Christians and Pagans

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF EARLY CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Edited by PAUL M. BLOWERS and PETER W. MARTENS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, oxi 6d p , United Kingdom Ac k n o w l e d g e m e n t s Oxford University Press is a department of the University of It furthers the University’s objecUve of excellence in research, scholarsh p. and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford Is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2019 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2019 Impression: 1 All rkhts reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly per^tted by law. by Ucence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. 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We wish to express our profound appreciation to Tracy Russell at Saint Louis University for her extraordinarily good work as editorial assistant for this Handbook, Her copy editing and stylistic conformation of the essays, as well as her organizational work, were indispensable to the production of this volume. We also wish to thank Karen Raith of the Oxford University Press for her outstanding work with the editors in the whole process of preparing this book for publication, and Tom Perridge, also of the Press, for the invitation to include this work in the excellent series of Oxford Handbooks. Ihanks as well to our copyeditor, Edwin Pritchard, for his careful work on all the chapters herein and his assistance in conforming this volume to the series standards. Paul M. Blowers Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College Peter W. Martens Saint Louis University 348 JAMES CARLETON PAGET Kessler, E. (2004). Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Simon, M. (1986). Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christains and Jews in the Roman Empire ad 135-425, trans. H. McKeating (London: Ihe Littman Library). Stemberger, G. (1996). ‘Exegetical Contacts between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire’, in M. Saebo (ed.), Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation 1:569-86. CHAPTER 23 CHRISTIANS AND PAGANS JOHN GRANGER COOK On e can trace a very distinct pattern with regard to pagan responses to the Septuagint. Before Celsus in the second century of the Common Era when pagan authors appar ently became interested in Christianity, very few references to the Scriptures of Israel and the LXX have survived in non-Jewish Graeco-Roman literature. There are scattered references in Hecataeus of Abdera (c.360-290 b c e ), possibly ‘OceUus Lucanus’ (c.150 b c e ), Alexander Polyhistor (born c.105 b c e ), Diodorus Siculus (first century b c e ), Nicolaus of Damascus (born c.64 b c e ), Pseudo-Longinus (first century c e ), and Numenius (second century c e ).^ Their comments on the LXX were largely positive. None of them, however, had the detailed knowledge of Celsus. Lucian mocked the crucifixion and probably the Christians’ belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Celsus, Galen, Hierocles, Porphyry. Julian, and Macarius Magnes’ anonymous philosopher were quite negative about the LXX and the NT. In this chapter I will survey these authors in turn. Common themes that emerge include an interest in the creation narrative in Genesis, the law of Moses, the miracles of Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection, Christology, ‘blind faith’, and comments about the persecutions against the Christians. When possible I will include some of the responses the Christians made to the pagans’ arguments. The Platonist philosophers were apparently able to find little common ground with ancient Christianity, although Numenius admired Moses and possibly Jesus, and Amelius respected the Johanriine logos Christology. * Most dates are from the articles in the *OCD. Although I will not review all these figures here, my own comments on this period may be found in Cook 2004:1-54. The translations are my own unless noted otherwise. Some are taken from Cook 2000 and Cook 2004. 350 JOHN GRANGER COOK CHRISTIANS AND PAGANS 351 Ea r l y Re a c t i o n t o t h e Se pt u a g i n t (yer^aOcxj) light. And there was (Gen 1.3). Let there be (ycvcc^w) earth. And there was (Gen 1.9-10).’ (De sublimitate 9.9) Diodorus Siculus preserves a tradition of Hecataeus of Abdera from his Aegyptiaca in which he refers to the Scriptures of Israel: ‘It is additionally written at the end of the laws that Moses heard God say these things to the Jews’ (Diodorus Siculus. Bibliotheca historica 40.3.6). The material on the Jews from the Aegyptiaca that Diodorus includes does not. however, encourage one to believe that Hecataeus had a Torah in front of him (Bibliotheca historica 40.3.1-8), although he had a vague idea that after a plague in Egypt the Jews were driven out of the country along with other details about Jewish practice and worship that indicate he had a Jewish informant Immediately preceding the statement quoted above is a reference to the Jewish high priest (‘One says that this individ ual in their assemblies and their other meetings declares what is commanded’... [Bibliotheca historica 40.3.6]). The verb (pijutv (‘one says’) probably indicates that Hecataeus had an oral source (on the possibility of written translations before the LXX, see the references in Cook 2004:4). The author of De universa natura (On the Nature of the Universe), spuriously called Ocellus Lucanus in the tradition, discusses the place of sex in the grand scheme ofthings: John Gager (1973:59) has made the important point that this is the first time OeaptoOe-n^s (lawmaker) is used for Moses. Although Philo uses the word twice, in neither instance does it describe Moses as lawmaker (Mig. 23, ‘the lawgiving word’, and Her. 167, God as lawmaker). The LXX has the form yevrjd-qrco for ‘let there be.’ Aquila (apud Philoponus, De opificio mundi [Reichardt 1897:73,25]) and Eusebius (p.e. 11.25.2,13.13.12) each have yeveado). Both texts of Eusebius are quotations of Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.14.94.1 (who has yevTjO'qrioi cf. Wevers 1974:75-6, app. crit.). Philo, De somniis 1.75 also quotes Genesis 1.3 using the same verbal form as Pseudo-Longinus. yeveaOw (pais (let there be light) appears embedded in a larger phrase in a magic recipe in Papyri Graecae magicae 4.970. It is not difficult to believe that Pseudo-Longinus had a LXX in front of him, although he summarized verses 1.9-10. A similar paraphrase of the two verses occurs in a late text attributed to Chrysostom (Chan., PG 52.460: yevrjB-^rto yrj, Kai iyevero yij [let there be earth, and there was earth]). Nu m e n i u s o f Apa m e a Reflecting on these things first, it is not necessary to approach sexual pleasures like irrational animals, but to accept as necessary and good what good people thin|r is necessary and good—namely that houses will not only be filled with inhabitants and most of earths area will be ^ed (irXTjpovadai), (for the human is the most civilized and best living being of all) but what is the greatest thing, that they will abound in good people. (De universi natura 46; Thesleff 1961:136,4-9) The verb irXTjpovaOai (be filled) stands only in manuscript Marcianus 263. Richaid Harder (1926:128) defends the reading because of the context. There is a close similarity with Genesis 1.28, Av^aveode Kai TrXTjdweode xai TrXyptoaaTe y^v (‘increase and multiply and fill the earth’), although one cannot show beyond doubt that the author is dependent on the tejrt of Genesis. The probable date ofthe treatise, however, is subsequent to that of the trans lation ofGenesis into Greek in the third century b c e (trans. Kraus and Karrer 2010:3), and it may be that the author knew ofJewish tradition through an intermediary. Ps e u d o -Lo n g i n u s An anonymous author of the first century c e , called Pseudo-Longinus, either knew the LXX directly or was dependent on a Jewish source: In the same way the lawmaker (deafioOerij^) of the Jews, not an average man, since he grasped and revealed the power of the divine in a worthy manner, writing immediately in the beginning of the laws says: 'God said’—what? ‘Let there be Numenius of Apamea (second century c e ; cf. Cook 2004:36-41) allegorized the prophets and a story about Jesus, according to Origen: I also know Numenius the Pythagorean... who often in his writings expoimds on texts of Moses and the prophets and gives them a not unpersuasive ^egorical inter pretation, as in his work called Hoopoe and in his Concerning Numbers and in Concerning Place. In the third booh of Concerning the Good, he also expounds a certain narrative about Jesus, but does not mention his name, and he allegorizes it; whether he does so successfully or unsuccessfully there will be time later to say. He also expounds on the narrative concerning Moses, Jannes, and Jambres. (Origen, Cels. 4.51 = des Places i973:ffag. ic, 10a) From the third book Concerning the Good of Numenius, Eusebius preserves a fragment in which the philosopher asserts that Jannes and Jambres were chosen by the Egyptians to resist the mightiest of the plagues of Moses whom he calls ‘Musaios’: These individuals were considered worthy by the people of the Egyptians to stand before Musaios, a man who was most powerful in prayer to God; and they appeared to be able to undo the most violent of the plagues that Musaios brought on Egypt. (Eusebius, p.e. 9.8.2 = des Places i973:frag. 9) Although it is clear that Numenius has a source other than Exodus (see the discussion in Stern i98o:§365 and Cook 2004:39-40), he is aware of Jewish tradition. He quotes Genesis 1.2 (‘the spirit of God was born on the water’) in one of his writings and apparently