the Holy
Spirit. As far as I can see, however, this “unity” works only on
a rather abstract level i.e. even if some early Christians used these
same words (or same conceptual ideas), the use for which they put
them varied considerably. For one example, though many employed the
idea of forgiveness of sins, some considered that baptism forgave
only those sins that were committed before this ritual act (and, like
Hermas, allowed only one chance of repentance), while others
disagreed. As I see it, the diversity of early Christian thought
regarding baptism becomes diminished in Ferguson's treatise because
of its format of taking each Christian (writing) on its own under
scrutiny, whereas a thematic layout (like Räisänen's) exposes the
diversity much more forcefully.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<br />
But enough of Ferguson for, as I stated
in the beginning, this is a monograph that gives the reader a chance
to follow the author's line of thought by its extensive use of
primary sources themselves. As such, it is an essential tool for
dealing with questions regarding early Christian baptism—and what
does baptism has to do with the study of <i>Clement's Letter to
Theodore</i> again?</div>
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;">As is now well known, Morton
Smith did not initially consider Clement's letter or the story of
Jesus and the youth as a baptismal text, but this interpretation was
suggested to him by Cyril C. Richardson at the beginning of the
1960s—Richardson himself retracted this notion by the time of
Smith's </span><i>Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(1973). For the most recent debate, nevertheless, a baptismal reading
of </span><i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
has been most useful for Peter Jeffery, as it allows him to argue
that the letter does not fit in the context of its purported time
frame, namely that the “great mysteries” as a reference to
Paschal baptism and the liturgical details in the story of Jesus and
the young man are anachronistic for II CE (</span><i>The Secret
Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness
in a Biblical Forgery</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, 2007</span><i>).</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
Scott G. Brown has countered these notions by moving the Markan
extract to I CE (as part of the </span><i>Gospel of Mark</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)
and detaching “great mysteries” from baptism by citing Clementine
passages where the two are kept separated (“An Essay Review of The
Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled”, 2007). Subsequent writings from
both authors have continued to hammer on along these same lines. In
light of Ferguson's treatise it looks useful to me to consider once
again these two questions: What does Clement mean by “great
mysteries”, and where does the story of Jesus and the young man
really belong?</span><br />
<br />
<i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
speaks of two Markan Gospels. The first one was composed in Rome for
the catechumens, and the second in Alexandria for “those who were
being perfected” and who were also “being initiated into the
great mysteries”. The core question here seems to be whether we
have two levels of catechumens, all of whom are eventually going to
be baptised (Jeffery), or catechumens going to be baptised and other,
already baptised Christians who are continuing their studies into
further esoteric truths regarding God and Christ (Brown). For Brown's
favour we can count the fact that Clement distinguishes baptism from
“greater mysteries” in a number of places, including </span><i>Strom.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
5.11.70.7ff., though it is conceivable (if not plausible) that in
</span><i>Strom.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 5.11.73.2 the
words “the mystery of the seal, in which God is really believed”
may refer to baptism as a mystery. At the same time it has to be
noted that Clement's use of the word </span><i>catechesis</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and related words is somewhat ambiguous. On one hand he thinks that
the new catechumens (νεοκατηχήτος) are “carnal”,
those who are “not yet purified” (</span><i>Paed.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
1.6.36.4), but in another passage the new catechumens are the ones
who receive wisdom teaching (</span><i>Strom.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
6.15.120.1). Then again, in </span><i>Paed.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
1.6.36.1 the “carnal” are “recent catechumens” (νεωστὶ
κατηχουμένους) i.e. those who have just been baptised.
Ferguson suggests that Clement might have used </span><i>catechesis</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
not as a specific technical term but as as a referral to various
stages of instruction on the path to baptism (pp. 315-316). Given the
ambiguousness, Brown's depiction of a postbaptismal “purely
metaphorical initiation” (p. 14 of the “Essay Review”) is
certainly a possibility—examples of early Christians shunning
ritual acts with material components are not exactly hard to come by
(see, for instance, Irenaeus' description in </span><i>Adversus
Haereses</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 1.21.2-3).</span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
Another possibility is for Clement to
have known an actual ritual for those already baptised, advanced
Christians for whom the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> was meant for.
If we step a bit ahead in time, we find from Origen a clear
indication that the Alexandrian <i>catechesis</i> in his time (early
III CE) had two stages:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">Privately they [the
Christians] form one class of those who are taking the lead and are
receiving admission but have not yet received the symbol [σύμβολον]
of complete purification. They form another class of those who
according to their ability are presenting themselves with the purpose
of wanting nothing other than the things approved by Christians.”
(</span><i>Contra Celsum</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 3.51;
translation by E. Ferguson p. 419 in </span><i>Baptism in the Early
Church</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) </span>
</blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
In his <i>Homilies on Joshua</i>,
Origen explicates this distinction further:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">When you are reckoned among
the number of catechumens and have undertaken to submit to the
precepts of the church … you daily devote yourself to hearing the
law of God … But if you also have entered the mystic font of
baptism and in the presence of the priestly and Levitical order have
been instructed by those venerable and magnificent sacraments, which
are known to those who are permitted to know those things, then …
you will enter the land of promise.” (</span><i>Homilies on Joshua</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
4.1; translation by </span>Barbara J. Bruce pp. 52-53 in <i>Origen:
Homilies on Joshua</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
As Ferguson interprets this passage,
“The earlier stage of instruction concentrated on moral matters and simple faith as opposed to idolatry; more advanced instruction had to do with deeper things of doctrine and the sacraments” (p.
420), maintaining further that "as one came nearer the time of baptism, there was revealed the wisdom of divine things, especially the divinity of Christ" (p. 420). There is, however, another intriguing possibility: that Origen
knew two distinct rites of initiation, water baptism (for the simple)
and baptism of the Holy Spirit (for the spiritual), as Joseph Trigg
argued in 1982 (“A Fresh Look at Origen's Understanding of
Baptism”, <i>Studia Patristica</i> 17 (1982): 959-965). Even if
there were no two rites of baptism for Origen (as he criticises other
Christians for doing just that in his <i>Commentary on Ephesians</i>
4.5), the ambiguity in the texts of both Clement and Origen leaves
open the possibility that their version of Christianity had <i>distinct</i>
options available for those who wanted to continue onwards from their
baptism.</div>
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;">What, then, of the themes of
death and resurrection in the story of Jesus and the young man? Are
those not, as Jeffery has argued, anachronistic baptismal motives for
II CE? Since I have not really decided above to what Clement refers
to by his “great mysteries”, I will for the argument's sake
assume that Jeffery is about right and the story of Jesus and the
young man was used in the ritual of baptism (or some kind of “second
baptism” for advanced Christians). The challenge of anachronism,
however, largely disappears because of two things. First, I find
there is a categorical confusion between the story of Jesus and the
young man as such and Clement's use of the story. In most cases I
prefer the more straight-forward theoretical models, and for reading
texts I quite like Richard Rorty's notion that all anybody can ever
do with texts is use them. Case in point in early Christianity is
Paul, who illustrates in his </span><i>Epistle to the Romans</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
how someone can interpret a passage as a complete opposite compared
to its meaning (</span><i>Romans</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
10.8; “meaning”, obviously, refers here to the meaning an average
historian would assign to the original passage in the </span><i>Book
of Deuteronomy</i><span style="font-style: normal;">). The proper
question to ask, consequently, is not what the </span><i>Mystic
Gospel of Mark</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> says but what use
Clement made of the </span><i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
i.e. in the end every text is capable of depicting only (or up to)
what its reader decides to read is as depicting. As </span><i>Clement's
Letter to Theodore</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> breaks off
just as Clement was about to explain his take on the story, we do not
really know just how tortured Clement's exegesis might have been,
provided he even wanted to make this story fit for a baptismal
setting (which we, to reiterate, do not know).</span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
Second, even if we still assume for
argument's sake that Clement read the story of Jesus and the youth as
fit for baptism with all its death and resurrection imagery, how much
of a problem does that really pose? Origen, in any case, associated
baptism with being buried with Christ in his <i>Commentary on Matthew</i>
15.23, and even more so in his <i>Commentary on Romans</i> 5.8.2-13
(see Ferguson, pp. 410-417, for numerous other examples). Tertuallian
notes that the Pasch is the best time for baptism along with the
Pentecost (<i>On Baptism</i> 19.1-2), both of which connect
Tertullian's baptism with the death and resurrection of Christ (see
Ferguson, pp. 325-350, for a more in-depth analysis). Both of these
authors are witnesses for III CE practices, but Ferguson raises the
old attribution of the so-called <i>Apostolic Tradition</i> to
Hippolytus (II CE), and argues on the basis of its similarities with
Tertuallian's writings that “the activities described there were
rather widespread in the Christian world” (p. 340), and we might
interpret certain liturgical hints contained therein as referring to
the baptism at the Pasch (Easter) even though the <i>Apostolic
Tradition</i> does not give that placement explicitly.</div>
<span style="font-style: normal;">Now, the above might seem like a
weak justification, and Jeffery might still be right in saying that
no “second-century father” did use the themes of death and
resurrection regarding baptism, but a “second-century father” is
not a hard-coded limit of II CE Christians. One might be inclined to
bring Menander to bear witness here, as according to Irenaeus he
taught that in baptism “his disciples obtain the resurrection by
being baptized into him, and can die no more, but remain in the
possession of immortal youth” (</span><i><i>Adversus Haereses</i></i><span style="font-style: normal;">
1.23.5). But a less ambiguous example—and Alexandrian, no less—is
Theodotus, of whom we know because Clement preserved quotations from
him in his </span><i>Excerpta ex Theodoto</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
He is a prominent example of a II CE Christian who connected death
and resurrection motifs with baptism:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">Therefore baptism is called
death and an end of the old life when we take leave of the evil
principalities, but it is also called life according to Christ, of
which he is sole Lord. But the power of the transformation of him who
is baptised does not concern the body but the soul, for he who comes
up [out of the water] is unchanged. From the moment when he comes up
from baptism he is called a servant of God even by the unclean
spirits”. (</span><i>Excerpta ex Theodoto</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
76.1-77.3)</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: normal;">Later on Clement quotes
Theodotus' ideas on regeneration (one of the baptismal themes he
shares with Clement):</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">He whom the Mother generates
is led into death and into the world, but he whom Christ regenerates
is transferred to life into the Ogdoad. And they die to the world but
live to God, that death may be loosed by death and corruption by
resurrection.” (</span><i>Excerpta ex Theodoto</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
80.1-2)</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-style: normal;">Similar traditions (in the
Valentinian trajectory) continue in the <i>Gospel of Philip</i> as well (as
discussed by Ferguson on p. 287). Jeffery has, in fact, commented on
these passages in his second reply to Brown's “Essay Review”
(<a href="http://music.princeton.edu/~jeffery/Review%20of%20Biblical%20Literature-Jeffery%20reply%20to%20Brown.pdf">http://music.princeton.edu/~jeffery/Review%20of%20Biblical%20Literature-Jeffery%20reply%20to%20Brown.pdf</a>)
by noting that they depict “an abstract, astrological victory of
life over death
” where they present an “escape from the physical
world, not burial and
resurrection of the body” (p. 7 n. 27).
While that statement is, of course, quite right, it dismisses
Theodotus' use of death and resurrection imagery too casually.
Theodotus certainly had a different mythological body of beliefs to
colour his Christianity compared to Paul, but he still draws from a
bunch of early Christian conceptions including Paul's “all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death” in </span><i>Rom.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 6.3-5
(and there is no reason why Theodotus would not have known Paul, who
was a favourite among the so-called Gnostic Christians).
Obviously, if Clement were to utilize these same themes the end
result would differ from “an abstract astrological victory”,
which might not fit into Clement's worldview. But no one expects
Theodotus to be of the same mind as Paul and Clement! An analogous
case would be the use of the theme of illumination/enlightenment
that, for instance, both Justin and the author of the </span><i>Trimorphic
Protennoia</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> make use of even
though the end result is, of course, not the same.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;">In summary, the tentative
conclusion I have arrived at this point is that the charges of
anachronisms regarding </span><i>Clement's Letter to Theodore</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
read as a baptismal text are far from indisputable, as the available
data is both voluminous and ambiguous. There are too many unknowns.
Clement might not have been consistent in his use of mystery
language. He might or he might not have read the story of Jesus and
the young man as a baptismal text—we do not know since </span><i>Clement's
Letter to Theodore</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> breaks off
before his exposition. Furthermore, I do not think we can state
categorically that baptism theology of II CE had no use for the
themes of death and resurrection as the excerpts from Theodotus
illustrate. On the whole, we do not even know much about Alexandrian
Christianity in II CE. It is plausible that the scarcity of
information is partly explained by the practice of </span><i>disciplina
arcani</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> that could have been in
effect in the Alexandrian church in both Clement and Origen's time
(for the latter, see Ferguson p. 423).</span>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-77158684564822033772012-11-16T13:00:00.000+02:002012-11-30T18:39:36.044+02:00RBB12: Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice<i>Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice</i> (Princeton University Press, 2000), edited by Richard Valantasis, is a completely different work than what I originally envisaged. Frankly, when I picked this book from a list of eligible treatises I had composed for this little exercise of <i>RBB12</i>, I thought it was a collection of essays focusing on religions of Late Antiquity. Instead, it is a collection of translated religious texts from Late Antiquity (from III CE onwards). The book holds 44 different texts (or parts of texts) by 36 different scholars. Not that I would have anything to complain about: previously I had read less than half of dozen of them, so most of the time I was simply delighted at the chance for reading about things a little bit later in time than what my PhD work usually entails. For another thing, this is a good place to break off from concentrating on the scholarly framework and deal with primary source material instead. With these thoughts, let me introduce five religious writings from Late Antiquity I found particularly interesting and see how they relate (or not) to Clement of Alexandria and his world of late II CE.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Evagrius Ponticus on Prayer and Anger (pp. 65-81); introduction & translation by Columba Stewart OSB</i></b><br />
<br />
Initially influenced by Origen, later taught by Macarius the Great (the Egyptian), Evagrius Ponticus is remembered as "a systematizer of the spiritual theology of Origenist Egyptian monasticism" (65-66). He explores monastic life in his works <i>Praktikos</i>, <i>Gnostikos</i>, and <i>Kephalaia Gnostica</i>. For Evagrius (d. 399 CE), anger was the hardest passion to get under control in monastic life, but one who masters it (and all the other passions such as gluttony and pride<span class="st">)—</span>which Evagrius calls <i>apatheia</i>, borrowing the old Stoic terminology<span class="st">—</span>can become <i>gnostikos</i> ("one who knows"). Of the aforementioned works, <i>Praktikos</i> gives the instructions for getting these practicalities down, <i>Gnostikos</i> deals with teaching others once this "knowledge" has been attained, and <i>Kephalaia Gnostica</i> instructs with further "hidden realities" available to the <i>gnostikos</i>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"All of the virtues prepare the way of the Knower [<i>gnostikos</i>], but above all is lack of anger. For one who has touched knowledge but is readily moved to anger is like someone who pierces the eyes with an iron pin." (<i>Gnostikos</i> 5, p. 71)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It is shameful for a Knower [<i>gnostikos</i>] to be involved in a dispute, whether as victim or perpetrator. If he is the victim, it means he has not endured; and if he is the perpetrator, it means he has done wrong." (<i>Gnostikos</i> 8, p. 71)</blockquote>
As the Alexandrian tradition taught Evagrius, speaking of "spiritual knowledge" (<i>pneumatikos gnosis</i>) was an approved choice of terminology; from modern perspective it breaks down the categories of orthodox/heretical and mainstream/niche. Or, to put it differently: Was Evagrius a Gnostic? The question is meaningless. Some Christians (including Clement of Alexandria), even in Late Antiquity, could very well continue speaking of <i>gnosis</i> despite the war on knowledge other Christians were waging. Catch phrases such as "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God", spoken by Athanasius (<i>On the Incarnation</i> 54, 3), are naturally interpreted differently by many theologians past and present, but their roots lie in those early Christian ideas that emphasized salvific knowledge in Christ and the transformation of humanity in light of this enlightenment<span class="st">—</span>yet another indication that the clear-cut orthodox/heresy divide remains anachronistic in the face of (early) Christian plurality of thought.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Iamblichus, </i>de Mysteriis<i>, Book I, The </i>de Mysteriis<i> (pp. 489-505); introduction & translation by Peter T. Struck</i></b><br />
<br />
Here we have a treatise on ritual theory by the Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus (d. c. 325 CE), "the case for a practice of ritual acts as part of a philosophical program that aims for spiritual enlightenment" (489), which instantly reminds me of Clement of Alexandria's own philosophical program (but more on this in Scott Brown's article that is coming out as part of <a href="http://www.tonyburke.ca/apocryphicity/2012/11/16/secret-gospel-of-mark-in-debate/"><i>Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?</i></a><span class="st">—a</span> collection of papers from York Christian Apocrypha Symposium last year). Iamblichus supplements the Neoplatonist contemplation of the One with ritual practices he calls "theurgy" because, in his view, intellect alone cannot ascertain unity with the One. Ritual acts that are "inarticulable" and "beyond all thought" (2.11) must accompany the ascetic contemplation for the practitioner to succeed in his endeavour. The ritual theory functions by the principle that binds "everything to everything". <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"[T]he whole cosmos together also is divisible and distributes itself about the single and indivisible light of the gods. But the light is one and entirely the same everywhere, and it is indivisibly present to all things able to participate in it ... It binds all existing things in each other and brings them to each other. It distinguishes by equal measures even things dispersed farthest away, and it causes end points to join to first principles; for example, earth to sky. It works out a single continuity and agreement of everything to everything." (1.9, p. 495) </blockquote>
Further on, Iamblichus fits the ritual acts themselves into this scheme.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Observing these things, then, the art of rituals also uses the correspondences and invocations appropriate to each division and environment." (1.9, p. 496)</blockquote>
And one final passage:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"For the divine in us, which is both One and
intel<i>lectual</i>, or if you wish
"intell<i>igible</i>," is awakened into activity during
prayers, and when it is awakened it strives after what is similar to it
in an exceptional manner and links itself to perfection-in-itself."
(1.15, p. 500)</blockquote>
The above explains how the ritual affects the divine in oneself to match
like-to-like, and using ritual offerings (sacrifice) as an example,
Iamblichus notes that "if some near or distant relationship or likeness exists
[between the offering and the god it is offered to], even this is
sufficient for the connection" (1.15, p. 501).<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Mithras Liturgy and </i>Sepher Ha-Razim<i> (pp. 303-315); introduction & translation by Kimberly B. Stratton</i></b><br />
<br />
Both of these texts are closely related to the genre of ascension texts found within Jewish apocalypticism and the Hermetic corpus. If Iamblichus provides the theoretical ritual framework for the contemplation of the wholly transcendent One, these texts provide the actual means for obtaining it. The magician in the Mithras Liturgy, by special preparations and special knowledge, ascends towards the god and "[l]ike ancient Christians undergoing initiation through baptism, the magician ... is reborn and receives, as a pledge of his new status, a newly fashioned horoscope." (304) <i>Sepher Ha-Razim</i> combines ancient Judaism and worship of Greek deities such as Helios and Aphrodite, and borrows the journey's end, the vision of <i>Merkavah</i> (throne-chariot of God), from the Jewish Hekhalot mysticism. In Stratton's view, the categories of religion and magic become completely blurred with this type of literature (not that these categories were too distinct anywhere else either: as Stratton notes, in Antiquity "much of what we would today label magic fell under the rubric of legitimate science and medicine. Other areas of religious practice, which we might also today designate as magic, such as divination or questioning an oracle, belonged to the highest, most solemn, and respected aspects of ancient religion, including the Delphic oracle, the Jewish temple, and the Roman auspices"; 303).<br />
<br />
One of the distinct characteristics of the Mithras Liturgy is the use of <i>voces mysticae</i> or "special nonsense language" which<span class="st">—</span>even if at some point in the history of the liturgy the words were comprehensible utterances (in another, real language)<span class="st">—</span>have become garbled and even "deliberately cryptic" (307), pieces that help to separate the holy rites from the profane everyday speech. The context for the following passage is the magician being in the middle of heavenly ascent, surrounded by initially hostile forces.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And you shall see the gods looking intently at you and charging at you. So, immediately put your right finger to your mouth and say: "silence, silence, silence, symbol of the eternal living god! Protect me, silence VEKHTHEIR THANMELOU." Thereupon, whistle a long shrill piping sound, after that smack the lips saying: "PROPROPHEGGEI MORIOS PROPHUR PROPHEGGEI NEMETHIRE ARPSENTEN PITEITMI MEOU ENARTH PHURKEKHO PSURIDARIO TUREI PHILBA" and now you shall see the gods looking at you kindly and no longer charging at you, but instead proceeding in their own order of affairs." (556-569; p. 308)</blockquote>
Did Clement of Alexandria has a specific ritual for the "initiation into the great mysteries" (Theod. II.2)? Recently, there has been a lengthy debate between Scott Brown and Peter Jeffery that touches on this subject. In other quarters, scholars like Bentley Layton have argued that there never were distinct rituals of initiation of <i>chrism</i> or <i>bridegroom chamber</i>, principally known to us from the Gospel of Philip; others have disagreed. The question has to be left open for now: depending on how we construct Clement's understanding of the longer Alexandrian Gospel of Mark and make it fit with his other writings, many answers could be provided.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Bishop Avitus of Vienne to His Excellency Ansmundus (pp. 232-234); introduction & translation by Maureen A. Tilley</i></b><br />
<br />
Here we have a letter written by Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (d. c. 519), bishop of Vienne, for which the context has to be deduced from this one text alone. It begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When I was at Lyon, the person for whom you considered me worthy to intercede denied to me the accusation that the whole world was shouting. I am really amazed that after he came to his senses and admitted it, he should have asked you for this favor." (p. 232)</blockquote>
<br />
Furthermore, the recipient is instructed (regarding another man) that "you must censure this man vigorously. Declare my inclication to him." (234)<br />
<br />
Clement, of course, does something similar, instructing Theodore that "one must never give way; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that the secret Gospel [used by the Carpocratians] is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath." (Theod. II.10-12) Such occasional similarities have, naturally, no direct significance on the study of Clement's Letter to Theodore, but they can provide data for our assessment whether particular details should be deemed anachronistic or not.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Laws on Religions from the </i>Theodosian<i> and </i>Justinianic Codes<i> (pp. 263-274); introduction & translation by Matthew C. Mirow and Kathleen A. Kelley</i></b><br />
<br />
For the final example of interesting Late Antiquity texts are these collections of Imperial laws on religion from IV to VI CE. Let us begin with two striking laws:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No one shall have the opportunity to go to the public and debate concerning religion or to discuss it or give any advice about it. If anyone hereafter should think [doing just that] ... he shall be restrained with suitable punishment and fitting penalty." (<i>CTh</i> 16.4.2 [E264], 388 CE; p. 269)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Henceforth let no one, whether he be a member of the clergy, the military, or of any other position whatsoever, try to discuss the Christian faith publicly with a gathered and listening crowd, seeking to cause an uproar and an opportunity for treachery." (<i>CJ</i> 1.2.17, 528 CE; p. 267) </blockquote>
Do we really have here an order not to discuss Christian faith publicly? Many of the statutes here seem to draw a firm line between public space (such as "any place built for the enjoyment of the people", found in <i>CJ</i> 1.3.26) and sacred space (such as "religious buildings" from the same ruling), and rule that different rules apply to each. The context for such laws, as Mirow and Kelley explain, are largely specific situations<span class="st">—</span>the ruling from <i>CTh</i> 16.4.2 stems from a certain Arian revolt in Constantinople in 387 CE, for instance. Nevertheless, one is tempted to ask if this is not an example of a gradual move away from the old Greek ideal of public debate? Does Clement already share this idea when he dismisses public discourse with the Carpocratians and instead favours shunning them?<br />
<br />
Carpocratians are, incidentally, mentioned in <i>CJ</i> 1.5.5, 428 CE along with dozens of other groups from Arians to Valentinians, Borborites, and Manichaeans, all of whom are forbade to gather together.<br />
<br />
And finally, an example of blurred categories I discussed above regarding Evagrius: <i>CTh</i> 16.10.1, 320/21 CE (p. 271) rules the following:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If it should happen that a part of our palace or other public building has been touched by lightning, the custom of the former observance shall be retained and inquiry shall be made of the soothsayers what it may portend. These [portents] shall be carefully collected and recorded and brought to our attention."</blockquote>
For reasons that are left unknown, this is the only piece of traditional religious practice that is allowed to continue, but many others (such as the practice of astrology) are explicitly banned (but note the early date of this ruling!). It is useful, however, to keep in mind that "[t]he extent to which Romans complied with laws is uncertain" (264), as Mirow and Kelly put it, and that the interplay between the perceived "Christianization of the Roman Empire" and the actual nature of Late Antiquity religiosity remains very complex indeed.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-13685724908585666972012-11-02T17:35:00.000+02:002012-11-30T18:39:06.082+02:00RBB12: Heikki Räisänen's The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early ChristiansIn my previous discussion of Helmet Koester I yearned for a new language that would break free of the old canon-centered paradigm for good. Heikki Räisänen's <i>The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians</i> (Fortress Press, 2010) does not provide that new language, but it is nevertheless an impressive final milestone of the old language. What we have here is the end result of a specific program, first
presented in Räisänen's <i>Beyond New Testament Theology</i> (1990), which dictates that early
Christianity should be studied from a conscious "history-of-religions
point of view" (xvii) that is descriptive rather than confessional, an
enterprise that approaches early Christian ideas "as human constructs"
and that utilizes "methods similar to those that it would apply to any
other texts"; in short, an exercise of "fair play". (3)<br />
<br />
Several
consequences follow from these premises. Canonical status should play no
role whatsoever in the study of early Christianity, and the Christians
with different opinions compared to, say, Paul should nevertheless be
taken "just as seriously as Christians as the apostle himself". (4)
Furthermore, there is no reason to shy away from early Christian
diversity which, in Räisänen's estimation, is in any case "so obvious
that unity can be sought only on a rather abstract level" (6), citing Frank
Matera for further emphasis that "the unity of the New Testament is a presupposition
of faith" (p. 423 in Matera's 2007 <i>New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity</i>).<br />
<br />
Before delving further into the framework of this scholarship, let me present some brief summaries of the main points of Räisänen, chapter by chapter:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>What did early Christians believe about the end times?</b> A great number of
things. Following the Jewish precedents of two distinct ideals
("collective earthly expectation" and "individual transcendent
expectation"; 86), early Christians possessed three basic types of
expectation: a millenarian expectation that would take place on the
earth (the historical Jesus and Irenaeus), a transitional (ambiguous)
expectation that gives some space for the earthly expectation but
focuses on the heavenly world that is invisible (Paul, the authors of
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke), and a spiritual expectation (those
Christians with whom Paul argued in 1 Cor 15, the author of the Gospel
of John, and Ignatius as well as Clement of Alexandria). From <i>maranatha</i>
(Paul, the author of the Didache) we move towards Tertullian and the
praying for the delay of parousia (Apol. 39.2). (pp. 79-113)<br />
<br />
<b>What
did early Christians believe about the aftermath of individual's death?</b>
A great number of things. Following the variety of Jewish and
Greco-Roman precedents of post mortem rewards and punishments, early
Christians could envisage the resurrection of only the righteous and,
consequently, annihilation of the unworthy (Paul, the author of the
Didache), or a general resurrection that judged individuals either to
heaven or hell (the author of the Gospel of Matthew, Justin Martyr),
though some like Clement of Alexandria thought the punishment was
temporary only. Another related idea, the resurrection of the flesh, went hand
in hand with earthly expectations (so Justin, Tertullian, and Irenaeus),
but even if the authors of the Gospels of Luke and John emphatized the
bodily resurrection of Jesus, they nevertheless narrated scenes in which
the disciples could not recognize the risen Jesus, implying that his
resurrected body was different (and thus also Paul's "spiritual body" is
not composed of "flesh and blood"). This trajectory was further
developed towards immortality of the soul (Clement of Rome, the author
of the Gospel of Thomas, and the majority of Christians in II CE according to
Polycarp in Phil. 7). (pp. 114-133)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early Christians
believe about the power and function of sin?</b> A great number of things.
Following the "relatively optimistic view of the human condition"
("creatureliness") in the Hebrew Bible (135) that differentiated between
"the righteous" (who "acknowledge their sins and atone for them") and
"the real sinners" (who allow "sins to pile up") (138), early Christians
could continue along those lines (the author of the Gospel of Matthew,
Hermas) or they could posit "sin as an active power" (144) that holds
the whole world "in bondage" (148) simply because it was hard to come up
with another grave enough reason for God to have had to deliver Christ
to death (Paul). Other Christians saw the situation even more dire:
humans are "blinded by ignorance" (150) as the material world was in
itself an error that needed to be corrected, for example, by obtaining
divine revelation (Valentinus, the authors of the Gospel of Mary and the
Hypostasis of the Archons). (pp. 134-153)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early
Christians believe about the requirements for salvation?</b> A great number
of things. Following the Jewish notions of repentance and obedience or
divine grace and human effort working together in salvation (what E. P.
Sanders has labeled "covenantal nomism"), early Christians could
continue along those lines i.e. continue to ascribe importance to deeds
(the historical Jesus, the authors of the Synoptic Gospels and the
Didache), which implies that Jesus' death is largely viewed as
non-salvific. Others did the opposite and viewed Jesus' death as a
necessity for salvation through different conceptualizations such as
utilizing sacrificial language and the language current in martyr
ideology, or speaking of reconciliation, redemption, or even
justification (Paul). Yet others were saved by knowledge of various
sorts (the author(s) of the Pseudo-Clementines, the authors of the
Gospels of John, Thomas, and Philip). Rituals related to salvation
included baptism (Paul), chrism (the author of the Gospel of Philip),
and redemption (Marcion). (pp. 154-191)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early Christians
believe about Jesus?</b> A great number of things. Following the Jewish
precedents of "exalted humans", "angelic beings", and "personified
divine attributes" that were "elevated into positions very close to God"
(196), early Christians could picture Jesus as appointed or adopted to
his post-Resurrection office (Paul's tradition in Rom 1, the authors of
the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews), and as an "object of
devotion" (201) that was distinguished from God by his lordship (so
Paul) much like "the cult of personal helpers, such as Heracles or
Asclepius, and of foreign savior deities, notably Isis and Serapis"
(202). Some Christians were interested in Jesus' death (Paul, the author
of the Gospel of Luke), some in his earthly actions as a prophet and a
healer/exorcist (the authors of the Synoptic Gospels), and some in his
teaching of a special knowledge that saved (Valentinus, the author of
the Gospel of Thomas). Those Christians who speculated about Jesus'
preexistence (Paul, the author of the Gospel of John) did not ponder
about his virginal conception (the authors of the Gospels of Luke and
Matthew); Ignatius is the first Christian to combine both notions. As
for the degree of Jesus' humanity, Paul and many other Christians really
wanted to have it both ways despite the inherent contradiction of the
notion of being both "true man" and "true God"<span class="st">—</span>a contradiction that the
Council of Chalcedon "solved" by its famous non-answer (or
non-definition) of "one and the same Christ ... in two natures,
inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably" (226). (pp.
192-227)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early Christians believe about the Spirit?</b> A
great number of things. Following the variety of Jewish and Greco-Roman
precedents of the possibility to become "raptured" by the spirit of God
(even Yahweh) or Goddess, some early Christians connected the spirit of
God (or the spirit of Jesus) with "extraordinary phenomena" in their
community but also with more mundane tasks of teaching, working, and
interpreting the Jewish scriptures. (Paul, the author of the Acts of the
Apostles, Irenaeus), while others discarded the extraordinary part
altogether (the authors of the Pastoral Epistles). Other Christians
viewed <i>pneuma</i> as the "divine spark" present in all humans (the authors
of the Apocryphon of John and the Gospel of Philip). One peculiar view
is presented in the Gospel of John, where the Paraclete is the
combination of the holy spirit and the ascended Jesus,
while other Christians distinguished between the two (the author of the
Acts of the Apostles, John of Patmos). The spirit could be seen as
subordinated to Christ (Justin) or Christ could be seen as subordinated
to the spirit (Hermas). (pp. 228-246)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early Christians
believe about their affiliation with Judaism/Israel?</b> A great number of
things. Though early Christians were already distinguishable from the
Jews "at the social level" during Nero's persecution (247), on an
intellectual level some early Christians wanted to preserve their
identity as "Jewish" (those Christians with whom Paul argued in Gal 2,
the author(s) of the Pseudo-Clementines) while others reconstructed
their identity anew, resulting in failed internal logic (Paul) or
general ambiguousness regarding the exact relationship between
statements gleamed from the Hebrew Bible and their application to the
Christ-believers (the authors of the Gospel of Matthew, Luke, and the
Didache). Furthermore, others were content to drop the Jewish heritage
altogether, a movement towards a non-Jewish identity is already in progress
in the Gospel of John, further developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(which holds that "the Jews never had a valid covenant in the first
place"; 276), up to the clear differentiation between "Jews" and
"Christians" (Ignatius, Marcion). Early Christian writings retain the
language of election of the Hebrew Bible, and in so doing "[t]he actual
discontinuity is camouflaged with the use of language suggesting
continuity" (281). (pp. 247-282)<br />
<br />
<b>What did early Christians
believe about other contemporary religious practices of their day?</b> A
great number of things. While most early Christians thought it was
impossible for a Christian to attend pagan cult practices (Paul, John of
Patmos, Valentinus), eating of sacrificial food was either permitted
(Valentinus according to Justin, Paul as long as the "strong" are not
observed by the "weak") or not (John of Patmos). Since this attitude to
other religious activities put early Christians on a "collision course"
with the Greco-Roman world at large (291), the infrequent and local
persecutions (which also happened to "philosophers who criticized public
rites and made missionary propaganda" on behalf of their conviction;
398) led to martyrdom for Christians of all persuasions,
"proto-orthodox", "Marcionite", and "Valentinian" (and presumably all
the rest). Some were keen on martyrdom (Ignatius), others criticized
this zeal (Clement of Alexandria). (pp. 283-300) </blockquote>
As the above suggests, this is a book about early Christian <i>ideas</i>, of how and where they did arise in interaction with the social experience of early Christian communities. The thematic layout of the material is an important decision Räisänen has made, one that helps to highlight the diversity of early
Christianity and shows how the diversity framework does not really depend on the existence of any single document (such as the Q Gospel) or the early dating of some others (such as the Gospel of Thomas). The only unity of thought is found on a
very abstract level: it might be possible to state that all early
Christians thought that "one day evil will be overcome and the righteous
will get justice" (315) and that Christ has some role to play in the
process, but any attempt to peer into the exact beliefs<span class="st">—</span>just what is
the evil and how will it be overcome, and just what is the justice, and
just what is the role of Christ and just what is Christ all about,
anyway<span class="st">—</span>results in an almost unbelievable diversity. Apart from the main chapters the book provides close to a hundred pages of introductory material for a reader who requests the big picture of early Christianity to be made clear before more technical discussion of their specific ideas, and an all-important chapter on methodology.<br />
<br />
Räisänen is aware of the shortcomings of the old terminology: "The term <i>Christian</i> smacks of anachronism but is difficult to avoid". (1) He goes on to redefine it: "It should be understood here in a weak sense: the noun <i>Christian</i> denotes all persons in whose symbolic worlds Jesus of Nazareth held a central place, one way or another". (1-2) One is tempted to question here whether we should substitute "Christ" for "Jesus of Nazareth" as the latter was not necessarily a concern for many early Christians—including Paul—and that "a central place, one way or another" reads rather like a non-definition as any imaginable stance fits under it. (<i>Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms</i> actually notes that this phrase is "usually used when you know something will happen or get done, but you do not know exactly how"; an apt description as we all know that "one way or another" Räisänen will manage to label Paul, Marcion, Polycarp, Valentinus, and Irenaeus "Christian"—because that is what he said he will do—but we will be damned if the exact details of this decision do not remain elusive.)<br />
<br />
In practice, Räisänen's program works beautifully in places. Consider the following sentences in his discussion of the "more conservative wing" of early Christianity:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Epistle of Jude is another letter written in the name of a brother of Jesus, perhaps toward the end of the first century. It consists of a vicious attack against some other Christians." (66)</blockquote>
In other places the old paradigm comes through. Räisänen notes that "[The Jewish Bible] remained the unquestioned authority for early Christians" (248), but an exception should be made here—of course—for those early Christians like Marcion and Valentinus for whom the Jewish Bible did not remain "the unquestioned authority". "Mainstream Christianity" is curiously summoned as a descriptor for one group of early Christians (75) despite the observation in p. 338 n. 135 that "we actually do not know
about the numbers" and cannot really figure out in which instances we
should label which early Christian trajectory "mainstream". Furthermore, some early Christ-believers are still referred to as if they were deviating from the norm, in the manner of "Thomasine Christians" and "Gnostic Christians".<br />
<br />
To be clear, there is no problem in putting historical phenomena, groups and individuals in their places by labeling them with whatever nametag one chooses. The problem becomes manifest when some of them are construed as the standard ("Christians") and some others are contrasted against that arbitrary standard ("Thomasine Christians", "Gnostic Christians"). Even that would be acceptable (as long as the choice was conscious), if only our clearly explicated leading thought was not to make away with "the canonical point of view" (4), which would succeed rather better if we aimed to reinforce this principle with a careful use of language rather than try to recast the meaning of the old words while still retaining them.<br />
<br />
In short, Räisänen's one remaining problem is much like Paul's struggle to maintain continuity between his old faith in the God of Israel and his new faith in the God who had raised Christ from the death. Though one can change the denotative aspect of words practically at will—and that is what scholars usually do at the beginning of their writings—their connotative power remains culturally constructed to a large degree. Alternatives for the old terminology are "cumbersome" to be sure (1), but only so far as the thought world of unfamiliar religious traditions are "foreign" and "repulsive", to take two words Hans-Josef Klauck used to describe certain early Christian ideas, i.e. only so far as their usage begins to feel like "natural" and "given", and the unfamiliar traditions cease to be unfamiliar.<br />
<br />
As I wrote previously regarding Koester, "the old vocabulary itself guides the thought processes along the
lines of the traditional wisdom". A new framework for understanding early Christianity, including the rise of early Christian beliefs, requires new vocabulary. If one is willing to look past that one deficiency, <i>The Rise of Christian Beliefs</i> is a marvelous book and—to quote James D. G. Dunn's praise (which I definitely share)—"[i]ts sheer mastery of the principal source materials is never less than impressive, and the awareness of and interaction with a wide range of contemporary scholarship is equally impressive" (from Dunn's review in <i>Review of Biblical Literature</i>; <a href="http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7356&CodePage=7356">http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7356&CodePage=7356</a>). The fact that the Finnish edition (written at a slightly more popular level) is now part of the equivalent of Biblical Studies 101 at the University of Helsinki is further to be commended.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-26134914359557029492012-10-30T11:17:00.000+02:002012-10-30T11:43:16.653+02:00From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship (CBR 11: 87-125)Some days ago <i>Currents in Biblical Research</i> published my article "From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship", a literature review and a-discourse-analysis-by-any-other-name (<a href="http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/11/1/87.abstract">link</a>).<br />
<br />
<b>Abstract:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This article reviews the literature pertaining to the recent debate over
the question of authenticity of Clement’s Letter
to Theodore (including the so-called Secret Gospel
of Mark) and argues that the academy has tied itself into a secure
deadlock.
The current ‘trench warfare’ situation is due to
various scholarly malpractices, which include the practice of
non-engagement
with other scholars, abusive language towards them
and mischaracterization of their position. In order to remedy the
situation
and move the discussion forwards a number of
correcting acts are suggested.
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Paananen, Timo S.: From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship. Currents in Biblical Research October 2012 11: 87-125, doi:10.1177/1476993X11416907 </blockquote>
First, it <a href="http://www.sagepub.com/freetrial2012/">looks like</a> anyone can access the article free of charge until tomorrow (October 31) by simply <a href="https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=GLOBAL2012">registering at SAGE Journals</a>.<br />
<br />
Second, online reactions so far have ranged from <a href="http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Secret/SecMark-News.html">pretty baffled</a> to <a href="http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2012/10/currents-in-biblical-research-new.html?showComment=1350643949558#c2342527963100938767">"occasionally self-contradictory"</a> to <a href="http://zetesiss.altervista.org/?p=683">"</a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://zetesiss.altervista.org/?p=683">un articolo equilibrato e intellettualmente onesto"</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Third, I just might have broken some sort of record as it took full 21 months from manuscript submission to publication. Still, nothing like writing a monograph, like Morton Smith's <i>Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark</i>, submitted in 1966 and published in 1973, I guess.</span>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-7212547331495565572012-10-18T12:05:00.000+03:002012-10-19T09:08:07.263+03:00RBB12: Hans-Josef Klauck's Apocryphal Gospels: An IntroductionThe introduction of Klauck's <i>Apocryphal Gospels</i> (T&T Clark, 2003) drops the gauntlets right at the beginning: there is "a newer ideology" (2)<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—one exemplified by Helmut Koester and North American scholarship in general<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—that does not simply wish to offer a balanced take on Christian origins but actually favours non-canonized early Christian writings ("apocryphal" in Klauck's parlance) in its historical reconstructions.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">This stance is further described as "an un-nuanced position" (2) and it is no surprise that shortly afterwards Klauck feels it is necessary to explicate his own criteria for dealing with non-canonized early Christian writings. He states clearly that there are no underlying apologetic motives in his discussion. It is best to judge each "apocryphal" work independently (even so far as taking each logion in the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i> separately under scrutiny; 108), as certain writings hold the possibility for offering important insights into the formation of the new religious movement. For examples, Klauck thinks that the <i>Gospel of Peter</i> (as Koester has suggested) could contain independent, early traditions about Jesus (96), and in this regard the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i> remains another major contender for him (121).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Yet there exists a pronounced division that is drawn firmly into the ground, as Klauck considers "every apocryphal writing ... something of a detour", contrasted with "the main road" by which Klauck undoubtedly refers to the canonized early Christian writings as they were interpreted by the proto-orthodox Christians (219). The concluding section of Klauck's <i>Apocryphal Gospels</i> goes even further: a programmatic decision to study early Christianity without honouring canon boundaries is deemed "itself in danger of putting forward an ahistorical argument" (222), and two reasons are presented for this judgement. First, it is a historical fact that "the canon" (of four Gospels) emerged, and second, it emerged relatively early i.e. the four canonized Gospels were collected together already by the middle of II CE (222).<br />
<br />
But, quite frankly, something is seriously wrong here. Even if we, as Klauck does, posit the collection of the four canonized Gospels of John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew and contrast them with all the other Gospels that came to be, I do not see how it follows from the fact that some early Christians held some writings authoritative (Irenaeus and his fourfold Gospel) while other early Christians held other writings authoritative (Marcion and his <i>Gospel of Luke</i>) that a historian of the ancient world should not "ignore the boundaries of the canon as a matter of principle" (222). Of course a historian should make away with canon boundaries whenever his historically-minded questions have no relation to them i.e. when the canon boundaries themselves are not part of the questions! The talk on canon in this instance betrays the bias: if there is no apologetic tendency whatsoever involved, why is it always about Irenaeus' canon and never about Marcion's? The emergence of the latter is as much a historical fact as the first, and it is at least as ancient a collection, as well. The problem I have with this stance is that it makes Irenaeus's canon a kind of Jedi mind trick: "These are not the <strike>droids</strike> writings you are looking for", the old man Obi-Wan Irenaeus tells us. <i>"These are </i>heretical<i> and they lie"</i>, he whispers. Only by repeating these over and over will we be allowed to move along.<br />
<br />
As with Koester, it all comes down to language (see my previous writings under RBB12 heading). Klauck, for whatever reason, is content in talking of the "main road" whilst placing the "apocryphal Gospels" on the sideline. While this does not make Klauck's attitude apologetic per se (and his choice of tackling each literary work independently is a good one in any case), it is quite obvious which early Christianity he is most sympathetic with. For choice examples, Klauck frames his discussion of "the exuberant gnostic mythology" in the <i>Holy Book of
the Great Invisible Spirit</i> by calling it "an artificial creation" (60), further
characterized as "difficult to understand" and even "repellent" (if only
initially) (60), and he considers the "intellectual world" of
the <i>Gospel of Philip</i> to be "foreign" (134). At the other end of the spectrum, the <i>Protevangelium of
James</i> exhibits "charming touches" in its elaboration of the history of
Mary, the mother of Jesus (based on the scarce description provided by Matthew and Luke),
while the hymn of Anne, the mother of Mary, is found to be "moving" (66). The most ambiguous statement is
Klauck's observation that there is a certain "spiritual fascination" in the
more gnostic-oriented Gospels which "suggests that today's readers find
in them an echo of the way they too feel about the world and about the
project of their own lives" (105). But does Klauck posit himself among
those "today's readers"? Maybe not, as the sentence looks like an effort to understand and distance himself from the popular rather than to embrace it.<br />
<br />
The problem? This choice of perspective has the danger of ending up with a position that, in Klauck's words, turns out to be "un-nuanced" (or unreflected). It is the danger of taking the story of one variant of early Christians as the basic building block in the writing of their history<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—a story that is, furthermore, told by themselves of themselves</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>. It marginalizes other groups of early Christians for an arbitrary, ahistorical reason. In short, it does not look like <i>fair play</i>, a notion Heikki Räisänen has championed for over two decades, and one we will discuss in more length when I get around to write about <i>The Rise of Christian Beliefs</i> (2010).<br />
<br />
Yet when all is said and done, is it for the greater glory of the general historical method that, despite the differences enumerated above, Klauck's reading of the actual sources has much in common with Koester's? True enough, he is more careful (or even, conservative) in his assessment: the <i>Dialogue of the Saviour</i> (185), the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i> (122), and the <i>Gospel of Peter</i> (83) are located to II CE rather than the first, for instance. But overall, Klauck's <i>Apocryphal Gospels</i> presents a plausible, non-controversial reading of all the major contenders for the status of non-canonized Gospels. The choice of texts is done on pragmatic grounds (3), and, ultimately, it is the self-designation of the ancient texts as "Gospels" that matters, despite this criterion being "merely extrinsic" (106). In practice, Klauck ends up discussing the <i>Gospel of Truth</i> (which is more of a homily), and also the <i>
agrapha</i> or the "scattered" logia of Jesus found in isolation outside
gospel literature proper.<br />
<br />
The presentation of each Gospel follows a tripartite form of (1) contextual information, (2) paraphrasing the text in question with a choice number of direct quotations, and (3) evaluation of the text. Only one of the texts, the <i>Discourse of St John the Theologian About the Falling-Asleep of the Holy Mother of God</i>, is presented in whole (in translation). Personally, I prefer to have access to the texts themselves. Early Christian writings are fascinating on their own right, and a collection of translated texts works as an introduction as well, as exemplified by the Finnish edition of Nag Hammadi writings (<i>Nag Hammadin kätketty viisaus</i>, eds. Ismo Dunderberg & Antti Marjanen) which is required reading at the undergraduate level at the University of Helsinki.<br />
<br />
For one final personal note, I highly approve of Klauck's decision to include the <i>Toledoth Yeshu</i> (which he calls "Anti-Gospel") in his discussion (211-220). To be sure, this is not a Christian Gospel but a Jewish one, highly critical of Christianity and deliciously mocking satire of the Christian Gospels so far that Klauck has decided to play it safe by calling its protagonist "Yeshu" instead of "Jesus" and omitting some of the cruder versions from his discussion altogether. Despite its highly polemical tone, its contents are not exactly new, as the accusations of sorcery, unmarried parents, and the stealing of Jesus' body by his disciples are already present in the <i>Gospel of Nicodemus</i> (<i>Acts of Pilate</i>), and the <i>Protevangelium of James</i> has likewise presupposed the existence of such arguments. Klauck suggests, quite rightly, that some traditions used in this work are ancient (IV CE at the latest) though as a complete literary work the <i>Toledoth Yeshu</i> is harder to date<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—no "canonized" version exists as the transmission of this text has taken place behind the scenes (for obvious reasons)</span></span></span></span>.<br />
<br />
Finally, Klauck does a better job in contextualizing the writing of <i>Toledoth Yeshu</i> than he does with some of the Christian writings (namely, the <i>Gospel of Philip</i> and other gnostic-oriented texts). Specifically, I am left wondering what does it mean that the <i>Toledoth Yeshu</i> is described as "a form of protest by the oppressed and persecuted" (211), and "a voice of the persecuted" whose "reaction" is "provoked" by the "social, religious and political pressure exercised by the Christian majority" (219)? Does the lightly patronizing tone illustrate how the academy has come to terms with the Jewish Other and left the antisemitic tendencies largely in the past? If so, then I suggest the next step should be coming to terms with the Gnostic Other and leaving aside notions of "repellent" and "foreign" when confronted with it. Those Christians who wrote the <i>Apocryphon of John</i>, for example, were certainly protesting against something and their subversion of certain themes looks quite similar to the treatment Jesus receives in the <i>Toledoth Yeshu</i>.<br />
<br />
Though I may appear to be overly critical above, I wish to point out that there is almost nothing in the actual historical work that I disagree with Klauck. My criticism stems from the fact that lately, I have become more interested in the framework or the paradigmatic understanding in which scholarship is conducted than with the actual scholarship itself<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—not that the first does not feed directly into the latter. In any case, Klauck's <i>Apocryphal Gospels</i> works as a useful albeit short introduction into the world of early Christianities.</span></span></span></span>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-77114910015554703052012-09-27T22:41:00.003+03:002012-09-27T22:41:40.703+03:00Another "Fake" Or Just a Problem of Method: What Francis Watson's Analysis Does to Papyrus Köln 255?James F. McGrath has kindly offered to host a small contribution of mine to the current debate on the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i> on his blog <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/"><i>Exploring the Matrix</i></a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Another "Fake" Or Just a Problem of Method: What Francis Watson's Analysis Does to Papyrus Köln 255?</i> By Timo S. Paananen. Published in September 27, 2012. <a href="http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/GJW/Another%20Fake%20Or%20Just%20a%20Problem%20of%20Method%20by%20Timo%20S.%20Paananen.pdf">Direct link to pdf</a><br />
<br />
Comments are best left underneath James McGrath's <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/09/timo-s-paananen-on-methods-of-forgery-detection-and-the-gospel-of-jesus-wife.html">blog post.</a>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-26619854443836355062012-09-21T18:10:00.000+03:002012-09-21T18:10:35.740+03:00Forging the Gospel of Jesus' WifeThe internet has been buzzing over the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i>. For collections of links on the topic, consult <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/09/coptic-text-mentions-jesus-wife.html">James F. McGrath's</a> <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/09/2-jesus-wife.html">three posts</a> <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/09/3-jesus-wife-with-fill-in-the-blank-at-the-end.html">on the subject</a> for more opinions than you can read in an hour.<br />
<br />
If you have time for only one link, check out <a href="http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty-research/research-projects/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife">the official research project page</a> from Harvard Divinity School.<br />
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Just now Francis Watson, known for the readership of this blog through his article "Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the
Secret Gospel of Mark" (<i>The Journal of Theological Studies</i> 61 128-170), has claimed the new Gospel fragment a fake.<br />
<br />
Posted on Mark Goodacre's <i>NT Blog</i> (in <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.fi/2012/09/the-gospel-of-jesus-wife-how-fake.html">two</a> <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.fi/2012/09/francis-watsons-introduction-and.html">parts</a>) is Watson's short analysis titled <i>The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a Fake Gospel-Fragment was Composed. </i>His verdict:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The Jesus of the <i>Secret Gospel</i> [<i>of Mark</i>] likes to consort naked with young men at night, while seeming hostile to women. By contrast, the new gospel fragment has Jesus speak disconcertingly of "my wife". Has this new heterosexual Jesus been created to complement Smith's homosexual one?</blockquote>
<br />
Watson's technique in unearthing the text as fake is to find ancient parallels to the words and sentences; in the case of the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i>, these are discovered mostly from the coptic <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>. My own problem with this method is that it looks to be too good for its own good: given the vast amount of ancient texts we have at our disposal (even though they may represent only 10% of all the ancient literature that once existed) any given piece of text could be argued to be "fake" if all it took was to come up with parallels from other ancient texts. I think the real problem is the question of provenance. If the <i>Gospel of Jesus' Wife</i> could be traced somewhere, preferably to an authorized archaeological dig, Watson's analysis would still stand, but his conclusions would end up different.<br />
<br />
(Oh right, the youth in the <i>Mystic Gospel of Mark</i> is not naked, there is only one of them present, and Jesus' "hostility towards women" is not apparent in that text either. And Smith's Jesus was not a homosexual.)Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-49590685964001523502012-09-11T13:51:00.000+03:002012-09-11T13:51:00.465+03:00 RBB12: Helmut Koester's Introduction to the New Testament, Volume Two: History and Literature of Early ChristianityIt is interesting to note that the second volume of Helmut Koester's <i>Introduction to the New Testament</i> is neither an "introduction" nor "history and literature of early Christianity" (despite the subtitle).<br />
<br />
I would not have picked up the first if Robert Mahoney had not explained it in his 1985 review of Koester's two volumes: "As the German reader knows from the first word of the original title ... the author of an <i>Einführung</i> has a relatively free hand in his choice of particular subjects and in his manner of presentation" (p. 538 of Mahoney's review published in <i>The Journal of Religion</i> 65); this consideration pertains to the first volume, as well. As for the subtitle of the second volume, Koester explicates in his preface that he is, in fact, writing a rather comprehensive "history of the early Christian churches" (xxi).<br />
<br />
There is no need for me to dwell in the qualities of Koester's work. When even someone who pretty much disagrees with Koester all the way to the end considers it "impressive" and states that "I wish my admiration to be clear" (p. 693 of Raymond E. Brown's review published in <i>Theological Studies</i> 44), there are no superlatives for me to add. The main theme of Koester's reading of his sources comes out clear. I am very much of the same mind with his conclusions that "The diversity of Christian beginnings is evident in the sources" (93), and that the earliest Christianity was "a phenomenon that utterly lacked unity" (102).<br />
<br />
Some of the things I learned to appreciate anew includes that one impossible endeavour that is also known as New Testament textual criticism. A hypothetical <i>stemma</i> (a listing of dependencies between extant manuscripts) would be "absurdly complex" (19), and the living textual tradition (additions from oral traditions; changes for doctrinal reasons) with all the major early witnesses coming from a specific geographic location (Egypt), makes me wonder how anyone could have brought any sense to the proceedings in the form of manuscript families in the first place. Not that the concept of manuscript families feels too trustful. Koester has some concerns over certain manuscripts, such as Codex Freerianus/Washingtonianus (W=032), which is "such a "mixture" of all known text types (Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine) that it calls into question all theories about the value and antiquity of these families" (28). Indeed, this theory of textual families seems too good for its own good, in a way that any given piece of evidence either fits into the families or, if not, is made to fit into the theory anyway by giving it the designation of "mixed type".<br />
<br />
Certain details could be enhanced here and there. T<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">he discussion on methodology feels incomplete in the year 2012, as the traditional methods are supplemented only by narrative and rhetorical criticism which are both viewed as "extensions or supplements to redaction and composition criticism" (70), though the fact that they are used also for non-historicist readings is at least acknowledged. Furthermore, Koester is very keen on form criticism and before halfway through this second volume it comes to the forefront (alternatively, it took me this far to become bothered by it) giving the impression that every literary work could and should always be dismantled into earlier literary works/oral traditions which have acted as its sources; the only explicit mention of a literary work not to be dissected in this manner is the Revelation of John (257).</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">To roll with these minor points, it also happens that the criteria for concluding this or that is left buried in the bibliographies. One example of this tendency is Koester's discussion on the historical Jesus. Though he writes fiercely against the "criterion of embarrassment" (79, 85), his criteria for judging the traditional material this way or that remains hidden otherwise. It is a well-known fact that a large number of scholars have provided a host of different pictures of the historical Jesus both before and after Koester, and his "realized eschatology" interpretation of Jesus' message</span></span></span><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—</span>to take but one example</span></span></span><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—</span>could (and has been) done differently by ascribing the here-and-now parts to later additions to the tradition, for instance. Additionally, Koester notes in his discussion on Luke's treatise that the author,
compared to other acts of the various apostles, "refrained from
introducing baptized lions and talking dogs" into his composition (331).
While that statement is correct, it seems to forget Luke's own oddities<span class="st">—such as the "<span class="text Acts-19-12" id="en-NIV-27598">handkerchiefs and aprons" of Paul (19.12) and the shadow of Peter (5.15) through which the healing magic</span></span> of these early Christians was transferred<span class="st">—and
points, to my mind, to the phenomenon of treating the familiar things
as "natural" while the non-familiar things can still grasp the attention
(and why are <span class="st">the talking animals from the Jewish Scriptures omitted here?)<span class="st">.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">But let the minor disagreements be minor. Koester's important work suffers from one huge issue that plagues practically every other history of the earliest Christianity I have read. This issue concerns categories and the discrepancy between stated objectives and achieved results. Here is the short of it: in his preface Koester states explicitly that he intends to write "the history of the early Christian churches" in which he does not honour the traditional canonical boundaries but considers all the known sources from the relevant time period (xxi). But when one turns the page and begins to read the body of work<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—literally on page one<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—there is the following sentence: "During the first two centuries, the only Holy Scripture that Christians accepted was the Bible of Israel" (1). This statement is all fine and good, <i>except for those Christians of the first two centuries who did not accept the Bible of Israel as their Holy Scripture</i>. Who were these Christians? They were the likes of Marcion and Valentinus who developed and pushed their theology out of the canon boundaries of their day, much like Koester wants to do with his historical reconstruction. The modern-day academics, however, have a seemingly harder time to break free of their mold. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Time and time again the old paradigm of orthodoxy vs heresy, and canonized vs non-canonized, is reinforced (almost unconsciously), as evidenced in Koester's discussion of the Jewish models for the development of Gnostic ideas, called "heretical Judaism" (216), and in his description of the so-called <span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">"Naassene Sermon" preserved by Hippolytus as <span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">"superficially Christianized" (237), when <span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">he seems to only mean that it is "not congruent with proto-orthodoxy" i.e. not the right kind of Christian by the standards of that variant that came to be in the dominant position.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">The study of Christian origins has, for the longest time, been influenced by the framework set down in the writings of the church fathers such as Irenaeus. This framework has come into being in the middle of a conflict, and has its focus on drawing a firm boundary between "us" and "them", the standard human response in the face of adversary. One feature of this forced division is the formation of authorized literary works (canon) and their correct interpretation. While in itself the reading of historical sources according to this mindset is certainly possible, the trouble with it, up to the present day, has been the unconscious adoption and domination of this one particular framework over all of the others.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">The core of the problem is the language. If one</span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—like Koester<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">—wishes to step outside of this traditional framework and write history from </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">some other viewpoint, one cannot retain the language of the older paradigm. Koester knows in his first volume that a new framework of thought (a new language), exemplified in the production and reception of the <i>Septuagint</i>, opens up new avenues for the intellect to pursue. Thomas Kuhn, in his <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i> </span></span></span>(1962), holds one of the hallmarks of the change to be the incommensurability of vocabulary i.e. nothing new comes out of the old vocabulary, for the old vocabulary itself guides the thought processes along the lines of the traditional wisdom. While "Christians" is already used by Luke as a designator, the term has gathered much too much historical baggage with it over the centuries. First of all, it is a designator that is still relevant for the majority of scholars today (and whether they are antagonistic or its opposite is equally bad). While a twentieth-century trend of changing "early Christianity" to "early Christianities" (and "Judaism" to "Judaisms") is a step towards breaking the old paradigm, it still falls short: Koester has no trouble talking of diversity in early Christianity on an abstract level, but Marcion and Valentinus still manage to slip past when the discussion turns to "Christians".</span></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="st"><span class="st"><span class="st">I do not, however, have a grand idea for breaking the mold by a new vocabulary. One (maybe the only one) virtue of the historian is consistency, the ability to apply the same criteria consistently across the sources. Another trick of the trade is to distance oneself from the phenomenon under scrutiny by the conscious choice of vocabulary. For these two considerations, I have been turning around the term "cult of Christ" in my head. Not only does it enable me to locate this religious movement among the other Eastern deities that made their westward journey over the centuries, but it also has less connotations than "Christianity", and there is no conscious effort from my part to describe Paul, Marcion, and Irenaeus as members of the cult of Christ, and no problems for dealing with the changing face of this cult any more than with the diversity we find in the beliefs and practices of the cult of Dionysius. (It should be noted here that my usage of the "cult of Christ" is a different discussion than what W. Bousset, and recently Larry Hurtado and others, have conducted, and I do not imply, by considering this term, that Christian origins had a unanimous cultic devotion of "the Lord" going on. But I cannot come up with a more fitting term at the moment.)</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
A Few Notes on Helmut Koester's <i>Introduction to the New Testament, Volume Two: History and Literature of Early Christianity</i> (Walter de Gruyter, 2000)<br />
<br />
Preface<br />
<br />
In the preface for this volume (the preface to the first edition) Koester lays down some axioms by which he goes through "the history and literature of early Christianity" (the subtitle of the volume). These include the notion that Koester is writing "the history of the early Christian churches" instead of a mere "introduction" or even "history of early Christian literature" (despite the subtitle); that Koester does not stop at the canonical boundaries but considers all the known sources from the relevant time period; and that this history was a "complex process, full of controversies" between the emerging communities of the cult of Christ (xxi).<br />
<br />
Chapter VII<br />
<br />
The basic building blocks of early Christian literature were the Jewish Bible ("Scripture" in the mouths of some of the early Christians, though others disagreed) and the developing oral tradition largely centred on Jesus (1-2). Letters of Paul (from the 50s) provided a novel form later Christian writers could utilize (3), while other types of writings included "gospels", acts, theological treatises, and a few undertakings to document the life of the early churches (4-6).
Koester considers also the question of authority: from the beginning "the Lord" (or appearances of the risen Christ) guaranteed the authority of any given preaching, as "one could primarily rely on "what the Lord had said," or one would ask prophets what "the Lord" had revealed to them ... authorization could simply be derived from the possession of the Holy Spirit" (6). Later on, various apostles were taken as authority figures to guarantee the contents of literate works by all sorts of Christians. Marcion trusted Paul and Luke (once they were edited out of what Marcion thought as later pro-Jewish insertions) (6-10).<br />
<br />
Furthermore, Koester gives Irenaeus a prominent place in the formation of the canon as he, in contrast to Marcion, accepted many more books into his canon. The concepts of apostolicity and inspiration were not important (everybody claimed their works to be apostolic and inspired, anyway) but Irenaeus' canon seems to have incorporated works with divergent doctrinal concepts within them (10-11). Koester makes two important observations here: that Irenaeus' canon was accepted (or rather, was already in use or at least did not conflict with the existing user base) in Asia Minor, Greece, Syria, Africa, Egypt, and later in Rome, established a political advantage following the victory of Irenaeus' canon, as a "network of bishops ... had been able to establish common practices for baptism (including the instruction of catechumens) and the celebration of the Eucharist, moral and ritual codes, and a number of social institutions and avenues for mutual support" (11). In other words, Irenaeus' canon was rather a tying-up of existing social networks among some of the early Christians rather than a rigorous application of certain premises ("apostolicity, doctrinally sound") with which every candidate literary work was judged.<br />
<br />
Koester's solution (which I have sharpened somewhat in my paraphrasing here) makes it possible to understand the process of canon formation from two further perspectives: that there never was a canonical body of Christian writings and that the real meat of the question is not what books were included but how were the books included interpreted; there does not exist a Christian canon at the moment (I can recall five different collections of books from the top of my head: Catholic, Protestant, two Orthodox, and Ethiopian) nor does there exist any ancient codices or book lists which would not either miss some of the works in the Protestant Bible or include works that do not belong to the Protestant Bible (something Koester does not point out but is evident in his discussion of said sources later in the chapter). Besides, as Koester discusses later on (266-275), everybody used Pauline writings, but read them differently.<br />
<br />
Another major point in the first chapter is the discussion of text criticism. Koester begins by noting that the problems are the same with all the ancient books. Some of the harder questions to answer (or control rigorously) are the insertions from still-living oral tradition (such as the story of "Jesus and the woman caught in adultery") and insertions due to dogmatic differences between the copyist and her source (17-18), and the lack of really old manuscripts (even when some of these are available, they all come from Egypt) (20-21). Though standard practice is to produce a <i>stemma</i> or the listing of the dependencies between extant manuscripts, the body of manuscripts of (mainly) New Testament writings is so vast as to make a hypothetical stemma "absurdly complex" (19); instead, New Testament textual critics aim to establish manuscript families (Western, Alexandrian, Caesarean, Byzantine) to make sense of the mess.<br />
<br />
Koester is ultimately reticient of this practice, noting that "Its [Codex Freerianus/Washingtonianus; W=032] readings are such a "mixture" of all known text types (Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine) that it calls into question all theories about the value and antiquity of these families" (28) and that "the archetypes of the later manuscript families were not created until the 4th century" (42). The most difficult question is the tracing of the text through I, II, and III CE where the evidence is scarce. Western text type is Koester's candidate for serious re-evaluation as all the major critical editions of the New Testament (including the current Nestle-Aland) have failed to give this text type the consideration Koester believes it deserves (40-42). After all of this it is rather surprising that Koester concludes that "a very small portion of the New Testament text is subject to doubt" (44).<br />
<br />
Following descriptions of all the important ancient witnesses to the New Testament (22-36) Koester goes through various problems of source criticism, including the "Synoptic Problem" (preferring "two-source-hypothesis" with independent collections of Jesus' sayings, miracles, and passion at the bottom of it all), the sources for the Acts of the Apostles, and the difficulties with Paul's letters to the Romans, 2 Corinthians, and Philippians (having been composed originally as a multitude of smaller letters) (44-59). A rather long description of form criticism (59-65) and the finding of early traditions from the early Christian writings (65-70) is only at this second edition supplemented with a brief take on narrative and rhetorical criticism (in which both are viewed as "extensions or supplements to redaction and composition criticism" (70) though the fact that they are used also for non-historicist readings is at least acknowledged (70-74).<br />
<br />
Chapter VIII<br />
<br />
Koester begins this chapter on John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth by noting that "It is not possible to give a succinct historical account of the life and ministry of either" (75), for all our traditions of them have been preserved by the early Christianities. Such scepticism is repeated time and time again. Koester places the self-consciousness of Jesus "beyond the reach of historical inquiry" (82) and even calls the quest for the original words of Jesus "fundamentally misguided" (79). One way out of this deadlock is to shift the focus from the history of factional persons to the history of memories of various communities i.e. what our historical reconstruction is actually about is the memory of the earliest Christians concerning these two figures of legendary stature. This characterization of Koester's position may be a bit exaggerated since he only states in one paragraph that "Their history has become a memory of the community" (75) and in another that "All that is available for the historian's inquiry are reflections or mirrors of Jesus' preaching and teaching in the tradition that was formulated for the purposes of the early (Greek-speaking) communities" (85), but nevertheless this (well-warranted) scepticism seems to pave way for works such as Anthony Le Donne's <i>Historical Jesus</i> (2011). On the other hand, the fact that Koester first denies to "reconstruct the original words of the historical Jesus" but afterwards builds a fuzzy portrait of the man nevertheless is illustrative of the tendencies that pull historians both ways; yet it is important to keep reminding oneself of the fact that the study of history can only ever be close reading of the sources that have been preserved, and that the number of sources should not be indirectly related to the amount of guesswork a historian brings to the table.<br />
<br />
The quest for the historical John the Baptist does not have much sources to go through; he seems to have had an eschatological message of his own related to his baptism (as "eschatological seal" for Koester), and if nothing else can be known, at least he was executed by Herod Antipas. The only plausible reason for Jesus to have been baptized by John is that he was one of John's disciples. Apocalypticism was a major current in Jewish thought at this period and Jesus would have inherited these ideas from John (75-78).
For Jesus there are similar "erratic blocks of the tradition" (79) to weed through. On a very general level, positive probability can be assigned to those traditions that Jesus came from the Jewish family residing in Nazareth, spoke Galilean Aramaic and had some education of the Jewish scriptures. He joined the Baptist movement but parted ways with it later and had a ministry of his own, until he was arrested and executed in Jerusalem (78-82). While the Gospels want to portray Jesus with philosophical, magical, and visionary aspirations, Koester considers his message to fit best into "outmoded and archaic genres of prophetic speech and wisdom teaching" (83). In this way Jesus becomes part of a trajectory from John the Baptist to the early Christians (85).<br />
<br />
That between these two examples of apocalyptic expectations Koester's Jesus is portrayed as preaching "realized eschatology"—that Jesus' followers are already invited to participate (common meals) in the kingdom of God even though it is at the same time only anticipated—is, however, harder to maintain (84-87). One problem of Koester's portrayal here is that its methodology is not clearly spelt out. Koester writes fiercely against the "criterion of embarrassment" (79, 85) but otherwise his criteria for judging the material this way or that remains buried somewhere in his bibliography.<br />
<br />
Whatever we make of John and Jesus, their legacy saw from the start a number of disparate developments. Koester states this plainly: "The diversity of Christian beginnings is evident in the sources, and it must have had its origin in diverse responses to the event of the death of Jesus and to documentation that this crucified Jesus was now alive again." (93) For one example, distinct practises in the liturgy of the Eucharist can be found at least in three places, the tradition that Paul received and repeated in 1 Cor 11, the accounts preserved in the synoptic Gospels, and the eucharistic prayers of the Didache (95-96). For another, one could consider the disinterest in the death of Jesus in Q and the Gospel of Thomas, and the opposite exhibited in Paul's letters (101-102). The most important divergence was the question of the Jewish law: whether non-Jewish members of the <i>ekklesia</i> should be circumcised and practice the dietary dictates of the Jewish scriptures, and such examples compel us to conclude that the earliest Christianity was "a phenomenon that utterly lacked unity" (102).<br />
<br />
Chapter IX<br />
<br />
Paul, having had a vision of the risen Christ, had a rather striking career as a missionary first in "Arabia" (around Damascus and east of Jordan), then Syria and Cilicia followed by the so-called "Apostolic Council" in Jerusalem (Koester dates this in 48 CE), the Antioch Incident and Paul's departure, and his subsequent efforts to found new congregations "in the most important urban centers of commerce and industry" (115) in Greece and Asia Minor, ending up imprisoned in Ephesia before travelling to Jerusalem with the Collection he had prepared for the "poor" (i.e. the Jewish-Christian community headed by Jacob), once again arrested and finally shipped to Rome (though Acts of the Apostles is the only source for the events after Paul's prison time in Ephesia; Koester discards most of the information in the Acts of the Apostles as far too legendary).<br />
<br />
As Koester notes, "Paul's letters reveal an ambitious, well-planned, large-scale organization that included the use of letters as an instrument of ecclesiastical policy" (118). This organization utilized a number of co-workers (such as Timothy and Titus) both Jewish and Gentile to achieve the effect (141). One example of the policing is found in Romans 16 which seems to have been originally sent to the Ephesians, and in which Paul manages to answer certain questions of organization while passing out greetings all around (143).
Another interesting feature of Paul was his curious need to be in good spirits with the (Jewish-Christian) congregation in Jerusalem, first illustrated in the endeavours of the Apostolic Council (even if that agreement was largely broken by the incident in Antioch soon after, which put Paul on the move and probably made his views on the Jewish law more radical; 111-114), and then in the Collection for the Jerusalem community Paul tried to deliver in the late 50s (146-148). For hundreds of years the Hellenistic states had looked towards Greece as the symbol of their origins, even if at the same time they had a need for the manpower the Greek immigrants could provide. Paul, looking towards Jerusalem, must have felt the same.
Finally, Koester makes a number of interesting readings of the divergent interpretations that Paul and those Christians who opposed him had for the Jewish scriptures (in practice, the Septuagint). [page 124]<br />
<br />
Chapter X<br />
<br />
Koester argues that Jesus' prophetic announcements concerning the coming rule of God were transformed by the earliest communities to point to Jesus himself (as someone coming back in the future), while itinerant prophets continued to pronounce similar statements using Jesus' authority; additionally, many new sayings came to be in order to provide rules for the emergent communities (151). The Synoptic Sayings Gospel (Q) is one example of the various early trajectories: indifferent about Jesus' death and resurrection, without christological titles (in its earliest layer), and "dominated by the consciousness of an eschatological community committed to a new conduct as demanded by Jesus in the light of the rule of God, whose coming Jesus had announced" (152) (of course, Koester need to put all the Son of Man sayings (which derive from Jewish apocalypticism of the times) into the later layers of composition of Q) (151-154). For another example, there is evidence that Jesus' parables were collected together "as words that reveal saving wisdom" (154).<br />
<br />
The Gospel of Thomas exemplifies another trajectory: similar to Q it has no interest in Jesus' death, but while an early composition (first around 50 CE in Koester's assessment) this work has transformed eschatological Jesus into a teacher of wisdom who, in fact, speaks "in the voice of heavenly Wisdom" in logions 23, 28, and 90 (154-158). Another early (I CE!) document for Koester is the Dialogue of the Savior which elaborates traditional sayings and builds a whole new genre (revelation dialogue/discourse) by adding interpretations, questions, etc around the words of Jesus. This trajectory views Jesus as a wisdom teacher who instructs his disciples to become his equals and understand their true (divine) origin and ultimate destiny (158-161). Other early works describe law-abiding Jewish-Christianity in Greek-speaking communities under the authorship of presbyters (The Epistle of James); yet another means of organization is described in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Didache) (161-165).<br />
<br />
Authority positions were given for many of the apostles, and Koester notes that "some time after the death of these apostles various Christian traditions were competing with each other under the authority of apostolic names" (166). Of the early Christian authority figures Peter has a prominent place, as he was remembered as one of the first (if not the first) witness of the risen Christ. It might be no coincidence, then, that one of the early witnesses for a full-blown passion narrative, the Gospel of Peter, went under this apostles' name, though other "Petrine" writings existed as well (166-169). As it happens, Koester's Gospel of Mark, stemming from the Syro-Palestinian realm, was written "primarily on the basis of written materials" (172), and created a new type of "biography" (or rather, "a passion narrative with a biographical introduction"; 173) following the Jewish examples of "the biography of the prophet" (Jeremiah and the suffering servant in Isaiah 40-56) (169-175). While "Mark" wanted to "unify conflicting traditions of a divided Syrian Christianity" (176), the author of the Gospel of Matthew aimed, by combining the Gospel of Mark and Q as well as his own special material, to make even more universal (or ecumenical) composition by presenting Jesus' ministry as focused on teaching rather than Markan miracle workings (176-182).<br />
<br />
Getting back to the various trajectories discussed above (noting that Koester locates all the different Christianities in this chapter 10 in Syria or thereabouts), a very distinct variation is the Johannine tradition, born from a different process of treating the oral traditions on Jesus as basis for discourses similar to the aforementioned Dialogue of the Savior. In other words, Koester finds clear parallels for most of the Johannine dialogues from the simpler sayings material as it was preserved e.g. in the writings of Justin Martyr and Ignatius of Antioch, and in the Gospel of Thomas. Additionally, the close parallels between Johannine and certain "Gnostic" traditions indicates that the former was composed in direct discourse with the latter. Surprisingly in this light is the working of the passion narrative into the Gospel of John, one that follows very closely its synoptic counterparts (182-190). These and other instances of redaction Koester sees in the Gospel of John (adding of Jh 21; interpolations in 5.28-29, 6.39b, 40b, 44b, and elsewhere) makes him decide that this I CE writing with many "special traditions" of its own, deeply influenced by Jewish wisdom speculations and the dialogue with Gnostic tendencies while reworking eschatological expectations into "realized eschatology" ("demythologizing traditional eschatology" in Koester's parlance; 197), was early-on made to fit better with the mainstream theology of Syrian Christianity (though Koester also speculates whether the Gospel of John was, in fact, never finished but was canonized in a sort of draft form; 193) (190-199). 1 John, at least, indicates that such unifying tendencies where not unknown in the Johannine circles (199-201), though the other side was as much open, and the authority of John was paraded in more Gnostic writings such as the Acts of John and the Apocryphon of John; Egypt, in particular, adopted John very early (202-204).<br />
<br />
Koester begins his treatment of "Jewish Christianity" by considering the term itself: Jesus was a Jew as were all his disciples and (at least most of the) apostles, and they had the Jewish scriptures at their disposal which "provided the matrix, the categories, and the reference points for the understanding of the message from and about Jesus" (205). He concludes that the term "Jewish Christianity" should be understood as an extremely narrow one, referring only to those congregations that upheld the Mosaic law (circumcision, purity and dietary laws) (204-205). While it is difficult to map out the development of Jewish Christianity in this narrow sense, Koester decides that there was no direct connection between the Jerusalem Church (which left the city before the Jewish War) and the other congregations that used the Jewish-Christian Gospels such as the Gospel of the Nazoreans and the Gospel of the Ebionites; instead, they were formed on the basis of the continuing battle between the various Christianities, as illustrated by Paul's fight with the "Judaizers" in e.g. his letter to the Galatians. Syria hosted Jewish-Christians up until the early Byzantine period (205-210).<br />
<br />
For the end of chapter 10, Koester summarizes the earlier discussion. He notes that the term "Gnosticism" he has used so far has only referred to "a particular phenomenon that is characterized by the discovery of the divine self in the individual and, at the same time, a radical rejection not only of the "world" in all its physical realities, but also of the body, the social fabric of society, and of all its institutions<span class="st">—</span>regardless of the presence or absence of any elaborate Gnostic mythology." (213) But this description is not indicative of any one movement on its own, but rather present in such tendencies as "the spiritualizing of realized eschatology" and "the lack of interest in building viable community structures" (213) whether they (by later ecclesiastical standards) fell within the "orthodoxy" or without; or, in other words, "Gnosticism is a hermeneutic principle in the process of interpretation" (214). While this decision still makes it rather unclear why certain encratite writings would be deemed "Gnostic" but Paul's encratite tendencies would be not, or why Koester puts writings like the Prologue of John's Gospel and the Hymn of the Dance found in the Acts of John under the heading "Gnostic Hymns and Songs" while at the same time noting that they neither have a Gnostic origin nor "reveal the influence of Gnostic terms and imagery" (220), Koester nevertheless thinks the roots of this line of thought could be found in Jewish speculations (actually, Koester calls it "heretical Judaism"; 216). The reasons for this currently outmoded notion are the non-Christian treatises from Nag Hammadi, such as the Apocalypse of Adam (216-220).<br />
<br />
Chapter XI<br />
<br />
Egypt is a short chapter for there is no direct evidence of the beginning of Christianity in there. Koester emphasizes the contrast between the city of Alexandria and the rest of Egypt; the first was a major centre of culture and economy while the latter did not speak Greek or have access to Greek education. From this contrast Koester concludes that all the sources of later Egyptian Christianity had to have been developed in contact with Alexandria, and thus are useful for reconstructing the history of Alexandrian Christianities. Much of the church fathers' writings are of no value, but the first known bishop of Alexandria was Demetrius (189 CE). The conceptual framework for dealing with Egypt is borrowed from Walter Bauer's <i>Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity</i> (1934)<span class="st">—</span>a book that I would personally cite as one of the most influential for my current understanding of Christian origins, despite its age<span class="st">—</span>and that verdict holds that Christianities in Egypt were of those variants that were later deemed "heretical"; thus the scarce information both in the lack of primary sources and in the lack of reliable information from later Christian writers (225-228).<br />
<br />
Koester finds evidence of at least five different Christianities having found their way to Egypt during I CE. Syrian influence is present in the Egyptian favoured Gospels of Thomas and John (both of whom Koester locates to have originated from Syria), and in the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Apocryphon of James likely used by Egyptian Jewish-Christians. Furthermore, there was an "independent Egyptian formations of Gnostic theology that reveal no specifically Christian influence" (in other words, contrary to Syria in which Koester sees Jewish Gnostic ideas forming the background for Christian Gnostic ideas, in Egypt this background was composed of Pagan Gnostic ideas (231) though imported Syrian Gnostic ideas and Jewish-Gnostic ideas were likely to play a role as well) found in such works as the Corpus Hermeticum, Eugnostos the Blessed, and the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit. The fourth distinct Christianity was the "vernacular Gnostic Christianity" that trasmitted Jesus' sayings (the Gospel of the Egyptians) but lacked much of the cosmological speculation that characterized the fifth variant of Gnostic schools (based on the model of philosophical schools discussed in volume one) of the Naassenes (Ophites), the Carpocratians, and the schools of Basilides and Valentinus (228-240).<br />
<br />
"Vernacular catholicism" is evident to have an Egyptian presence by the middle of II CE (2 Clement) while the Epistula Apostolorum provides a surprising twist for the battle of Christianities: it is an anti-Gnostic revelation discourse that challenges systematically all the Gnostic notions while claiming the authority of <i>all</i> the eleven apostles (while splitting Peter and Cephas into two persons). As mentioned above, the proto-orthodox establishment reaches Egypt by the end of II CE; yet Koester notes that "orthodoxy and heresy continued to exist side by side in Egypt for centuries" (245) (240-245).<br />
<br />
Chapter XII<br />
<br />
The very final chapter of this <i>Introduction</i> traces the development of proto-orthodox cult of Christ ("early catholicism" in Koester's parlance; 275) in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece (and Rome and Antioch). This variant of Christianity was a truly urban movement and its members (generally speaking) had access to relative wealth, relative education, and freedom and opportunities to travel and settle elsewhere. After the death of Paul (he certainly didn't survive the 60s) these communities faced "the renewal of apocalyptic expectations" (248); as illustrated by 2 Thessalonians (non-Pauline letter) eschatological ideas are maintained but they are not anymore "radical" (with radical conclusions for Christian ethics) but "doctrines about future events" which do not hinder "obedient and responsible living in this world" whilst waiting for the end. The Epistle of Jude shows how this renewal of apocalyptic ideas could be used to oppose "Gnosticism", and Koester labels the apocalyptic motive responsible for the beginning of the widening divide between different Christianities (247-253).<br />
<br />
The Revelation of John fits into this trajectory so far as it views the clash between the cult of Christ and the cult of the Emperor as the beginning of the end times. Koester's reading the Revelations, however, holds this book to be different from your standard "apocalyptic propaganda" (253) as it does not divulge any sort of "secret knowledge" (261) to the reader: up to the present the world has been under the rule of Christ and the final confrontation between Christ and Rome is about to begin, and the Christian community on the whole is invited to take part with the numerous hymns and songs which the author has included in his composition (253-262). (Of all the readings of early Christian books in Koester's <i>Introduction</i> this is the one I am left most puzzled with.) A different kind of apocalypticism is presented in the Shepherd of Hermas (written about the same time as the Revelations), which calls its readers for individual repentance instead of John's focus on communities (262-266).<br />
<br />
Apart from renewed apocalypticism of the Pauline churches following the Apostle's death (the problems which his death created are dealt e.g. in the Epistle to the Colossians as it explains how Paul's suffering has supplemented that of Christ's (1.24) and now the Christians have died and raised with Christ (in baptism), no problem if the parousia is delayed; 266-271), another move towards the future power position was the strengthening of the universal understanding of Christian religion. The Epistle to the Ephesians provides a rather traditional morality for the Christian communities in this regard, but at the same time opens a door for a Gnostic interpretation of Paul as it interprets the death and resurrection of Christ as a "mystery", makes Christians (like Colossians) participants to the death and resurrection in baptism, and transforms the old parousia ideas into an individual salvation after (natural) death (266-275). An illustrative example of such "Gnostic" speculations is embedded into the Epistle to the Hebrews in its wish to offer deep insight into the Jewish Bible for the "perfect" (much like Philo did) who are on their way back to the heavens, though Hebrews distances itself from other Gnostic ideas (275-280). The Epistle of Barnabas is even more explicit: it wishes to communicate <i>gnosis</i> (1.5) or "deeper understanding of Scripture" (281), such as interpreting the 318 servants whom Abraham circumcised to be a reference to the cross, as that number in Greek letters (IHT) has two letters of Jesus' name (IHSOUS) and that final T symbolizes the cross; Barnabas' "gnosis", naturally, is synonymous to "true faith" and Koester does not hesitate to call the letter of Barnabas "anti-Gnostic" (282) (280-282).<br />
<br />
The generation of Christians following the generation of Paul is completely nameless. The generation following that generation has John (the author of the Apocalypse), Clement (of Rome), Ignatius (of Antioch), Polycarp, and Dionysius (Corinthian bishop who wrote letters ca. 150 CE); in Egypt the first known Christians were Basilides and Valentinus, in Syria Tatian and Bar Deisan (Bardesanes) from II CE. Koester names "the desire of churches or individuals to exercise ecclesiastical-political influence in their own right" for one of the reasons for these names to have appeared at the time they did (283). Another factor was the compilation of Pauline letters into a collection that must have happened already during the late I CE.<br />
<br />
Ignatius is a prominent example of the reception of Paul and further development of Pauline ideas. Koester sees him to be quite close to the Ephesians in his theology, while Ignatius' eschatology is "reduced to the concept of martyrdom" (which also gave him the chutzpah to instruct other communities than his own in his letters; 286; 290). One of the most influential innovations of his was the concept of "monarchic episcopate", one congregation under one bishop acting like the monarchs of old, accepted everywhere as the organizational model by the end of II CE (282-291). Other models, like the plurality of bishops talked about in the parenetic instruction of 1 Clement, were discarded (291-295).<br />
<br />
One of the better ideas of the proto-orthodox cult of Christ ("early catholic church" in Koester's parlance) was the combining of Peter and Paul into two apostles of the same mind. This not only allowed alliances between communities that had attached themselves to either name (Paul in Asia Minor, Peter in Syria in which anti-Pauline traditions were current up until the early II CE), but also paved way for the acceptance of "Petrine" writings (Gospel of Matthew, for instance) in the west (293-294). Such development is illustrated in the First Epistle of Peter (early II CE), which is Petrine only as far as its title goes, having transferred the language of Israel (in the Jewish scriptures) to pertain to the church in a very straightforward manner (295-298). The Second Epistle of Peter is even more explicit: it mentions Paul by name and laments the difficulties in making sense of his letters. Koester puts it like this: "While the letters of Paul were still quoted and used without hesitation around the year 100, a generation later the author of 2 Peter belonged to those orthodox Christians who named Paul as an authority of the church, but secretly wished that the great apostle had not written any letters" (300) (298-300).<br />
<br />
No wonder, then, that by the middle of II CE the so-called Pastoral Epistles utilized Paul's name in organizing the Christian communities into "stable" and "well-established" societies, getting rid of the radical eschatological ethics in favour of conservative "good-citizens'" morality much like Polycarp did in his writings; Koester even holds it plausible that Polycarp could be the unknown author of the Pastoral Epistles (300-310).
Such settling down made way for the fully-formed apologetic writings of II CE; such tendencies were already present in the treatise of Luke (traditionally called the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles), for which Koester loans Marianne P. Bonz's thesis: Luke's work was intended to be the epic foundation story of unified Christianity much like Virgil's <i>Aeneid</i> was the epic foundation story of the Romans. The apologetic motive is plainly seen, as Luke's Christianity is "a religion without any elements that could possibly constitute a political problem for Rome" (314) and the early controversies of Peter and Paul (and many others) are downplayed and transferred outside of the Christian community (the Jews especially are portrayed as people seeking to stir controversy among the Christians) (310-327). Such apologetics is largely missing from the other <i>Acta</i> (e.g. the Acts of Peter, and the Acts of Paul) which present their heroes (the apostles) as wandering miracle workers; Koester notes that Luke, at least, "refrained from introducing baptized lions and talking dogs" into his composition (331) (327-331). Marcion presented yet another different interpretation of Paul giving incentive for the proto-orthodox to formulate a canon of their own in competition with Marcion's church (331-336).<br />
<br />
The proper apologetics of II CE was born out of necessity. As the letter of the younger Pliny illustrates, Romans viewed the nascent Christianity as a "false religion" (<i>superstitio</i>) and were troubled by its status as a private religious association that held nocturnal meetings and refused to submit to the rule of the emperor by sacrificing to his <i>genius</i>. This was no piety as the Romans understood it, and Koester notes that when given the opportunity to repent from "atheism" (as the Christians were accused of) "a stubborn insistence upon the confession of Christ" was "in itself punishable" (340) (336-340). Against this deadlock situation the Christian apologists wanted to establish that their religion was, in fact, a philosophy (concerning the conduct of one's life) steeped in venerable ancient traditions that was superior to other philosophies (not to mention other cults and religions). Justin Martyr, for instance, argued that Moses had been the teacher of Plato, and by this move brought the whole of Greek tradition into his understanding of "God's saving history"; Jesus was "the true teacher of right philosophy" and all the similarities between Christianity and other cults were due to demonic parody of the truth (340-347).<br />
<br />
Koester ends with a brief discussion of the cult of the martyrs. By the latter half of II CE the economic and social reality in the Roman empire became dire, and Christians were brought from obscurity into the limelight and certain consequences would follow; the discussion, however, does not put the martyrs into any other context ("zeal for martyrdom" that had to reigned by some of the church fathers, for instance) as Koester seems to severely sympathize with the protagonist of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, calling it "still a moving testimony to the early Christian courage in public witness" (348) (347-349).Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-46460130875301204482012-08-20T14:26:00.000+03:002012-08-20T22:58:48.443+03:00RBB12: Helmut Koester's Introduction to the New Testament, Volume One: History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic AgeI have stalled for writing this first instance out of seven planned for the usual reason: having read the first volume of Helmut Koester's <i>Introduction to the New Testament</i> (1982) I found myself quite at a loss for what to write about it.<br />
<br />
It is not supposed to be an academic book review, for which this would suffice: "Koester's important work remains (despite some outdated sections) the standard introduction to the Hellenistic and Roman periods for those interested in the religious landscape that shaped the various Christianities and Judaisms." But certainly the fact that it remains in the curriculum of the University of Helsinki already betrays the fact. A reading diary, on the other hand, would look much the same: "Koester's important work, which has been the backbone of the curriculum of the University of Helsinki and upon which I have constructed my understanding of the religious landscape of the Hellenistic and Roman periods that shaped the various Christianities and Judaisms, fits (despite some outdated sections) on close reading exactly to that understanding of the religious landscape etc. I have constructed upon the curriculum etc." It might be a beautiful circle of a sentence, but banal nevertheless.<br />
<br />
Yet it is only a matter of time for insights to develop. It is my great pleasure to observe that I am content in possessing a certain level of competence in my field of study, which means to say that I did not spot any serious flaws in my understanding or total surprises. The extended notes I prepared, however, are boring. I will leave them as an addendum to this post. Here in front I wish to discuss three things I gained in reading this first volume of Koester's introduction.<br />
<br />
First, I believe I relearned to appreciate just how much historians are tied to their own time and how large an effect it has for their scholarship. Koester's <i>Introduction to the New Testament</i> was originally published in 1980 (in one volume) as <i>Einführung in das Neue Testament</i>. That more than 30 years has elapsed since then is most evident, naturally, in those few instances in which Koester's scholarship has become outdated. I cannot imagine a contemporary scholar stating that "There is no question that the Jewish sect of Qumran was indeed identical with the sect mentioned in the ancient reports about the Essenes" and that because of the Dead Sea Scrolls "The history of the sect can now be reconstructed with relative certainty" (235). Nor is Koester's sharp distinction between religion and magic—e.g. "religious thought and rites appear here [magical papyri] only in the shadow of magic" (105)—really practised anymore. Likewise, Koester's treatment on "Gnosticism" (382-388) requires a rewriting, though he himself notes presciently at one point that "Further clarification can be expected from the ongoing scholarly investigation of the newly discovered texts from Nag Hammadi" (385).<br />
<br />
Yet the zeitgeist in which Koester wrote this work seeps through in other places as well. Beginning from chapter III (alternatively, it took me that far to begin to see some of these subtexts) certain throwaway sentences not only enliven the text but also disclose some of the spirit of that bygone world that undoubtedly haunted the lecture halls of universities with the more—shall we say—prolonged traditions. An innocent example is Koester's statement while discussing the differences between the rhetorical styles of Atticism and Asianism of the Hellenistic period: "The leading proponents of rhetoric and literature of ancient Atticism were unable to comprehend that the principal task of literature is the cultivation of the living, spoken language." (104) It is such a sweeping generalization that it makes me wonder who would disagree with it. Apart from the proponents of Atticism. And my Greek instructor at the Classics Department. Does literature even need a principal task? How does this function with the fact that early Christian writings—as Koester rightly notes—were written in the Greek Koine, the vernacular language of the times (even if some, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, were written in a sort-of "elevated Koine")? It is all the more curious as other examples from Koester read a bit differently, cultural capital wise.<br />
<br />
As it happens, I told a lie above. I was surprised at one specific point whilst reading, when Koester discusses the new form of "dramatic performance" that was developed during the Hellenistic period: the mime. The strange wrap-up is this: "But the mimes do not permit their audience to transcend the limitations of banal everyday experience and recognize their true identity in experiences of the realm of unique and extraordinary events." (127) Contrary to this (once again) sweeping generalization I found Koester's description of the mimes fascinating: borrowing from ancient forms of dance and cultic rites and influenced by the New Comedy, the mimes made performances of ancient and modern subjects, performed solo and in groups with improvisation, music, acrobatics, all in the everyday language of the crowds who simply adored them. What, exactly, prevents such performances from transcending "the limitations of banal everyday experience"? Why would we want to do that in the first place, come to think of it? If I may take just one more example from Koester, his discussion of the thriving of literary forms and subjects during the Hellenistic period notes at one point that "There were, of course, educated readers, who would usually restrict their reading to philosophical and scientific literature; but there also was a broader public, able to read and hungry to be entertained." (122) This is probably the most explicit sentence in the first volume that could be used—in case of every single title page and library record of the book going missing—to date its writing: the latter half of the twentieth century (but closer to the 1950s) since that particular distinction between "educated readers" who read only philosophy and "broader public" (masses) who just want to be entertained looks all but impossible to use post-2000 without even a hint of irony.<br />
<br />
I do not wish the dwell on Koester's understanding of the role of education and class distinction he discloses in these sidenotes, nor do I wish to offer any sort of judgement on them—the strength of our times, after all, is the proliferation of endless debate and every voice needs to be counted for us to have that. But I wish to note that certain facts—in this instance that Koester was born in 1920s and wrote this work, incidentally, years before I was born, and, to take a random example, the current minister of culture in Finland prefers football and rap music over the classical arts like opera—enable us to pinpoint the origins of literary works with some degree of certainty, whether the works themselves are ancient or modern. And should anyone point out that even today the choice of one's leisure activities is largely depended on one's cultural and social capital (and that, consequently, the "low" and "high" cultures can still be discerned, citing, say, Herbert Gans' <i>Popular Culture and High Culture</i> (2008, Revised and Updated Edition) for evidence), the dating game of Koester's is not really dependent on this one aspect alone. Consider, for instance, his discussion on Euripides (d. 407/406 BCE), whose dramas continued to be very popular throughout the Hellenistic era. Koester reasons that their longevity is due to "his radically new characterization of human life" in which the characters are "ultimately left isolated and helpless" in face of the insurmountable forces of fate (123); a reading of Euripides that seems to betray Koester's dependence on certain twentieth-century philosophers, mainly Martin Heidegger (<i>Introduction to the New Testament</i> happens to be dedicated "To the Memory of my Teacher Rudolf Bultmann").<br />
<br />
Finally, I wish to come back to Koester's idea on the task of literature (quoted above) in which he challenged Atticism in favour of writing the vernacular language of "broader public" (to use his words for effect once again). That Koester in this instance feels the need to make an apology on behalf of early Christians (who made virtually all of their writings fit into Koester's ideal) becomes evident when we consider another apology of Koester's, only much more pronounced. In discussing the new development of the Imperial period, the "Philosophical Marketplace" or preaching one's ideas (philosophical, religious, or magical) out in the open, with persuasive speech and demonstrations that one possessed supernatural powers, Koester wants to justify the similar conduct of early Christian preachers (Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles comes to mind) with the following:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The ancient and new insights of the philosophers and great thinkers were not in demand, but rather whatever could clarify the world and its powers as they affected peoples' everyday problems. Astral powers thus took the place of the old gods; new deities recommended themselves rather than critically tested philosophical doctrines; demonic forces were better explanations of the world than scientific knowledge. Simple moral rules for human behavior offered better advice than psychological insights into the motivations of human actions. The solution of the pressing personal problems, even if by magical tricks, would be more readily accepted than demands for social reform. <b>If Christianity wanted to keep its message competitive in this religious market, it had to enter into a critical debate with the laws of supply and demand of the marketplace.</b> (357; emphasis mine)</blockquote>
In effect, historians are not only hopelessly stuck to their times, they also come to love their subjects (sometimes they both love and hate them), ending up constructing apologies on behalf of them (sometimes diatribes against them). Koester is no worse a historian for possessing these qualities, and certainly better than most. For insight grows naturally out of hindsight—which requires the passing of time—and performs as the best tool available in the historian's toolbox, especially when it comes to assessing the work of other historians. And the final thing I gained in reading this volume? That sweeping generalizations are never more than sweeping generalizations and thus dangerous: avoid them as much as you can (but note that you sometimes cannot).<br />
<br />
Oh, and one final question: I began to wonder whilst reading how would our understanding of early Christianities change if we, instead of making it <i>sui generis</i> by giving it a label of its own, decided to refer to the cult(s) of Christ and thus make the playing field even with the other cults of Isis, Mithras, Sarapis, the Roman Emperor, Yahweh etc.?<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
A Few Notes on Helmut Koester's <i>Introduction to the New Testament, Volume One: History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age</i> (Fortress Press/Walter de Gruyter, 1982)<br />
<br />
Chapter I<br />
<br />
K begins with a historical survey of the so-called Hellenistic states beginning with the earliest Greek colonies as far back as X BCE (1), but focusing on the conflict between the Greeks and the Persian Empire, the depictions between the "West" (Greek) and "East" (Persian) and the longstanding, perceived superiority of the Greek system having their roots in the early Greek successes against Persian superpower (2).
As expected, Alexander is the turning point in K's narrative, coming from amongst the Macedonians ("nation closely related to the Greeks" but with certain differences; 6) and K emphasises that when Macedonians were raised to the position of power among the Greek city states in IV BCE it was a tremendous change in the power dynamics of the region (9); Alexander went on to conquer the "East" (9-11), but his early death in 323 BCE created an impossibility, an empire too large and divided to be governed effectually and A's empire was broken in various battles of succession among the Diadochi i.e. the succerssors of A (11-12); in any case, the numerous Greek immigrants ensured that the lands of the former Persian empire were to become (largely) "Hellenistic" states (12), except for Egypt which had a somewhat more rough process (25). K notes that these Hellenistic kingdoms needed access to Greek mainland for manpower, and because of economic and symbolic considerations (15), and both the Seleucid empire and Ptolemaic Egypt succeeded in securing this access (16).<br />
<br />
The next century saw the rise of the Romans and in K's narrative this came as "a real shock" (17) to both Macedonia and Greece (16-17). The growing influence of Rome was felt in all the Hellenistic states (16-31) with the usual back-and-forth fortunes of war (Mithridates, also known as the "New Dionysus" succeeded in "liberating" all of Asia Minor and Greece in I BCE (22); Pyrrhus of Epirus' campaigns in the Italian mainland; 30), a history of bloodpaths and atrocities. Related to the general warfare were the internal affairs of many Hellenistic states, and the Maccabean Revolt (168-164 BCE) was among them (29), K suggests that the intervention of Rome in this was part of the downfall of the Seleucid empire (29).<br />
<br />
K touches upon the unsolved question of the divinity of Alexander, who (so the stories go) was greeted by a priest as the son of Zeus-Ammon (10) and at the very least requested the worship of his dead friend Hephaestion as divine hero (11), and quits with an excursus on the Greek ruler cult, noting first that the concept of state is missing in the Greek language; they would have spoken of "polis" or "commonwealth" instead, for the "state" was not a property of the ruler (opposed to Persian political ideology) (32); the idea of the "divinely gifted individual" as a ruler came forth only in the beginning of IV BCE and following the decline of the polis (33) and this led to the practice of bestowing occasional "divine honours" on rulers and generals during their lifetime (33), while Alexander began as an imitator of the hero Hercules but ended accepting divine veneration and certainly was worshipped as divine after he had died (but how long after there is no consensus; 33-34); in Egypt the traditions of the land (pharaoh was the son of the god Re due to the office) paved way for the Greeks in Egypt to worship Ptolemy I and Berenice (wife) as "Savior Gods" soon after their death (34-35) and later on to worship the still living rulers as divine (35), and a parallel development took place also in the Seleucid empire (36).<br />
<br />
Chapter II<br />
<br />
K begins with the problems of using the term "Hellenism", for it has since J. G. Droysen been used to refer to "the amalgamation of Greek and oriental culture" (39), but such process began already before Alexander nor was it a proper "amalgamation" for the Greek element was thought to prevail (at least in the minds of the Greek themselves; 39); if the term is used it should be restricted to designate a certain historical period between Alexander and the Roman empire, a period in which "the expansion of the Greek language and culture and, most of all, the establishment of the Greeks' political dominion over other nations of the east" was the theme (39), though at least in certain areas (religion, for instance where the deities were overlapping) K sees the end result as "syncretism" i.e. a proper mixture of both Greek and Eastern elements, noting that the non-Greek contribution is easy to miss due to its presentation (naturally) in Greek (language) using the Greek-developed structures (41).<br />
<br />
For Society and Economics K mentions the founding of cities as an important development for it "created cultural and economic centers everywhere, to an extent that was unknown in the east heretofore" (43). The mainland Greece, however, fell into poverty due to its lack of natural resources and cultivated land, and because everyone wanted a piece of Greece for symbolic value and made their wars there (43). Cities in Asia Minor fared only a little better (45) but the kingdoms of Asia Minor amassed wealth (46-47) as did Egypt (48) and the Seleucid Empire though the latter encompassed such a large landmass that a unified economic system was impossible (51) though its administration was centralized to a degree (much of the empire was ruled by various vassals, nations, princes and cities; 51). Administration was funded by taxes, both direct (head tax, property tax, commercial license fee) and indirect (customs, sales tax, port tax) variants were used (53); K sees difficulties in assessing just how oppressive the taxation was, but citing 1 Maccabees 10 and 14 suggests that it doesn't seem to have been "exorbitant" and that the Jews objected them out of principle (54).<br />
<br />
The question of indigenous population was more complex. K notes that in Egypt there was a rather clear two-caste system of Greeks and Egyptian population (55) with the "foreigners" having more rights for themselves (56), a social contrast that was lacking in the Seleucid empire (56) in which non-Greeks could be found in the "Greek bourgeoisie" positions of physicians and merchants (57). The question of slavery is a hard one, given the contemporary attitudes towards it. K notes that slavery in the Hellenistic period was not like the slavery in the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for ancient slaves had certain privileges regarding property and marriage (60). One myth that K rightly demolishes is that the society would have required slavery to function. Rome might have been dependent on slaves to an extent (especially during II and I BCE), but certainly Egypt and the Seleucid empire were not as the number of slaves has been established to have been rather low (60-61). There is always a danger in generalizing when it comes to large landmass or to a long period of time. While there were no abolitionists, some parts of the society were virtually indifferent to slavery, especially religious associations; religions that originated in the East (including Christianity) accepted both the free and the slave into their initiations (62).<br />
<br />
As for the economy, agriculture was the most important source of wealth (62, 74) and the highest social classes were always relatively small and located in the cities (63). The most important social institutions were the associations (and continued to be far into the Roman period; 65) which included associations for the benefit of the whole community (gymnasium associations), professional associations (guilds and unions), social clubs, and religious associations (65-66).
As mentioned earlier, the Hellenistic city was one of the defining features of the period, Alexandria of Egypt being a prominent example (68). Many cities were also originally founded as military colonies, for the soldiers (once settled to cultivate the lands) had a strong incentive to defend it and would attract other Greek immigrants as well (69). The new cities were modelled after the classical Greek cities with walls, a central agora, temples, administrative buildings, a theater, a gymnasium etc. though they also introduced a number of modifications such as a lack of acropolis reflecting the changing social atmosphere (71).
While agriculture remained the basis for the economy and produced some interesting dynamics especially in the mainland Greece which depended on imported grain (74) and in Egypt which became the biggest exporter of grain (74), it was supplemented by various manufacturing and industry products, including mining and metalwork, textiles, ceramics and glass, and writing materials and books (76-82).<br />
<br />
Finally, K discusses the trading and monetary systems noting that through various trade routes by sea (to the west) or by land (to the east; 85-88) "trade among the various countries of the Mediterranean world tended to favor items of special value and quality: expensive wine, fine olive oil, ceramic and toreutic products of particular beauty, etc. (84) Trading was conducted through a monetary system based on silver following Alexander who introduced the Attic standard for the whole of his empire though every political institution minted its own coins (88). While Alexander's system was generally upheld, it was supplemented by copper and gold coins into a three-metal system in Egypt and the Seleucid empire, and fixed at that by Augustus in the beginning of the Imperial period (88-89).<br />
<br />
Chapter III<br />
<br />
Chapter 3 looks at education and literature. Schooling system was the foundation of "the public character of cultural and intellectual life" (93). Primary schooling was usually on the responsibility of the city state, while instruction by a grammarian (who taught poets, especially Homer and Euripides) was paid separately. Young men in their 15th/17th year attended gymnasium for primarily athletics and "preliminary military training" (93). Even higher education was available in medical schools and in schools of rhetoric and philosophy (93-94). Books were available in the Hellenistic period in larger quantities, and public libraries were founded (94-95). In theaters (which were located in every city) the classical poets could also be heard for the benefit of the illiterate (95). K notes of the public character of life that "[s]ectarian seclusion was at variance with the principles of educational policy of the Hellenistic city, which insisted upon the public character of education and instruction" (96). Much of the policies mentioned above continued into the Roman period (97).<br />
<br />
Under Roman rule the culture of the world was Hellenistic. As previously noted, this development had already begun in III BCE and it would not be an exaggeration to state following K that "the majority of the Jewish people became thoroughly Hellenized" as well (97). The cultural and intellectual life was not only public but also international. Stoic philosophers thought the world as a large polis with all the people its citizens and all the gods representatives of one divine principle (98). Athens maintained its status as "the cultural capital of the world" well into the Roman period, and students of philosophy continued to study in its Stoic school, Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, and the Garden of the Epicureans (99). Other important centres included Alexandria, Pergamum and Rhodes (99-100).<br />
<br />
From the number of dialects of Greek from V BCE (Ionic, Aeolic, Doric, and Attic have been preserved in literature) it was the "Ionicised Attic" that became the official language of administration of Alexander's empire, which in turn developed into Koine or the "common" language of the period (101-103). Koine was, however, used less in literature. Instead of vernacular language of the ordinary people (used by certain Hellenistic historians such as Polybius and Diodorus Siculus; 104) or even "elevated Koine", many writers wanted to hark back and uphold the classical Attic prose, while others preferred "Asianism", or (in K's description) "a rhetorical style ... which deliberately used uncommon syntactical constructions and phrases, overloaded sentences with resounding words, and employed sequences of abridged clauses for rhetorical effectiveness" (103-104). Of the early Christian writers, Ignatius of Antioch used Asianism, while Clement of Alexandria preferred Atticism, which was the mainstream choice (104).
Early Christian writers wrote Koine. In fact, K observes that "[t]he New Testament has very little relationship to the artificial representation of the language of Attic prose in the literature and rhetoric of the Roman imperial period" (107). Various New Testament authors, however, exhibit different literary sensibilities. The Epistle to the Hebrews comes close to the principles of Atticism, while the authors of 2 Peter and the Gospel of Luke (and Acts of the Apostles) are certainly familiar with various literary conventions, writing in somewhat elevated Koine compared to, say, Paul or (even more so) to the author of the Gospel of Mark (107-110).<br />
<br />
Education and language lead us to the sciences or scientific thinking which K traces to VI BCE due to Greek colonization at that time and the influences a close contact with other cultures brought within. The disciplines were as varied as ethnography (also the literary genre of <i>periploi</i> or circumnavigations), medical science, astronomy, mathematics and geometry, and physics. Aristotle cannot go unmentioned regarding all of this (113-116). K places the "Golden Age of Scholarship" into the Hellenistic period, with individuals such as Eudemus of Rhodes, Archimedes of Syracuse, Aristarchos of Samos, Hipparchus of Nicea, Erastosthenes, Herophilus, Erasistratus, and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the forefront of the sciences of their day. Regarding philology one important development occurred in Alexandria where the classical authors were systematically revised through the comparison of extant manuscripts; various commentaries, concordances and monographs were also published at this time (116-119). K sees that the scholarship begins to decline in the Roman period when creative enterprises were replaced by encyclopedias and other collections of past scholarship (119). With some curious disdain he notes that "some ... had no other aim but to entertain the reader" (120). The sole exception to this rule was the medical research, which florished following the works of Rufus of Ephesus and Galen of Pergamum (120).<br />
<br />
The final section of chapter 3 discusses the literature of the Hellenized world. K notes that "new subjects, forms, and traditions ... were generated by the wider horizons of the understanding of the world", and much inspiration was derived from Eastern materials (121). Literature thrived not only in variety but also in quantity and influence, as books were also designed and produced for private use. Despite the diversity of Hellenistic literature, however, K sees a certain coherence present, as its roots are ultimately traceable to the traditions of the classical Greece. One author who cannot go unmentioned here is Euripides, whose dramas (originally written in V BCE) maintained their relevance throughout the period (K reasons that this is due to "his radically new characterization of human life" in which the characters are "ultimately left isolated and helpless" (123) in face of the insurmountable forces of fate (122-123). Greek tragedy continued to be produced during the Hellenistic period though only few fragments have been preserved. The New Comedy of Athens, especially due to Menander (whom Paul quotes in 1 Cor 15:33: "Bad company destroys good morals"), entertained the crowds alongside with the mimes (!), the new "popular form of dramatic performance" (126) as K puts it (123-126). Important poets included Callimachus and Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes (127-128).<br />
<br />
K notes that historiography was popular in the Hellenistic period. Historians such as Josephus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Arrian, Dio Cassius, and Herodian produced "well-informed reports based upon personal experience or upon reliable sources such as diaries and original documents" (129). Polybius is on the record as having stated that "only those who participate actively in the events of their time are capable of writing history" (12.25; paraphrased by K) (130). And while Polybius as well as other historians taught morality lessons he nevertheless "rejects the notion that historiography should provide entertainment" (2.56; paraphrased by K) (130). Yet many historians of the period were mainly collecting historical anecdotes nor is the panegyric glorification of Alexander and other historical figures up to the standards of K's sensibilities (131-132).<br />
<br />
Finally, the two interesting literary genres, biography (and aretalogy) and romance are discussed by K with some depth. The first was born out of the monarchic rule of Egypt, where a "fixed and detailed schemata" had been laid down for the writing of biography; the same schemata was also utilized in the Jewish Bible e.g. in the story of Moses and Nehemiah (132-133). Contrary to this, the classical Greece lacked such a genre, and K suggest that "[t]he political and social structures of the Greek society at that time did not favor an interest in the single individual who surpassed all others", and came to be only at the beginning of the Hellenistic period; recalling the name of Aristoxenus (one of the students of Aristotle) in this context (he wrote biographies of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato among others though nothing has been preserved of these; 133). Polybius, the historian mentioned above, brought the biography into historiography. K distinguishes proper biographies from aretalogies, noting that the latter was closely related to the former since extraordinary power of the individual were quite compatible with divine powers "manifested in present events", and that a common opinion of the times held that great works of poetry and philosophy etc. were divinely inspired (134-135). For the Imperial period, the biography continued to thrive in such works as Suetonius' lives of the emperors up to the lives of Christian martyrs (135). Finally, K considers the romance a "typical literary expression of the late-Hellenistic view of human existence" (136-137). This genre collects its characteristics from all the known genres of Greek literature, but focused largely on two themes of eroticism and adventurous travel (first brought together in Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe in I CE). It was very popular at the time, and one should consider that practically all of the acts of apostles were examples of (Christian) romances (137-140).<br />
<br />
Chapter IV<br />
<br />
In the chapter on Philosophy and Religion K considers the philosophical schools of the time (Platonism, Aristotle's Peripatetic philosophy, Epicureans, and Stoics) as well as smaller movements of Cynicism, Euhemerism, Orphism, and Greek religion old and new (including mystery religions). Beginning with the established philosophical schools, Aristotle's Peripatetic school was the least influential as the Philosopher himself was largely known only as a natural scientist during the Hellenistic period (144-145). Plato's Academy had its greatest impact on matters demonical (or concerning <i>daimones</i>; Justin Martyr, for instance, claimed that the similarities between pagan cults and Christianity were due to evil demons' impact) and regarding skepticism in obtaining truth from sensory-perceptible world. Contrary to Academicians and their philosophy, Platonism<span class="st">—</span>as Platonic concepts became coiled with Stoic ideas<span class="st">—</span>became the universal framework of thought beginning in I BCE (141-144).<br />
<br />
Stoicism was a cosmopolitan perspective, its ethics centering on the concept of virtue and of the goal (<i>telos</i>) of true happiness (<i>eudaimonia</i>) (according to Chrysippus) "to live in agreement with nature (<i>physis</i>)" or according to reason (Logos), free from affections (in a state of <i>apatheia</i>; literally without affections) (147-150). With such cosmological and psychological speculations, stoicism resulted in "a strictly materialistic and deterministic view of the course of all things", though interestingly the very materialistic understanding of the world suited well for the emergent Hellenistic theology as the reason or <i>logos</i> of the Stoics could result in pantheistic theology (149-151). Finally, the Stoics developed the allegorical method in order to reinterpret myths (and Homer!), in K's words "the standard hermeneutical method of antiquity" also heavily utilized by Jewish and Christian writers (151). Like Stoics, Epicureans strived for <i>eudaimonia</i> and taught that the gods were inconsequential for human life; K suggests that Epicureans practised their philosophy in "the Garden" as a conscious substitute for religion with "obvious" parallels to mystery religions, and this probably limited their influence only to the upper classes (145-147).<br />
<br />
K sees "the spirit of the Hellenistic Age" present in various (comparatively) fringe movements of the time. The Cynics, known for their impudence in their rejection of standard values and conventions, contributed by developing the diatribe in which<span class="st">—</span>contrary to the (Platonic) dialogue<span class="st">—</span>vernacular language was used in providing "[o]bjections by a fictitious opponent, rhetorical questions, extreme examples, anecdotes, and striking quotations" even to the point of rudeness in the chosen language, though other philosophical traditions apart from Cynicism were also present in the creation of the diatribe style (153-154). Euhemerism, named after Euhemerus, explained myths in anthropomorphic terms, and "reduced the gods to heroes"; Euhemerus himself was an atheist (154-155). Orphism existed already at least in VI BCE with conventicles, largely a movement of the lower classes, with fully developed mysteries in III BCE. Its main influence was seen in the ideas of transmigration of souls and in punishment after death (in the underworld or Tartarus) or post mortem existence in the fields of bliss in "far west". Orphism probably influenced the emerging mystery religions of the Hellenistic period (159-162).<br />
<br />
Similar to chapter II and the problems with the concept of "Hellenism", K tries to bring clarity to one of its commonly referred components, "Syncretism". For K, this concept comes to life in the amalgamation of deities (Zeus = Jupiter, Aphrodite = Venus etc.), the translation of Eastern cult texts and rituals into Greek and their transformation from e.g. local cults into world religions through allegorical interpretation which in turn is practised through the new philosophical framework of the times, and in the creation of completely new religions from combining Greek and non-Greek elements (the cult of Sarapis); Christianity, in general, is consequently a thoroughly syncretistic religion (164-167).<br />
<br />
The Hellenistic period saw the reorganization of cults following the disappearance of political power many temples had previously possessed, and new forms of existing without being a state religion (not to forget the lack of state revenue) had to be developed, including liturgical and theological reforms. Cults themselves, however, essentially flourished, as witnessed by festivals and games that continued to be held. The Imperial period brought changes as the Greek cults were suddenly supported by the philhellene emperors, though K observes that such state funding eventually led to their downfall as the cults became "estranged from the religious consciousness of the majority of the population", despite the old cults having attained an outlook fairly similar to the synagogue system (and services) of the Jews and the congregations and practices of early Christians (167-171). The oracles were also stripped of political influence they had previously possessed, though this was somewhat transferred to the Sibylline oracles (at the Hellenistic period this meant books of prophecies by various Sibyls). The Roman period, however, saw some of the old oracle sanctuaries flourishing for a period, but only one of them (the oracle of Apollo in Claros) could be said to have adapted to the times with theological and liturgical innovations (such as IAO (Yahweh?) as the highest god; 171-173). The cult of Asclepius, however, remained popular throughout as the healing services (advertised in wooden tablets and stone inscriptions as well as in aretalogies full of miraculous stories of healings) continued to be in demand; K suggests that the perception of Asclepius as "the most humane god" ("Savior") was at least partly responsible (173-176).<br />
<br />
The Greek mysteries are treated with some depth by K, and if I drop the details of the mysteries themselves (so well-known to me), I would just note that K sees the mysteries at Eleusis as the prototype of the later mystery religions, with great influence up to the Roman times when it became a worldwide phenomenon; even emperors were initiated into the mysteries (176-180). The other early Greek mystery (apart from Orphism mentioned above) was the cult of Dionysus (Bakchos/Bacchus), with its orgiastic feasts with the practice of omophagia i.e. wild animals torn to pieces alive and eaten raw (in the Thracian myth of Dionysus the god appears not in the form of animal but as a child "born into the spring" with phallus as his symbol); the outlook of the cult differed in different places and e.g. the ritual of a <i>hieros gamos</i> was not always part of the cultic activities. Only Asclepius challenged Dionysus in popularity in the Hellenistic period. It is notable that the cult of Dionysus seems to have both a public face with public celebrations and a mystery cult aspect of which details (as is also the case with the Eleusinian mysteries) are unsure (180-183).<br />
<br />
The end of chapter 4 discusses the new religions of the Hellenistic period. Sarapis, an artificial and syncretistic god created by Ptolemy I out of Egyptian and Greek elements (originally Oserapis or closely connected Osiris and Apis was worshipped in Memphis) and made the cult of Sarapis the central cult of the realm. K suggests that the creation of Sarapis was due to the Ptolemies needing to legitimate themselves as true heirs of the Pharaohs and that they needed a god to adopt for that purpose (183-188). Sarapis was eventually eclipsed in significance by Isis, originally an Egyptian deity, who was transformed from Osiris' wife to "the goddess of heaven and mother of the All", a truly universal deity. K notes, quite rightly, that "Mary, the mother and goddess of heaven in Christianity, is little more artistically than a copy of Isis", noting that characteristics of Isis are plainly in sight in the Revelations' depiction of the pregnant woman "dressed with the sun and ... the zodiac on her head" fleeing the dragon (Typhon) together with her child (188). The Isis mysteries were one of the more popular of the mystery religions. Though details are once again uncertain, K sees the initiate having been reborn and placed "on a new course of life and salvation"; not immortality nor resurrection from the dead, but "dying to one's former life and ... a new life in the service of the goddess", while Isis' protection extended even after death ("living in the Elysian fields you will worship me as your gracious protector"; Metam. 11.6); Christian parallels would include Paul in Romans 6 and K notes, rightly again, that "[o]ne should not deny that the New Testament and the mysteries often speak the same language" (190-191). The difference between Christianity and mystery religions for K lies in the financial means required to participate, which Christianity did not require. This essential difference, however, is contested by archaeological finds for the cult structures in various cities could have held a large congregation, which for K makes them to closely resemble Jewish and Christian places of worship in this regard (191). Another popular mystery religion of the Hellenistic period was the cult of the Great Mother (Magna Mater and also known as Cybele) and her lover Attis. Rome recognized the cult already in 204 BCE (the first Eastern cult to receive such official sanctimony), but due to its "radical and extreme" religious fervor certain restrictions for participation were not lifted until I CE (191-194).<br />
<br />
Other new religions included the cult of Sabazius, the cult of Men (Tyrannus) and the Dea Syria (Atargatis); of interest is the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 139 BCE as they, according to Valerius Maximus (1.3.2) "had tried to corrupt the Roman customs with the cult of Sabazius Jupiter" (195). Whether this represents misinformation, typo, or Jewish movement which had adopted<span class="st">—</span>as the times dictated<span class="st">—</span>a quite syncretistic outlook for itself remains undecided for K (194-196).
Finally, K discusses the "Problem of the Mystery Religions" and notes that some of their more common features include an organizational structure, set rites of initiation, regular meetings and ceremonies, an ethic code, mutual support between members, obedience to the leader, and <i>disciplina arcani</i> i.e. the necessity to remain silent about the rites and ceremonies of the cult. Though not every mystery religion is required to have all of these features, the task of drawing the line is made even more difficult by the variety existing inside the geographically distinct bodies of the same cult. For an illustrating example, K considers the differences among the early Christians, noting that "there were various forms of the words of institution for the Lord's Supper ... some congregations observed dietary laws, and others did not; some churches had "apostles" and "prophets" as their leaders, and other had presbyters or a bishop; there was certainly no uniform interpretation of the tradition, for indeed a generally accepted tradition did not even exist ... some Christians celebrated the eucharist as a mystery that guaranteed immortality for each participant, others understood the common meal as a messianic banquet in expectation of the coming of the savior" (198-199). Regardless, the concepts of mystery, salvation and immortality do not themselves make a mystery religion (so the question of whether early Christianities represented one remains undecided despite e.g. their use of <i>mysterion</i> for the Lord's Supper and other pieces of mystery language) for these concepts were very much "in the air" in the Hellenistic period (196-203).<br />
<br />
Chapter V<br />
<br />
For his chapter on Judaism in the Hellenistic Period K begins with a historical survey from the destruction of Jerusalem in VI BCE to its designation as a typical temple state following Ezra's reforms in IV BCE and the inevitable Greek influences in the following centuries (205-208). Alexander gained control of the area after the battle of Issus in 333 BCE, passed to the Ptolemies and later on to the Seleucids. The religious life of Jerusalem remained steady though the ruling priestly families exhibit all the signs of Hellenization (208-210). Various factors (the contrast between Hellenization and the traditional religion of the Jews; political struggles amongst the elite, notions of "utopian apocalypticism") led to the Maccabean revolt in II BCE following a fight over the position of the high priest of Jerusalem and the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to secure the funds of the temple for his campaigns against Egypt. In other words, the Maccabean revolt did not spring up from a simple attempt to convert the temple cult of Yahweh (who, incidentally, was already called by the name of Zeus Olympius following the reform of the high priest Jason to "reconstitute" the city of Jerusalem as a Greek city called Antioch) into the cult of Zeus Baal Shamayin though this also happened once the hostilities between the fighting parties had intensified in 167 BCE and led to the persecution of Jews in Judea. Successful guerilla warfare was waged from the mountains of Judea under Judas Maccabeus and Jerusalem was conquered by the Hasmoneans, and the traditional cult was returned to Jerusalem in 162 BCE following an agreement between the Hasmoneans and Antiochus V Eupator, the new Seleucid king. The matter was finally settled in 157 BCE with a treaty and by 152 BCE Jonathan (who had been appointed "judge" by the treaty and had chosen well his sides in the internal struggles of the Seleucid empire) was made "<i>strategos</i> and governor of Judea" (210-215).<br />
<br />
Thus begins the time of the Hasmoneans. In 142-141 BCE Simon was made an "independent ruler of Judea" and a high priest shortly afterwards. Disputes over the rights for the high priesthood made one group of the Hasmoneans flee to Qumran (whom K identifies with the Essenes), while the ruling Hasmoneans began a series of campaigns to expand the territory of their state; though Hellenized to the degree of changing their names to proper Greek names and assuming titles such as "Philhellenos", the Hasmonean state was quite unlike the Hellenistic states and the citizens of many conquered Greek states in Palestine were forced to flee or convert to Judaism. Intraparty fighting came once again to blows at the beginning of I BCE with high priests coming and going, until a deadlock between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus made both of them to appeal to the Roman general Pompey for resolution. Pompey conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE and ended the Hasmonean rule (215-219).<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the Jews outside Palestine (in diaspora)—where they had ended up beginning with the Babylonian exile in VI BCE—had a divergent cultural and religious development. Most important cities of Jewish diaspora were Babylon, Seleucia, and Alexandria. The latter saw the translation of the Hebrew bible to Greek (beginning in III BCE), and their migration to other parts of the Mediterranean brought their influence with them. In I CE there was a Jewish community in practically every major city (219-224). K emphasizes how much the process of Hellenization affected the Jews both in Palestine and in diaspora. Hebrew as a language was displaced by Greek (Aramaic in Palestine) and the change in linguistics produced a change in thinking as the Greek translation (Septuagint or LXX) of the sacred writings was read allegorically through Greek ideas and concepts just like Homer. K explains well: "The story of the creation was seen as a cosmogony; religious observances like circumcision and the Sabbath were understood as symbols and reinterpreted spiritually. Traditional Jewish prayers used Stoic formulations in their translated Greek form. Hellenistic Jews utilized the forms of Greek literature for their writings and sometimes published their books under the pseudonym of a famous Greek author from the classical period." (224-225) Greek forms were also introduced at the organizational level (synagoge is rather akin to "associations" and the language of office was borrowed from there as well). Though Jews in diaspora continued to pay the "temple tax" and send it to Jerusalem, K considers this a rather symbolic gesture as no formal ties of authoricity existed between the temple heads and the diaspora Jews (225-226).<br />
<br />
The relationship between Jews and other residents is worth considering further. K observes that certain characteristics of Judaism (the Sabbath, the right to come together, and the right to send the temple tax to Jerusalem) required a silent (or explicit) acceptance by the authorities. An official pardon from participating to the ruler cult and other official celebrations, however, could not be obtained and no records exist of such gestures of goodwill towards the Jews. Consequently, K suggest that "[i]n actual practice, it was simply ignored when Jews failed to show up at official religious celebrations", an attitude that also pertained to early Christians (226). From these considerations it follows that Jews almost never had the rights of full citizenship in their towns of residence and were confronted periodically with certain anti-Jewish measures, but could nevertheless rise to prominent positions when the occasion arrived (226-228).<br />
<br />
Next K considers important parties and theological motives of the Hellenistic period Judaism: the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Samaritans, and apocalypticism and wisdom theology. Of the Jewish parties, the Sadducees maintained the legacy of the cult of the rebuilded temple of Jerusalem and the rewritten law as an aristocratic class of priesty families (228-230) while K's depiction of the Essenes is colored by his identification of Qumran with this movement (234-239). K suggests that the Pharisees were "a rather well-organized political movement" (241) and "philosophical sect" according to Josephus, descendents of the Hasidim and precursors of the later Jewish religion without the temple, with a clear Hellenized mindset, apocalyptic and ethic concerns, and whose hermeneutical method (<i>Halacha</i> or "how one should walk") looked for the law "written in order to be valid for a new time" (242) much like the Stoics read Homer (239-243). The Samaritans, as the Samaritan Pentateuch illustrates, were "Jewish" in the sense that they accepted the reforms of Ezra, and the temple on Mt. Gerizim (founded at the beginning of the Hellenistic period) did not initially make them suspicious in the eyes of the Judean population; such fallout happened only during the Hasmonean period (John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple in 128 BCE and later conquered Samaria) and by I CE the parallel developments of the Jewish cults in Samaria and Jerusalem made these two bitter rivals (247-249).<br />
<br />
Of the two concepts, apocalypticism "became the most important theological movement in Judaism during the Hellenistic period" (230) and mixed together Canaanite myths with Eastern influences through the process of Hellenization, resulting in dualistic and pessimistic speculations of escatological nature of the salvation of defective individuals through an understanding of "larger cosmic realities" (233) with ideas of individual resurrection/immortality, and of eternal punishment; such ideas first appear in Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah, Ezekiel, and in the apocalypses of Isaiah 24-27 and Zechariah 9-14; 230-234). Wisdom theology tried to render the world intelligible through "contemplation of creation, of the phenomena of nature, and of the primordially determined structures of generally valid human experience" (244), and soon transformed Wisdom into a personified agent of creation and identical with the law of Israel (243-246).<br />
<br />
Finally, K offers a brief overview of the Jewish writings from the period. During the Hellenistic period Hebrew was used by scholars while Aramaic was more widely used (and had a number of derivative languages), succumbing only to Greek onslaught with which Palestinian Jewish writings were composed as much as those in the diaspora. The Septuagint, Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, was the most important as it allowed Jewish theology to break free of the linguistic mold of Hebrew, in K's opinion "the most significant factor in the process of the Hellenization of Judaism" (253) which made the Jewish Bible "generally accessible, divine and inspired book containing ancient wisdom, deep religious truths, and political insights ... instruction for right conduct, but also as a source for magic ... in no way inferior to Homer and the Greek philosophers" (254). Other important works included Daniel, 1 Enoch, The Ascension of Moses, the War Scroll (from Qumran), and the Jewish Sibylline Oracles as well as Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Manual of Discipline and Damascus Document (from Qumran), Commentaries (<i>Peshers</i>), Hymns (<i>Hodayot</i>), and Psalms of Solomon, all examples of apocalyptic literature in which the past is written as ancient times prophecy following a divine plan with freely borrowed Babylonian and Canaanite mythological topics mixed together, up until the final judgement of the righteous and the wicked (255-262).<br />
<br />
Jewish works dealing with history include the Books of Chronicles, Josephus' <i>Antiquities</i> (already discussed), the book of Jubilees, The Genesis Apocryphon, Fragments of Alexander Polyhistor, Joseph and Asenath, Hecateus, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Esther, Judith, and the book of Tobit, though some of these writings are rather legendary in their appearance (262-268). Wisdom literature includes the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (which shows Hellenistic traits in its "relative openness towards the world"; 269), the book of Qoholeth (which exhibits Hellenistic ideas in its "radical doubts about justice in the natural order"; 270), 1 Baruch (which illustrates how the two approaches of Sirach and Qoholet were won by the former), Epistle of Aristeas (the law as source of true philosophy), Pseudo-Phocylides, 4 Maccabees, and Wisdom of Solomon. Finally (how many times have I used that word already?), K considers the importance of Philo of Alexandria and concludes that his "large-scale reinterpretation of the Pentateuch for Hellenistic Judaism" (275) such as his allegorical commentary on Genesis (following from Philo's conviction that literal meaning of the word is categorically insufficient) succeeded in transforming the Jewish Bible into a Hellenic book; in the process, the emergence of "the concept of the figure of heavenly wisdom" which Philo "merged with the philosophic and religious idea of the Logos" (280) and other related ideas paved way for the later allegorical Christian readings of the Alexandrian fathers (namely, Clement and Origen; 273-280).<br />
<br />
Chapter VI<br />
<br />
The final chapter of the first volume discusses "the Roman empire as the heir of Hellenism", beginning (once again) with a historical survey from the groups of people who settled the western parts of the Mediterranean c. 1000 BCE while trade interests brought the Phoenicians and others who settled i.a. Carthage, one of the most powerful city states of the period (founded in IX BCE). At the same time the Etruscans came to Italy, soon afterwards joined by the Greeks (281-283).<br />
<br />
The Romans were originally a tribe of the Latini, and Rome itself was founded under Etruscan rule, but shed free of them in VI BCE attaining "the political equilibrium of a semi-democratic corporate state" the following centuries despite tensions between the patricians and the plebeians (roughly, the upper class and the lower class, while the founding of the equestrians in II BCE made class warfare even more complex). Once again K places the turnpoint event at a battle, this time Rome's victory over the Samniti, the Celts and the Greeks (led by Pyrrhus) in III BCE, which resulted in Rome that "controlled a large area with several million inhabitants" and experienced "an economic upturn" (283-285). The First Punic War (264-241 BCE) led to the establishment of provinces (K observes that this new imperial policy "implied the exploitation of the conquered lands"; 286) instead of making the conquered lands part of the federation, and for the next three hundred years Rome conquered piece by piece the whole of the Mediterranean and beyond (285-292).<br />
<br />
Not even the Civil War fought in 133-30 BCE (over a hundred years) could challenge this development for the Romans saw, as exemplified by Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius) while pacifying Spain in 77 BCE and hunting the pirates the following decade, that their conduct had to be in accord with the expectations of the conquered people, or in K's words "instead of cruel punishment ... suppression, and exploitation, Pompey advocated clemency and the distribution of benefactions" (296), offering pardon to the defeated enemies in exchange for their loyalty. After the well-known intrigues of the Triumvirates (first between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar; second between Octavian, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus) it was Octavius/Octavian, Caesar's nephew, who emerged victorious with a brand new office of the princeps and specific honors from the Senate, including the title "Augustus" (<i>Imperator Caesar divi filius Augustus</i>), authority <i>pro consule</i> over all of the provinces, authority of the tribune, and the office of <i>pontifex maximus</i> as well as parallel "administrative instruments" (as K titles them) to bypass the traditional administration led by the Senate (292-304). Though there were several problems of succession and individual emperors ranging from able (Vespasian) to lunatic (Caligula), on the whole the empire experienced a period of peace and prosperity, especially during the first half of II CE (the "Golden Age" in K's parlance, ending with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE following continual wars, epidemics and economic difficulties; 306-322).<br />
<br />
Despite Octavian coming up with a new institution of the principate, the old institutions from the Republic were not dissolved i.e. the Roman empire was not a monarchy as the Hellenistic kingdoms had been. Much of the stability was accomplished by maintaining the <i>status quo</i> of the classes briefly mentioned above (though social movement seems to have been a real option at the time as well) and keeping the army tied to the civil administration i.e. it was customary for young members of the upper classes to serve as military tribunes in the army before moving on. Another important innovation was the imperial jurisdiction i.e. the courts had imperial representatives present and legal cases could be referred to the emperor (322-326).<br />
<br />
Mediterranean trade changed very little as the demand for luxury items continued despite the area becoming a political unit, but economic centres moved westwards and some parts of the Empire, namely Rome, became wholly dependent on importing grain from some distance away, namely Egypt. Building projects included seaports and, most importantly, roads which enabled the transportation of goods and tourists the empire over (326-328). Imperial administration was reformed in order to abolish exploitation of the provinces (i.a. fixed salaries for the Roman officials) and construction works were commissioned, though changes in the ownership of lands in Italy led thousands of impoverished farmers to flock to Rome; another source of population tension and even revolt was the institution of slavery (328-332).<br />
<br />
K observes that "[t]he cities were the political and economic backbone of the Roman empire (332). Urbanization was encouraged (with focus on the urban professions in manufacturing and trade) and new cities were founded (Nîmes, Geneva, Lyon, Paris, Cologne, Mainz, Augsburg, Colchester, Lincoln, London) as well as "reconstituted"; contrary to the Hellenistic city the Roman city incorporated the surrounding countryside and the city rule (the class of the <i>decuriones</i>) was not a democratic council (technically) open to all citizens. The Imperial period was the rise of a large middle class which included people from wealthy owners to even slaves in reasonably good positions organized into professional associations. Since the <i>decuriones</i> was a closed class of new aristocracy, the middle class could not cultivate political ambitions, resulting in unrest that became especially worse at the end of II CE following the economic toils of continuous warfare. Following this analysis of the class dynamics of the period, K suggests that Christians found their members from the middle class of the cities (332-336).<br />
<br />
Romans idealized Greek culture so far as to lose the old elements of their culture (or at least these become very difficult to distinguish). Every educated Roman was bilingual (Latin and Greek), and Greek concepts and forms were borrowed in literature, architecture (though the arch was a genuine Roman innovation), painting, and sculpture (336-338). From older Roman poets (Ennius, Plautus, Lucretius) to the "modern poets" (<i>Neoterici</i>) including Catullus, Horace, and Virgil, to the next generation of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid until the satirical inclinations of Lucan, Petronius, Persius, Martial, and Juvenal; special mentions are reserved for Cicero (who "transformed Latin into a language of literature and philosophy" and "legitimized the acceptance of Greek philosophy in the Roman world"; 343-344) and Varro (who "could boast of a similar accomplishment in the areas of cultural history and in the encyclopedic sciences"; 344) (338-345). For Roman history we have Cato, Caesar, and Sallust (combining the roles of historian and politician) followed by Livy whose <i>Ab urbe condita</i> agrees completely with Augustus who happened to be his patron. Josephus' Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities cannot go unmentioned, nor Tacitus' Histories and Annals (both are works of very recent history from Tacitus' point of view), nor Arrian (the historian of Alexander) and Dio Cassius' Roman history in eighty books (345-350).<br />
<br />
Much of the characteristics of these Roman authors (many of whom wrote in Greek and/or were originally non-Roman) has already been covered in chapter III since they followed their Greek exemplars rather faithfully. The Imperial period saw the rise of the Second Sophistic, or the re-emergence of the sophist idea of a wise man who is also politically active (Quintilian, Herodes Atticus, Hadrian of Tyre), and witnessed the Stoic philosophy focusing on the ethics (Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, the emperor Marcus Aurelius). Other schools of philosophy wrote commentaries on their founders' works while K names "The Philosophical Marketplace" the new development of preaching one's ideas (whether philosophical, religious, or magical—if one needs to make such distinctions) out in the open, with persuasive speech and demonstrations that one possessed supernatural powers; yet some thinkers of the age do not fit into any of the old philosophical traditions nor into the marketplace (Dio Cocceianus of Prusa, Plutarch, Lucian; 351-362).<br />
<br />
Religions in the Imperial period were diverse. K begins with the problems of reconstructing "ancient Roman religion", noting that <i>pietas</i> (piety) and <i>religio</i> meant for Romans "the exact observation of established rites on behalf of the whole political community" (363) and that both prayer and the observation of signs (<i>omina</i>) were important elements. Despite such incidents as the Bacchanalian scandal in 186 BCE (witnessing Roman suspicions of mystery religions) the Roman religion was quite open to other cults; Christian as well as other itinerant preachers could proclaim their message in most circumstances openly (362-366). The Imperial period saw the development of the cult of the emperor, which combined ideas from Hellenistic royal cults and Roman concept of <i>felicitas</i>, "the almost supernatural ability to lead a project to a happy and successful conclusion through insight, courage, and dexterity", even "a manifestation of divine intervention in the deeds of the individual" (290). For a generalized difference, Greeks gave divine honours to the ruler as the epiphany of god while Romans gave divine honours to his <i>felicitas</i>. The cult of the emperor did not (strictly speaking) make a god out of the emperor, but through the cult of Roma (Rome as city), the cult of the emperor's <i>genius</i> (personal supernatural guardian), and <i>Lares Augusti</i> (supernatural guardians of the emperor's house) it was "a supplementary glorification" (370) of the Roman religion and, consequently, of the Roman state. Such fine distinctions, however, were lost in the provinces of the East where the emperors from Augustus onwards received altars and temples and were identified as gods among all the other gods (366-371).<br />
<br />
The cult of Mithras possibly attained its mystery religion outlook only by its journey to the west in the Imperial period. K goes so far as to state that this cult which accepted only men and had the bull, the sun, and the covenant present in its myth "was the most important mystery religion of the pagan world during the whole imperial period and as late as IV CE" (372-373). Another religious movement was the Neopythagoreanism (though it is doubtful just what the actual relationship with Pythagoras' order from VI BCE was), which incorporated Pythagorean and Orphic elements and stressed rules for conduct as well as the importance of numerology, holding that "the power and superiority of the human self" should be "visibly presented in the life of the philosopher" (375); K considers Apollonius of Tyana to be a model example of the latter (374-376). Astrology, which was first in the realm of the upper classes, became everyone's favourite in I CE: astrological symbols and writings were everywhere and the calculation of favourable days and hours based on the planets and stars was widely practised; Jewish and Christian sources are full of examples of astrological elements such as Revelations 12:1ff description of the woman in a vision. Magic, as well, was widely practised including Jewish and Christian circles (examples from early Christian literature include the Acts of John and the Acts of Peter; 376-381). Finally, K considers Gnosticism and the Hermetic Religion. Though K's treatment of the first could be rewritten to incorporate much more nuanced understanding the Nag Hammadi scholarship has produced, his short description of Hermetic Writings suggests that a certain "pagan gnostic mystery religion" must have existed alongside those who combined Gnostic ideas with Christian ideas (the traditional view of Gnostics such as Valentinus as "Christianity's heresy" with little pre-Christian exemplars; 381-389).<br />
<br />
The very last section of the book (phew!) discusses the fortunes of Palestine in the Roman period. Caesar had made Antipater the administrator (<i>procurator</i>) of Judea for his services, and later his son Herod was appointed king of Judea and (after much warfare and political intrigue) also Samaria, the area around Jericho and the Palestinian coast. During Herod the Great's reign (38-4 BCE) many cities were refound or recommissioned, and there was a considerable economic thrive even though the king himself was thought as a tyrant (390-393). After Herod's death the kingdom was divided among his sons Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip (Archelaus' Judea fell under Roman administration headed by a prefect in 6 CE; especially Pontius Pilate's administration saw tumultuous times). Agrippa I reigned once again over the whole area (41-44 CE), but his son Agrippa II was made a ruler of a much smaller realm. Instead of a kingdom, Palestine was reorganized as a Roman province following the death of Agrippa I, with Fadus, Tiberius Alexander, Cumanus, Felix, Festus, Albinus, and Gessius Florus as procurators between 44-66 CE. Josephus describes the reasons for the Jewish War (in K's paraphrase) as "the incredible stupidity and brutality of the Roman procurator" (401), but K suggests that "eschatological aspirations" were also playing a role in the escalation of violence so far that the Romans were in opposition with a political movement supported by most of the population. Vespasian, and ultimately his son Titus (after Vespasian had to leave to Rome as the new emperor), conquered Jerusalem and made it Aelia Capitolina, a Roman city forbidden for the Jews to enter (394-403).<br />
<br />
Though there are practically no sources of Judaism in late I and II CE, the diaspora solutions of living a Jewish life without access to the temple of Jerusalem were probably helpful here, and the question of conduct (<i>halachah</i>) and, furthermore, mystical speculations and proclamation (<i>haggadah</i>) became central for Judaism. Much of the later development is owned to Hillel and the traditions around him, and one of his disciples (so the story goes) Yohanan ben Zakkai decided to settle in Jamnia in the late 60s. Yohanan held that the catastrophe was a punishment for Israel's sins and that the law needed to be upheld much better from now on. K notes that now "Hillel's methods of interpretation and his principal rules of conduct ... became decisive" (407). The Jamnia-based <i>Beth-Din</i> ("Law Court"), however, had probably only limited influence until the end of IV CE though K notes the difficulties in concluding this or that from the archaeological evidence. Another Jewish messianic movement was defeated in a war between 132-135 CE and the Roman response was fierce: ban on circumcision, Sabbath, festivals, and Torah, though the legislation was largely gone by the time of Antoninus Pius. The important Jewish writings that emerged out of this period (though they did not receive a written form before late II CE) were the Mishnah (interpretations of laws), the Early Midrashim (legal commentaries on the Jewish Bible), and the Tosefta (collection of halachic materials) (403-412).Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-57930953003457525992012-06-14T17:47:00.000+03:002012-06-14T17:47:24.552+03:00RBB12: Reading a Bunch of Books for the Summer of 2012For the summer of 2012, I intend to read a bunch of books (RBB12 for short). The books for this endeavor are the following:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Helmut Koester: <i>Introduction to the New Testament, Volume One: History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age</i> (Fortress Press/Walter de Gruyter, 1982).<br />
<br />
Helmut Koester: <i>Introduction to the New Testament, Volume Two: History and Literature of Early Christianity</i>, Second Edition (Walter de Gruyter, 2000).<br />
<br />
Heikki Räisänen: <i>The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians</i> (Fortress Press, 2010).<br />
<br />
Hans-Josef Klauck: <i>Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction</i> (T&T Clark, 2003).<br />
<br />
E.P. Sanders: <i>Judaism: Practice & Belief 63 BCE</i><span class="st">—</span><i>66 CE</i> (SCM Press, 1994).<br />
<br />
<i>Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice</i>, edited by Richard Valantasis (Princeton University Press, 2000).<br />
<br />
Everett Ferguson: <i>Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries</i> (Eerdmans, 2009).</blockquote>
<br />
For reasons too mysterious for a graduate student to comprehend, I struck a deal with my faculty advisor: study credit points (necessary for me to someday complete that PhD) in exchange for writing a public reading diary of sorts in this very blog.<br />
<br />
The effort has two main goals. First, by reading through comprehensive introductions from start to finish to the field of early Christian studies draws my attention to any blanks I might still have in my growing expertise of the area. Second, by combing through works of a number of top scholars in the field will (hopefully) teach me to further appreciate the subtle differences in their respective approaches, even though all of the authors above are representative of the same general school of thought (more on that below).<br />
<br />
Besides, the summer's quite fine out there, and one can easily spend the hours under a tree, and to withdraw to the library with air conditioning only when (if) the heat outside becomes unbearable. In Finland, that's about as soon as 25 degrees of Celsius gets broken.<br />
<br />
Since Koester's introduction is the most comprehensive in scope, I will begin with that, while everything that follows will be compared to it.<br />
<br />
Biblical studies is taught worldwide in a variety of contexts, from denominational seminaries to secular universities. It is hardly the same to come to one's initial understanding of the issues in the study of early Christianity from reading the books of Ben Witherington III, or N.T. Wright, or Gerd Lüdemann. The curriculum in the University of Helsinki follows one particular trajectory, and has prominent places for the works of Walter Bauer, Helmut Koester, E.P. Sanders, Gerd Theissen, Hans-Josef Klauck, and<span class="st">—naturally</span><span class="st">—Heikki Räisänen, the grand old man of Finnish exegesis. Räisänen, in fact, more than anyone else, could be considered as having a school of thought of his own in the University of Helsinki. At least my perception picks up his influence in everyone in the department.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span><br />
<span class="st">The particulars of this school are roughly the following. Jesus was a failed Jewish prophet of the imminent apocalypse. Paul was a somewhat more successful Jewish preacher of the imminent apocalypse, though even he had some trouble in convincing some of his fellow believers of his superior understanding and interpretation of the Jewish scriptures. (Though outside the historical study proper, it could still be noted that contemporary presentations of Jesus and Paul in various Christian denominations have little in common with their first-century counterparts.) From early on, there existed a number of different Christianities, some of which were quite dissimilar in a number of important details</span><span class="st">. And above all, it is not a historian's solution to dismiss the writings of those Christianities which remained non-canonized, following the centuries-long struggle for power and eventual triumph of one of those variants</span><span class="st">—the one we have been trained to think of as <i>the</i> Christianity, but which, judging from the ancient sources, has no more justification for that title as any of the others.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span><br />
<span class="st">From these considerations it follows that my reading of Koester, or any of those books listed above, is not going to rock my world and shift my perspective in anything but the most subtle of manners.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span><br />
<span class="st">Like a summer blockbuster movie, come to think of it.</span>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-58550912806129220972012-06-12T16:55:00.000+03:002012-06-12T16:57:31.460+03:00Mar Saba: A Short Story by A. L. Rawson (1890)Following the unofficial policy of the University of Helsinki on blogging—that one shouldn't post anything one might want to publish in some more scholarly venue in the future—the activity on this blog has gone from (very) occasional to non-existent during the past year and a half.<br />
<br />
But here's something I don't intend to use in any other format: a story of a smuggling of a young woman into the library of the monastery of Mar Saba sometime during the nineteenth century (per the rules of the monastery, women had to stay outside the monastic walls, in the Women's Tower, during their stay).<br />
<br />
<i>Frank Leslie's popular monthly</i> published the following piece in 1890, written by A.L. Rawson and titled "Mar Saba". Thanks to the archival efforts of Google and HathiTrust, the original (with illustrations!) is available as <a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=inu.32000000492217;page=root;seq=225;num=209;orient=0">facsimile</a>.<br />
<br />
When one closes one's eyes to some of the nonsense included (quips towards ethnic groups and monasticism, the smug tone of the true-bred gentlemen contra Oriental savages), the narrative follows the popular tropes of book hunting at the time period. Rawson, the author, knows the landscape of his expedition either from the numerous nineteenth-century travelogues of Mar Saban visitors, or he may have made the desert trip to the monastery himself. The latter is more likely if A.L. Rawson also penned <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/196316">a presentation on Palestine</a> for the American Geographical Society of New York, published in 1875.<br />
<br />
<i>"Would we be likely to find any rare books in Mar Saba?" ... one small box held about a hundred and fifty on vellum or on parchment,
in about equal numbers; beautiful specimens of Greek text, written in
black ink, with red initials, and a few were ornamented.</i><br />
<br />
The text resides nowadays in public domain.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Mar Saba</b> by A.L. Rawson </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"MISS JOSEPHINE, can you tell me why or how that convent in the Kidron gorge came by the name of The Holy Lion?"<br />
<br />
"Holy Lion? Who said that was the name?"<br />
<br />
"<i>Saba</i> is lion in Arabic, and it may have been the intention of the monks who really built the place to honor some noted disciple of the great unknown inventor of monks and monasteries, whoever he was, and having given him a title befitting his courage for braving the terrors of this terrible wilderness, their successors duly elevated him among the saints in the Greek calendar, and—we have a stately marble tomb to look upon, which keeps his memory green."<br />
<br />
"You should have said that <i>some</i> people are admitted to see the awful glories of the tomb of the mythical anchorite, for I have not seen it, except in your sketches. I would gladly see the real thing."<br />
<br />
"Do you suppose for a moment that it is real? I mean, is the tomb what is pretended
for it?"<br />
<br />
"You ask me more than I can answer. In the Lives of the Saints a goodly space is filled with legends about St Saba, and we know the convent is there, with its so-called tomb, in the rocky slope of the Wadi er Nar (Valley of Fire). Now these visible things are real, why not believe there is truth in the legends behind them? You cannot put them aside—I mean the convent and its tomb—with a fine-spun theory. The
monks say that the holy man found a lion in the cave he had selected for his retreat, and the noble beast recognized the good man, and quietly walked out, leaving the place to him, who took the name of Lion (Saba)."<br />
<br />
"Whoever began this pigeons' roost?"<br />
<br />
"Enlarged it, you mean. There are hundreds, or, as the Arabs say, a thousand and one caves, large and small, in that ravine, and others in all the ravines running down to the Dead Sea or the Jordan, and the rock is about the consistency of chalk, very easily worked. Very many of these caves have been enlarged, and nearly every one inhabited by one or more monks. Mar Saba was the chief in extent and in its fittings, having a chapel, dormitories, library, kitchen, and other accessories needful for
health and comfort. The entire valley in question was once named Monks' Valley (Wadi
er Rahib), and might as well be so called now, because none but monks live there. The
truth is, that the modern monk prefers to sleep inside of strong stone walls, with doors locked and barred, and deny himself the luxury of the glory of martyrdom, being contented with singing the praises of the ancients."<br />
<br />
"Would we be likely to find any rare books in Mar Saba?"<br />
<br />
"The good Archimandrite Nicodemus, who has kindly let my cousin John Hornstein read books in the library of the Convent of the Holy Cross, and of the great Greek Convent in this city, told him there were rare copies of "The Golden-mouthed," Cyril, Villalpandus, and other early fathers of the Church in St. Saba, of which I have long wished to get a glimpse."<br />
<br />
"Why not ask the good patriarch to have some of those books brought up to his library for safekeeping?"<br />
<br />
"I have tried through my cousin, but so far in vain. The Greek monks are given to traditions. When one is transferred from Jerusalem to Mar Saba he leaves the traditions of the Holy City behind him, and at once enters into the spirit of the clan there, and supports their reputation for antiquity, wealth, sanctity and exclusiveness."<br />
<br />
"And sustains all three points?"<br />
<br />
"Antiquity is undoubted, for it is conceded on all sides that Mar Saba as a monks' nest was the first example in Palestine."<br />
<br />
"Oh, shades of the Essenes!"<br />
<br />
"Yes, yes—I mean in the Christian age."<br />
<br />
"And the claim to wealth?"<br />
<br />
"Is so far believed by the Bedouins as to lead those poor devils of avarice to watch the monks as cats lay in wait for mice. But only the monks know what wealth they have besides their caves and tomb, dry bones, and some few civilizing conveniences; and the monks will not tell—except, perhaps, to the patriarch or his steward. So when the matter of books is mentioned their jealousy is at once aroused."<br />
<br />
"Why?"<br />
<br />
"Having renounced 'the world, the flesh and the devil,' they take every care to compel as many as possible of that world to come to see them, and one of their means is to take precious care of their books."<br />
<br />
"Then I must go to Mar Saba if I would see any of the books?"<br />
<br />
"It is Mohammed and the mountain again. The ever-praised prophet had to do the traveling."<br />
<br />
"I will go to-morrow."<br />
<br />
"Take me with you."<br />
<br />
"As far as the outer gate?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, and I will manage the rest."<br />
<br />
"You make me shiver—so to speak, although the day is hot."<br />
<br />
"Well. If, when you are ready to start, which I suppose will be about three o'clock to-morrow morning, English time, I am not presentable, why, you can say <i>bookrah</i> (after), as all the natives do when they wish to dodge or put off anything."<br />
<br />
"To-morrow it is, if we can get the patriarch's letter of introduction, or order for admission, and the needful donkeys."<br />
<br />
"How many donkeys?"<br />
<br />
"One for Josephine, and—"<br />
<br />
"One for Maryam Shapira."<br />
<br />
"Yes, certainly; and one for her escort, for she will have to stay outside with you."<br />
<br />
"Another, then, for John Hornstein, or Abraham."<br />
<br />
"Say for John. Then a big one for me."<br />
<br />
"The small fellows are the best steppers and easiest riders."<br />
<br />
"Small it will be, then. And one for His Highness the boy who will care for the animals, and one for the provisions."<br />
<br />
"One donkey will carry boy and provisions."<br />
<br />
"That makes five donkeys. Can we get them for the morning?"<br />
<br />
"Mr. Hornstein will send for the owner, who will come to the hotel and make the bargain, if he has or can get them."<br />
<br />
The patriarch's permission to visit and order to admit four persons to Mar Saba, and the donkeys having been secured, the next morning, at three precisely, the donkeys were announced at the gate of the hotel, the iron doors of which were swung open for our departure <br />
<br />
A young Englishman had asked us to include him in our company, and he went with us. But where was Miss Josephine ? Failed us at the last moment. Maryam Shapira was there, lively and chatty as the cool, gray morning prompted as a means of keeping warm. John kept her busy, and rode as near her as the path admitted. The Englishman, Bright, rode ahead of Miss Maryam, and the donkey-boy, with the well-supplied commissariat, behind her, and I brought up the rear on the smallest but the best animal of the lot.<br />
<br />
The owner rode beside me down from the Joppa Gate, past the Pool Gihon, as far as the
Well Ain Rogel, where we halted to give the animals a drink.<br />
<br />
Coming close to me, he said, in a whisper: "The boy on the little gray donkey said he
was in your service, and I let him have the donkey. And I came on purpose to see if all is right."<br />
<br />
"Why did you not ask me at the hotel-gate?"<br />
<br />
"Because, while you packed the provisions he mounted and rode away: and I saw that the number of persons and donkeys corresponded."<br />
<br />
"I'll see about it. Joe, come here."<br />
<br />
Joe rode up slowly, and I said, feigning anger: "You young rascal, why do you keep so far ahead? Do you prefer to lead the way?"<br />
<br />
"I've been over the way many times. May I ride forward, sir?"<br />
<br />
"Of course, go ahead."<br />
<br />
It was a great relief to me, and a satisfaction to the Arab owner of the donkeys. For, I thought, "If Miss Josephine can escape the eye of an Arab, she may succeed with the monks of Mar Saba."<br />
<br />
Four hours of hard riding, only a part of the way on a passably good road, brought us to the door of the convent, where we found Joe chatting with a Bedouin, who claimed <i>backsheesh</i> for the whole company as the lord of the region. Another Arab fooled.<br />
<br />
Our animals picketed, and a carpet and umbrella arranged for Maryam and her escort, we
were ready for entrance.<br />
<br />
But the monks were not ready. They had prayers to recite, or were eating, and answered
not to my knocks, which were respectfully low.<br />
<br />
"Let me try," said Joe, and picked up a goodly sized stone, with which a double bob-major was executed on the iron door, by way of presenting the compliments of the morning.<br />
<br />
That woke up somebody inside, and a little basket was let down by a string, into which we put the patriarch's letter.<br />
<br />
In a few moments the key rattled, the door opened a little, and Joe stepped part way in, saying: "Count these persons, and see that none enter more than the patriarch's letter calls for—<i>Protos, deuteros, tritos, emautos tetartos!</i>" (first, second, third, and I am fourth), he shouted in good Greek.<br />
<br />
The Greek door-keeper seemed more anxious to shut the door against the dreadful female who crouched across the way than to scrutinize those who entered, so Joe escaped a third time.<br />
<br />
After stooping through the low door, we were led down, around through a second door, down again by winding stairs, across small and large courts, irregular in shape, passing under rocky arches and through dark passages, when we were ushered into the reception-room. This time Joe entered <i>protos</i>, without protest.<br />
<br />
The divan was nearly eight feet wide, and intended for sleepers, but we squatted on rugs, and were served with water, <i>rakee</i>, and jelly from a large silver salver, in fine cut-glass goblets. We did not become inebriated, for we took the <i>rakee</i> with a tea-spoon, which was of the almond shape so valued by our grandmothers, and only one dip; followed by one dip of jelly, and then by water <i>ad lib</i>. Generous souls! For water is precious at Saba's sanctuary. They carry it up from the Kidron below, hundreds of steps, stony, steep, winding, and the exact reverse of the famous descent into Avernus.<br />
<br />
Joe escaped again, but I trembled until we were invited to follow a tall, thin young monk to the library.<br />
<br />
"How did any one know we wished to see the library?"<br />
<br />
"The Archimandrite Nicodemus is here on a visit. He brought word of the patriarch's permission, and the object of your visit."<br />
<br />
I could have taken the wings of the wind and flown away, only they were probably mislaid, just then, and I perspired instead. It was warm about that hour, anyhow, and we had to climb four or five hundred (it seemed five thousand) feet to the tower where the books were kept.<br />
<br />
I managed to whisper to Joe, on the way. that the old Nic. was after us, but the quiet answer was: "Yes, I knew he intended to come, and that he came last night. The donkey-boy said he hired an extra big mule for the ride."<br />
<br />
The library proved a rare treat, but I dare not even attempt to name more than the most important books—or those which appeared to be so, for there were several hundred volumes. His Thinness the librarian told me, confidentially, there were many thousands of volumes in the sacred inclosure, but it was the policy of the monks to conceal the actual facts, from fear of robbery.<br />
<br />
"By visitors?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. When rich, learned men come here and find valuable books on the shelves, they offer large sums of ready money for them, which the steward seldom if ever refuses. In this manner are we robbed of our treasures."<br />
<br />
"Then you really cherish these treasures ?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"Certainly."<br />
<br />
"And read them daily, or frequently?"<br />
<br />
"Never read a page of one in my life, and I have been in this holy place nearly seven years."<br />
<br />
"You can read, of course?"<br />
<br />
"Not a word."<br />
<br />
"Then why do you value the books so very highly?"<br />
<br />
"I am always selected to show visitors to the library, and these are only a part of the books; others are in a room joining the chapel, and more in boxes. The visitors talk about the books. I listen, and notice which they pay most attention to, and so learn which are the most precious, and why."<br />
<br />
"Show me one, and explain its value to me. I am no robber."<br />
<br />
Taking out a volume by Chrysostom (the set had six large quartos), he said:<br />
<br />
"This book contains the words of the Father of the Golden Mouth; and this," handing out a volume by Basil, "is most necessary to every Christian for rules and guides in holy living, for he it was who first formulated the vows of obedience, chastity and poverty which are respected everywhere, east and west, throughout the Church
and the world."<br />
<br />
"'Where ignorance is bliss,'" I thought, but said : "What was his name?"<br />
<br />
"Basil. St. Basil the Great."<br />
<br />
And so he went about from one case to another, taking books or MSS. from the shelves and commenting, until he had named Cyril, who wrote the Life of St. Saba, Zuallardo (1586, full of engravings), Adamnanus (697, St. Columba), Philocalia (Basil and Gregory), Cotovicus, Cotelier (Cotelerii, Monuments of the Greek Church), Onomasticon (Basil and Jerome), Eusebius, and many other Greeks, Latins, French and Germans; also a MS. in Greek-Arabic (of the ninth century); and an account of the Conquest of
Syria by Saladin (Salah - ed - Din). Makreezee (1400), Edrisi (1150), and other Arabs, were represented in manuscript. The Greek classics were not neglected. A palimpsest, Arabic over Thucydides, was very fine.<br />
<br />
We were getting on famously when our good Archimandrite Nicodemus climbed the stone stairway and seated himself near it.<br />
<br />
Joe was seated, leaning back against a reading-desk opposite the archimandrite, and, in a fit of desperation and fear of exposure, I handed "him" the Greek-Arabic palimpsest, and requested to have it read, or a few sentences. Without rising, Joe rested the book on her knees for a desk, and read a few lines, giving first the Greek, then the Arabic text, which she translated into Greek as she read.<br />
<br />
Nicodemus looked very stern and serious when he first came up, but when Joe had read from a few books or manuscripts, his face changed in expression, and he asked me if he too might offer a volume to the learned brother for inspection.<br />
<br />
On assent, he took a volume of St. Chrysostom and opened it at random, saying: "Read."<br />
<br />
Joe read a page from the Exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.<br />
<br />
Nicodemus was delighted and said so, but hastened to say also that he regretted the necessity of his immediate return to El Koods (Jerusalem), for he would gladly hear more, if time permitted.<br />
<br />
I was equally delighted to salute the departing prince of the Church, and do him reverence—for had he not respected the learning of our Joe, and stifled any suspicions that might have risen in his mind as to what the modest caftan and agyle
(coat and head-dress) covered?<br />
<br />
"Now," said I, after he had disappeared, "let us push our investigation."<br />
<br />
Our attendant brother-monk, whom I called Slim, or Thinness, was named Ivan Boganovitch, but he could not have been even the most remote of kin to the great Russian poet of that family name; for when I asked him how he liked his namesake's poem, "Dushenka" (Psyche), he said he had never heard of it. The "Dushenka" was
published just a hundred years ago. So, since he was as limited in knowledge as in figure, I preferred to continue the name of Slim, which he mistook for the Arab Selim, and all was serene.<br />
<br />
We worked as a trio, Slim, Joe and I, until about two o'clock in the afternoon, when I felt like eating something "with a fork," as a Frenchman says, and we all went down to the reception-room, to find a majority of the brothers assembled to see the great curiosity, a learned boy.<br />
<br />
"A second 'boy among the doctors,'" said one old white-head.<br />
<br />
"Ah, venerable sir, our schools are most excellent."<br />
<br />
"Yes, much better than when I was a boy, judging by this specimen. I am a Smyrniote."<br />
<br />
Joe said: "Then, perhaps, you knew my father, Aaron Yarning?"<br />
<br />
"In truth, I did, and his son, Abraham, and his daughters, Josephine and Elizabeth."<br />
<br />
"They are both visiting their uncle, Moses Hornstein, at the Hotel Mediterranean, in Jerusalem."<br />
<br />
"How I would enjoy a sight of them! I must not go there; they cannot come here."<br />
<br />
Joe gave me a knowing look, and suggested that we have our lunch outside with the rest of our party.<br />
<br />
"Bring them in, by all means. There are only one man and a boy."<br />
<br />
"What has become of the woman?"<br />
<br />
"I saw a tall Arab and four Arab women talking to her and the man, and then they all, except the man, went away to the east."<br />
<br />
Anxiety, lest Miss Shapira had been captured by the Arabs, moved me to ask Slim to let us out at once, which he did. We found John and the boy, and John soon quieted our fears by saying that Miss Maryam had been recognized by some Arab women, who had been at her father's house often, and she had gone to their camp, which is less than half a mile away, and in plain sight from the ridge, near the outer tower. The donkey-boy had not been idle. He had arranged our lunch on the shady side of the tower, and we were soon busy over figs, pomegranates, oranges, cold roasted chicken, native wine, and other delicious viands. When you are so near the desert, or so far into it, as at Mar Saba, the appetite grows keener by what it feeds on.<br />
<br />
We left word with the boy that Maryam should call for us when she returned, and taking John with us, returned to the sanctuary of ten thousand skulls (<i>vide</i> any monk at St. Saba).<br />
<br />
John had been inside this most ancient museum in Palestine, if we must not except the Temple Area in Jerusalem, and knew what to ask for to gratify my desire of seeing the books. So we inquired for the boxes we had heard of, and John had seen a part of. They were stored here and there in different rooms; some contained old, worn-out liturgies, none less than a hundred, and many over two or three centuries old. Nearly all were printed, but one small box held about a hundred and fifty on vellum or on parchment, in about equal numbers; beautiful specimens of Greek text, written in black ink, with red initials, and a few were ornamented.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of an iron chest, in the room off the chapel, under a hundred manuscripts on parchment, we found a handsome copy of the Gospels. The leaves were about eight by ten inches, the text black, in two columns on a page, red initials, the pages bordered with red, yellow and blue lines, with a finely executed portrait of
each of the four evangelists, highly idealized, and enriched by the appropriate emblems; bound in skin, roughly finished.<br />
<br />
I glanced at it and put it back in its place, promising myself another inspection later, or on another visit, and also because it is never prudent to show anxiety in bargaining with Orientals; and furthermore, I had to sustain the <i>róle</i> of being no robber of books.<br />
<br />
The library-room of the chapel was dimly lighted, but there was light enough to see many books, printed or in manuscript, lying in confused heaps on the floor, and at our visit Mr. Slim walked over them as if they were only so much straw. And straw they might have been for all he knew or cared for them. Even the illuminated manuscript of the Gospels which was in the iron chest had no charm for him, because no one had given him an account of its peculiar merits.<br />
<br />
Further inquiry revealed the hiding-place of a lot of books in a recess in the wall, which had formed the private library of a former occupant of the cell. They were very curious, so much so that I could not ask Joe to look at them at that time, in the presence of the young Englishman. Joe and I had a long sitting over them another
day.<br />
<br />
Maryam was expected home, and although the others of the party would have gladly staid over night, yet it was thought best to turn our faces toward the Holy City. Therefore, about an hour before sunset, we bid the monks good-night, and under the escort of Sheik Mustafa, who did not refuse a blessing (<i>backsheesh</i>) in the shape of a silver coin, we arrived safely, a little before midnight, at the gate of the Mediterranean Hotel.<br />
<br />
We paid our respects to the Greek Patriarch the next morning, and asked him to have certain volumes in the Mar Saba library brought up to the library in the Greek Convent, where we could examine them at greater length. He promised to do so.<br />
<br />
While talking with him, the Archimandrite Nicodemus entered the divan and saluted us.
After a while he said that he had been tormented with suspicion that the little bunch in the corner of the tower library, opposite to where he sat, was a girl in boy's clothing, and that, in spite of anxiety and care for more than thirteen centuries, the
sacred precincts of the tomb of the holy St. Saba was being polluted—<br />
<br />
"Instead of which, my most reverend <i>Siadatab</i> (bishop, highness), it was really honored by the presence of a gifted young brain, learned in the knowledge of the best books of the best writers in the Church."<br />
<br />
"Ah, that was my proof! Such brains, such ready wit at reading and translating the sacred text, and such eloquence in reciting the unequaled words of the Father of the Golden Mouth, convinced me that it was impossible in a woman. If that young man could have the benefit of a proper training in our schools, our holy faith would, indeed, have an able defender and advocate. He may yet become a great teacher. What school
has had the honor of his training so far?"<br />
<br />
"The American Mission School at Smyrna."<br />
<br />
"Ah! It is with pain that I am compelled to admit that some of the schools of the schismatics are nearly, if not quite, as good as ours in certain things; lacking, of course, in spiritual affairs."<br />
<br />
I know that accounts of book-hunting must be dry, and that even the "lark" of a gifted and beautiful young woman cannot amuse forever. The little girl of that day is now a woman, the wife of one who stands high in the confidence of the Khédive of Egypt. Her talents go far toward winning and enabling him to keep his place.
Orientals see quickly, and treasure as precious, fine qualities in a woman, as their history shows in many instances. Her portrait, engraved from a photograph made at Cairo, Egypt, during the last year, appears herewith. Its intelligent and kindly face will win many, friends among my readers, while I can only hope to be forgiven for
"giving her away" as I have in these pages.<br />
<br />
Miss Maryam Shapira was the daughter of the well-known scholar of that name of Jerusalem, who will be remembered as discoverer of a great number of curious terra-cotta images in Moab, and of a manuscript of the Pentateuch, which was supposed by him and some others to be very ancient, and which was pronounced a forgery by
certain experts in London. He had offered it for sale at the modest price of one million pounds sterling! Mr. Shapira was reckoned the most accomplished scholar in Hebrew in Europe, if not in the world. He and his work were condemned by men who were far from being his peers in a knowledge of Hebrew, whether language or literature. We were indebted to him for the Arab dresses used on the trip to Mar Saba, and on other excursions; and he also spoke a friendly word in our behalf to the Arab sheiks whose
territory we were about to trespass upon.<br />
<br />
I must use care in what is written about John Hornstein, for he is now in office in Cairo, Egypt, the City of Victory, and is the official interpreter to the Chief of Police. What if I should feel moved to climb the Great Pyramid once more, or linger in the Museum of Antiquities at Boolak, or should appear at sunrise some morning at the Esbekiyeh, inquiring for a donkey to ride out to Heliopolis ? John might think it his duty to cite me before a Kadee, where he would re-enact the scene in the "Pasha of Many Tales," and cover me with confusion. But he is kind-hearted, and would rescue me, and give the Kadee and me a good dinner afterward.<br />
<br />
I regret the necessity for closing this brief account without so much as referring to the books we saw there, or to my success in inducing the patriarch to remove the valuable ones to Jerusalem; but space, although infinite, is on paper limited, and here must my greetings to His Highness be made. May he be forever exalted.</blockquote>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-79459279289886989252012-03-12T11:01:00.000+02:002012-06-12T14:08:04.826+03:00Sorry I Got It WrongA footnote in W. C. Watt's "Curves as Angles", in <i>Writing Systems and Cognition: Perspectives from Psychology, Physiology, Linguistics, and Semiotics</i> (edited by W. C. Watt), Kluwer, 1994, p. 239:
<blockquote>The rules presented in these pages form a fragment of a graphonomic ('iconic') grammar that substantially differs from the one I have urged elsewhere (e.g. in Watt 1988b), notably in its use of the cycle and in its merger of phanemic and kinemic features. Sorry I didn't get it right the first time.</blockquote>
When did YOU last see a scholar saying something like this?Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-58344022428079299432012-02-10T17:08:00.000+02:002012-02-10T18:48:25.043+02:00Who Claimed the Dead Sea Scrolls a Hoax?<blockquote>Most of the great finds in archaeology have met with skepticism on the part of some members of the learned world. The doubts may not die down for decades... Were they perhaps “planted” by a deceitful explorer to gain attention or to demonstrate his pet theory? Is the much admired artifact a fraud foisted on affluent museums or private collectors by an unscrupulous dealer? Is it a hoax engineered by some odd character of unusual skill but questionable morality to mislead his academic colleagues and to make fools of stuffed shirts?</blockquote>
Leo Deuel's <i>Testaments of Time: The Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records</i> gave me a pause halfway through. The paragraph above was not the reason, though it is interesting in its own right. But Deuel follows with a near-contemporary account of early Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship (his treatise was published in 1965), giving glimpse of a perspective that from hindsight is all but impossible. It sounds eerily similar to something else I have seen and heard, as well.
<blockquote>Professor Solomon Zeitlin was the most insistent. He insinuated that the scrolls were a hoax or, at best, medieval documents written by “very ignorant men,” and he has poured forth article after article since 1948 in his own journal, the <i>Jewish Quarterly Review</i>, which has proved hospitable to a number of other dissenting opinions on the origin, genuineness, and interpretation of the cave documents. Again and again Zeitlin attacked opponents, questioning their scholarship in no uncertain terms. Repeatedly and repetitiously he discussed “The Fiction of the Recent Discoveries near the Dead Sea,” “The Alleged Antiquity of the Scrolls,” “The Propaganda of the Hebrew Scrolls and the Falsification of History,” etc. In 1950 he wrote an article fifty-eight pages long, “The Hebrew Scrolls: Once More and Finally.” And then he went right on. After the Piltdown story broke in 1953, he wrote a twenty-nine-page exposé: “The Antiquity of the Hebrew Scrolls and the Piltdown Hoax: A Parallel.” … Professor Albright is of the opinion that the Israeli government picked up the invaluable scrolls for a mere $250,000 or $300,000 thanks to Zeitlin's influence on the market price. Zeitlin, by the way, thinks the Israelis were outrageously overcharged: some $10,000 to $15,000 would have been ample compensation.</blockquote>Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-26616494567131757082011-12-13T10:59:00.001+02:002011-12-17T13:35:22.717+02:00Symphony No. 8 of Jean SibeliusAs documented <a href="http://salainenevankelista.blogspot.com/2011/12/seek-and-ye-shall-break-it-personal.html?showComment=1323383301187#c5705210902292451850">here</a>, I received on Saturday a telepathic performance of Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 8, long thought to have been lost forever after the composer was seen burning a mass of papers in his fireplace around 1945. In the video below Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra plays three fragmentary parts of previously unknown music of Sibelius.
<br><br>
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<br>
In an alternate timeline / mirror universe, the above video is due to known Sibelius scholar Timo Virtanen. He has identified these fragments from Sibelius' archival remains as the most probable candidates for belonging to the lost symphony. The original video in its entirety (including Virtanen's interview in Finnish), courtesy of <i>Helsingin Sanomat</i>, is available for viewing <a href="http://www.hs.fi/videot/Soiko+t%C3%A4ss%C3%A4+katkelmia+Jean+Sibeliuksen+kadonneesta+sinfoniasta/v1305548105773">here</a>.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-25174662751436738402011-12-05T10:03:00.001+02:002011-12-21T19:08:41.534+02:00Seek, And Ye Shall Break It: A Personal RantLast July, standing in the middle of the room, I let my gaze fall upon a bookshelf, stuffed quite full of books. I came up with a thought:
<blockquote><i>
I wonder how much do I actually pay for the delight of having an overflowing bookshelf in my home.</i></blockquote>
Some background information is necessary to describe to proceedings from here. It is no secret that in the past decade I have become more and more interested in finding weaknesses in various systems, in order to break them apart. Loosely described, a system can be found anywhere where there are rules dictating how events are to be connected to each other. I suspect such understanding of 'systems' is simply a computer-literate redressing of the concept of 'language games', as described by late Wittgenstein. Incidentally, the workings of these systems is easiest to demonstrate in computer programs, which -- at their very lowest level of binary code -- are nothing but rules to control electric impulses inside the computer. Infamous as the fact is, computer software as a set of rules or a system is always breakable due to the impossibility for the programmer to keep track of infinity of variables and to anticipate the creative effort of others who may, for various reasons, want to try and work around the set rules. Consider, for instance, one of the iconic 8-bit platformers, Capcom's <i>Mega Man</i> (1987), which rules i.a. that one is not allowed to walk through solid walls. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Updowntrick2.gif">Joel Yliluoma's animated GIF</a> demonstrates, that one rule can be broken:<br><br>
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<br>
How does this happen? Interestingly, the effect is produced by exploiting other rules the programmer has put down regarding the usage of ladders in the context of the game. While normally used rather conventionally to climb up or down, the possibility to do both of these simultaneously (that is, direct the character to move both up and down at the same time with precise timing) results in something different, producing a glitch in the system and bypassing one set rule with the help of another(s). A simple example in itself, such approach can be adapted outside of clearly-defined rules systems, even as far as describing one's religion or society as a 'game', 'played' by a set of 'rules' (social conventions, legal statutes, etc.), which -- as is the nature of all rules -- can be bended or even broken, consequences of such actions withstanding. Arguably, the most intriguing systems are ones in which one is itself a participant. If one cannot really step outside of the system while maintaining a participatory connection to it, trying to decipher the rules and bend them to the breaking point becomes an exercise in risk assessment. In other words, when you are in, you (generally) stay in whether your rule-bending resulted in the desired or the unpredictable.
<br><br>
But back to July. I had made the connection betweens books, space and expenses before, but not really <i>understood</i> it. Quite simply, if I did not have so many books, I would not need the bookshelf (besides, there was another one in the living room), in which case I would not need the space for the bookshelf, in which case I could live with about two square metres less, in which case I would not need to pay money for the non-needed space. What if I converted all those books into e-books? Have we not invented libraries for the specific purpose of storing those ink plots placed on wood pulp glued together? And seriously, when was the last time I printed out a pdf? Somewhere around 2006?
<br><br>
Going through the e-book project with my wife, we began to see other potential developments. What if I virtualized all those retro computing pieces lying in the cupboard -- a task I had actually done half a decade ago when computer emulation began to come together? Which of these movies were we going to watch in the future, given that in our societies of abundance every movie that exists in convenient format (DVD/Blu-ray) could be obtained within 24 hours if desired? How about those dishes we had not needed for some three years; how much did we pay for the space for hoarding those rarely-if-ever-needed cooking accessories? Why did we actually have half-a-dancing-hall in front of the sofa? What did we even <i>do</i> at home, come to think of it?
<br><br>
Not much, spacewise. As we figured out to our mutual surprise, after a hard day's work, unless we were attending an event or had a training session, we'd generally settle down with our own laptops, occasionally watching or playing something together, but nothing that really required any more than a few square metres of space. Most of the superfluous space would be used by our two cats as a racing track, but even they would have preferred a more vertically challenging setup. Some truly fascinating possibilities began to emerge in our minds.
<br><br>
How much is much? How much is enough? In Finland the average amount of living space is somewhere between 35 and 40 square metres per person, but how do we choose to read these statistics? If we happen to be fairly average in this regard, is that good or bad, and where would we like to go from there? And if we tried to work around our socialized understanding of required living space (for happy, worthy-of-a-human-being-existence by First World standards), to what figure would we all things considered arrive?
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On paper, we got down to 20 square metres, in total.
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Which prompted a search for a more modest apartment, bearing in mind that all the money thus spared could still be invested in living standards by other venues, such as making sure those 20-something square metres were utilized to their full extent. As luck/fate/insert-universal-randomness-here would have it, by the end of July we had found a very good candidate, and by the end of August purchased it. A single room in a 110-year-old mansion with a garden, pictured below. By the end of September we had moved in. Thus ends the story of how I broke yet another system, and lived happily ever after.
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History, however, has taught us that no original ideas exist, nor do ideas ever stay fixed over a period of time. Ideas can always be traced to their precedents. It is obvious to me that the necessary precursors prompting my recent move are ideas prominent in <i>degrowth</i>, <i>downshifting</i> and <i>simple/slow living</i> movements. In other words, what really did happen was a jump on a trendy bandwagon, a mere play on the hip factor for the sake of shaking a convention a bit. Or am I being too harsh? On one hand no one can deny that e.g. my ecological footprint would not have gone down drastically which -- in our current rules of language usage -- makes me a near-saint. On the other, no one should suggest that this drop was anything but a by-product of moving to a smaller apartment, and certainly not a big factor behind the original decision. And it still very much fits into First World living standards, probably even better (as in 'more technical gadgets to play with') than before.
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Seemingly, this one system remains as solid as ever.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-72548437808269126602011-12-01T20:00:00.001+02:002011-12-17T13:37:14.927+02:00World, Here I Come!Put all the necessary paperwork in motion, received the all-important computer access to the university resources.
Contemplated on making a four-year plan, but decided to adopt Jorge Cham's instead:
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<a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1012">PhD Comics, originally published on May 5, 2008.</a></i>
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I'd post more, but right now I have this pint to take care of.Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7212699990910971719.post-42887517956032426722011-07-09T14:01:00.001+03:002011-12-17T13:38:07.614+02:00A Prayer for Grad Students in PhD ComicsThis was too good to pass by:<br />
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<a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1435"><i>PhD Comics, originally published on July 8, 2011.</i></a><br />
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<i>By Kingdom Come /<br />
I</i> should <i>be done...</i> | snork!Timo S. Paananenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17013303126358159635noreply@blogger.com1