5.2 ANÁLISIS TÉCNICO
5.2.3 SIMULACION EN CONTINGENCIAS
In Chapter 1, we explored the ways in which the Long Recension altered and reiterated various aspects of the Middle Recension, effecting an image of Ignatius as an ideal bishop and a memory of an irenic church. By focusing on a smaller selection of Magnesians, we can see the ways in which such larger effects structure the Long
Recension’s rewriting of “Judaism.” As comparison will show, the Long Recension makes Jewishness more explicit in Magnesians 8–10 than it had been in the Middle Recension. Such changes are suggestive of the ways in which readers’ assumptions have changed between the second and fourth century, creating new ways of appropriating parts of the Christian and Jewish past. In the Long Recension of Magnesians, we see intra-Christian polemics merging with pedagogical rhetoric, making anti-Judaism an important tool for forming Christian subjects. Implicit anti-Judaism becomes explicit.
From the first lines of Magnesisans 8, a concern with explicitly “Jewish” things is apparent. While the Middle Recension makes no explicit mention of Jews, Judaizing, or Judaism until Magnesians 10.3, the Long Recension introduces Jewishness into the conversation from the outset of Magnesians 8. The Middle Recension’s discussions of “living according to law” (8.1), prophets (8.2, 9.2), and “sabbatizing” (9.1), can easily be read as critiques of Jewish ideas and practices, but the Middle Recension does not foreground or make explicit the association with Jews. By contrast, the Long Recension signals a concern with categorizing certain activities and ideas as Jewish. Not only does the Long Recension contain an additional warning against holding fast to “Jewish delusions (8.1),” it also identifies other unmarked features in the Middle Recension as Jewish. Where the Middle Recension states that “if we live now according to law (νόµον),
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we admit (ὁµολογοῦµεν) that we have not received grace (8.1 MR),” the Long Recension reads, “For if we live now according to Jewish law (νόµονἰουδαϊκὸν) and circumcision of the flesh, we renounce (ἀρνούµεθα) the grace we received (8.1 LR).” The additions of Jewish law and Pauline language about circumcision make delineating Jewish–Christian difference more central to the rhetoric of the Long Recension.
Attributing “law” and other “delusions” directly to Jews replicates the kinds of differences already discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. Just as many additions provided theological precision or expansive lists of exempla, the marking of certain things as “Jewish” provides precision in many places where the Middle Recension allowed for greater ambiguity. It marks a particular reading of these terms as normative.
Other differences between the Middle and the Long Recension here effect greater precision as well. For example, The Middle Recension identifies two kinds of potentially deceptive things stating, “Do not be misled (πλανᾶσθε) by different opinions
(ἑτεροδοξίαις) or by stories that are uselessly old (µυθεύµασιντοῖςπαλαιοῖςἀνωφελέσιν, 8.1).” This creates two potential categories of error. The first deals with the plurality of opinions that arise from disputational methods of securing knowledge, and the latter, with its emphasis on stories, hints at the dangers associated with knowledge constructed from (seemingly?) ancient texts.336 Both terms are governed by a single verb, πλανᾶσθε.
336 Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, argues that ἑτεροδοξία and its companion verb
ἑτεροδιδασκαλέω “are evidently all but technical terms for heresy (118).” While he is correct that Ignatius always gives these terms negative connotations (Smyr 6.2, Magn 8.1, Poly 3.1) and that Platonists like Philo treated it similarly, this does not prove that the term must be synonymous with “doctrinal error”—as Schoedel seems to mean by heresy—in order to have such a negative valuation. Each time the Middle Recension uses these terms, the authorial voice warns against people who are in some sense devoted to Christ but teach something different from what is taught by Ignatius. These seemingly devoted followers of Christ proliferate opinions about Jesus. The negative valuation is framed both in terms of personal disagreement (i.e. they do not teach what Ignatius teaches) and such proliferation’s potential for communal dissension, the main target of the Middle Recension. Schoedel’s treatment of ἑτεροδοξία as a technical term is overdetermined by later Christian use. This is amply clear from the different ways in which the Long Recension
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In the Long Recension, this verb only has a single object, ἑτεροδοξίαις. Other kinds of error are introduced by a different verb, ἐνέχετε337 (hold or keep fast to): “Do not be
misled by different opinions or ‘hold fast to338 stories (µύθοις) and unending genealogies
(1 Tim 1:4)’ and Jewish delusions (8.1 LR).” The action associated with each term takes on a new importance. Heterodoxies mislead, but other kinds of knowledge or tradition become problematic only when over-emphasized or, perhaps, over-interpreted. Where the Middle Recension suggested different approaches to knowledge that might mislead the reader, the Long Recension places one category outside Christian knowledge, marking it as misleading or deceptive, while the other is firmly inside Christian knowledge but in danger of being misappropriated. Where the Middle Recension highlighted the potential ambivalence of different modes of knowledge production, the Long Recension gives greater attention to the entanglement of “stories and genealogies” within Christian tradition, treating the undue attention given to such things as peculiarly Jewish.
Such a trend of specifying the problematic aspects of “stories and genealogies” as peculiarly Jewish is visible in the reception of 1 Tim 1:4, which the Long Recension includes at this point in Magnesians.339 Our earliest evidence for the reception of this
treats this terminology. In Magnesians, ἑτεροδοξίαις are distinguished from other errors by treating such different opinions as the only category that is in essence deceptive. In Smyrnaeans, the Long Recension adds a list of deceptive teachings to emphasize the doctrinal character of such “different opinions.” The Long Recension portrays such different opinions as a collection of easily identifiable theological errors where the Middle Recension provides no such specificity.
337 Many manuscripts read ἀνέχετε (lift up, exalt; uphold, maintain) instead of ἐνέχετε. Both are viable readings of the passage with each suggesting slightly different connotations for the scribes and readers. For my purposes, the consistent addition of a second verb here is more important than the nuances of verbs found in the textual tradition.
338 Manuscripts of 1 Tim 1:4 use the verb προσέχειν while the manuscripts of the Long Recension use ἀνέχετε or ἐνέχετε.
339 The purpose here is not to completely divorce the Middle Recension from the history of the reception of 1 Timothy as its language of “heterodoxies” and “stories” seems to allude to this aspect of Pauline tradition. However, in its overall tendency to perform Paul rather than cite him, the Middle Recension embodies a very different relationship to Paul than that of the Long
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passage comes from Tertullian, writing at least several decades after the composition and, perhaps, collection of the Middle Recension. Tertullian appeals to this passage on four different occasions, three times in heresiological contexts and once in what we might term a philosophical context.340 In no case is the text interpreted in relation to
specifically “Jewish” forms of knowledge production. Rather, Tertullian alludes to “Paul’s” words to critique Christian heretics and separate Christian notions of the soul from those produced in “philosophy.” Tertullian’s critiques mirror the Middle
Recension’s ambivalence toward the dominant practices of ancient knowledge production.341 Later reception of 1 Tim 1:4, especially in the fourth century, does not
dismiss the more general concern with dominant modes of knowledge production. Nevertheless, the likes of Athanasius and John Chrysostom identify “stories and endless genealogies” almost exclusively with Jewish practices. Athanasius separates Pauline critique of “Greeks” from that of Jews. “Greeks,” he writes, “as the apostle has said, make their attacks with prolixity (ὑπεροχῇ), persuasive speech, and plausible arguments, but the Jews, neglecting (ἀφέντες) the divine scriptures, now (as the apostle again has said) contend about ‘fables and endless genealogies.’”342 He goes on to include the “Manichees
and Valentianians with them” but the error remains, in essence, a Jewish one which others expand upon. Chrysostom gives some attention to the place of stories and
genealogies in “Greek” traditions, mentioning in one brief sentence that Greeks, too, paid
Recension where both performance of Pauline texts and citation of them exist intermingled in the letter collection.
340 Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 1.9.7; Adv. Valen. 3.4; Against All Heresies 33.8; De anima 2.7. 341 Critiques of the practices of paideia are frequent in second-century and third-century literature. See, e.g. Tatian, Against the Greeks; Bardaisan, Book of the Laws of Countries; and Porphyry, De philosophia. Often, the writers employ their knowledge of educational and scholarly practice to assert the preference of another set of practices for arriving at “truth.” That is, despite their critique of Greek paideia, they depend on many of the same practices and ideologies in their disparagement of “Greek” practices of knowledge production. Usually, “barbarian” wisdom is put forth as a corrective to the problems inherent in greek paideia.
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excessive attention to frivolous stories.343 Nevertheless, Jews are more closely associated
with these terms. “The Jews” collected “stories and genealogies” to give themselves a “reputation for deep research (ἐµπειρίαςπολλῆς) and historical inquiry (ἱστορίας).”344
The problem, as Chrysostom frames it, is that such questioning is the very opposite of faith—“inquiry (ζήτησις) is destructive of faith.”345 The Long Recension draws out the
specifically anti-Jewish implications of Ignatius’s words in ways that are consistent with reading practices shaped by fourth-century heresiology and homiletics.
The Long Recension refracts the Middle Recension through stereotypical Pauline text and imagery. Not only does the Long Recension incorporate 1 Timothy but it inserts 2 Corinthians 5:17 into the mix as well. Sandwiched between statements about Jewish delusions and living according to Jewish law (8.1 LR), we find the statement: “The old things have passed away; see everything has become new (2 Cor 5:17, 8.1 LR).” Here, as with the citation of 1 Timothy, Paul’s words remain unmarked as that of an authoritative person or text. Instead, Ignatius is again portrayed as writing Paul rather than quoting him.346 This refraction is striking insofar as the Middle Recension already embraces a
Pauline vocabulary and persona.347 The Pauline-sounding language already present in
the Middle Recension’s formulation “different opinions and stories” becomes more
343 John Chrysostom, Homilies in First Timothy 1.2 (PG 62: 507, lines 4–6). “He seems also to hint at the Greeks here, when he says ‘myths and genealogies, since they catalog (καταλεγόντων) their gods.”
344 John Chrysostom, Homilies in First Timothy 1.2 (PG 62: 506, lines 21–24).One wonders if he has something like Josephus in mind here, especially since many Christian apologists appealed to non-Christian witnesses like Josephus in order to demonstrate the antiquity and reliability of Christian scriptural traditions. “The Jew” functions as proof that Christians haven’t merely interpolated ancient texts but also cannot be granted true historical knowledge for fear that they will be viewed as authentic bearers and interpreters of ancient traditions.
345Homilies in First Timothy 1.2 (PG 62: 506, lines 31–32).
346 Much like Pierre Menard in Jorge Luis Borges’ “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Ignatius is made to seem as if he was writing the same words as Paul out of his own life
experiences. He does not merely copy, but in some sense reauthors Paul, marking Paul’s words as new and relevant for a different age. See Borges, “Pierre Menard,” 45–55.
347 See especially, Reis, “Following in Paul’s Footsteps,” 287–305; and Maier, “Politics and Rhetoric,” 307–324.
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explicit. Paul is used to imagine a historical context for Ignatius’s words—the danger of living according to “Jewish law and circumcision of the flesh (8.1 LR).” Both the
specification of law as Jewish and the inclusion of circumcision remove the ambiguities present in the Middle Recension. Whatever law second century readers might have had in mind,348 the Long Recension identifies it with “Jewish” law. Likewise, Paul’s concern
with Gentile circumcision is directly referenced despite the fact that the Middle
Recension mentions circumcision only once in the context of a hypothetical comparison in which it is “better to hear Christianizing from someone circumcised than from a foreskinned Judaizer (Phild 6.1, MR).”349
Ignatius also becomes a vehicle for interpreting Paul by recontextualizing 2 Corinthians 5:17 as a distinction between Jewish things and Christian things. In the Long Recension, Paul’s sweeping rhetoric about the remaking of the whole human person is reduced to a distinction between Jewish things and appropriately Christ-centered behavior.350 The shift from old to new is identified primarily with a shift from Jewish to
Christian.
348 Some recent scholarship seeks to correct the exclusive focus on the Jewishness of law in Paul and rabbinic literature as well. Jacob Taubes argues that Paul’s discussion of “law” in Romans is directed at the hypostatization of law, whether Roman, Jewish, or more broadly Hellenistic. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, 23. Such an understanding of Paul would work well for Ignatius since the rhetorical force of “living according to law” does not depend on its formulation as Jewish, though the subsequent discussion of Sabbath observance shifts in this direction. In an analogous vein, Nathalie Dohrmann makes the argument that even Jewish focus on legal
traditions before and after the destruction of Jerusalem owes some of its impetus to the effects of Romanization. Rome, with its extensive legal framework, reinforced law as a central category for all participants in the empire. Dohrmann, “Law and Imperial Idioms,” 63–78. Elizabeth Meyer’s work on Roman tabulae offers a potent example of the extreme reverence for “law” in the Roman Empire generally as demonstrated by attitudes to the legal texts recorded on such tabulae. Meyer, Legitimacy and Law.
349 See section two of this chapter for more on this passage.
350 Patristic readers often identified a cosmological thrust in Paul’s language about a “new creation” and the remaking of all things. The likes of John Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Theodoret maintained a broad conception of the “old things” as a reference to the whole of creation since the fall. This could incorporate elements that focused on the distinctions between the new Christian order and Jewish tradition as in Chrysostom’s comment that the new involves “new promises and covenant” (John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Second Epistle to the
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The Long Recension’s greater explicitness gives it a sharper polemical edge than the Middle Recension. The Middle Recension characterized “living according to law (8.1)” as admitting or confessing (ὁµολογοῦµεν) that such a person has not received grace. By contrast, the Long Recension characterizes “living according to Jewish law and circumcision of the flesh (8.1)” as an active denial or refusal (ἀρνούµεθα) of received grace. Adherence to “Jewish law” is thus equated with active antipathy toward the Christian dispensation rather than a sign that a person has been insufficiently or incompletely formed. In both cases, grace is presented as superior to law, but the Long Recension’s use of a more active verb characterizes all engagement with Jewish law as willful. Like characterizations of Jews in Adversus Iudaeos literature, the Long
Recension employs a term that resonates with wider literary practices of imagining contemporary Jews through the lenses of prophetic critiques of Israelite behavior and gospel stories in which Jews are simultaneously stubborn and blind in their
unwillingness to see Jesus as Messiah.351
As I showed in Chapters 1 and 2, this tendency toward greater explicitness stems in part from pedagogical reading assumptions. Texts and people are cast in primarily pedagogical roles, treating justificatory rhetoric as if it were explanatory and
supplementing it when it fails to be sufficiently explanatory. We can see this move toward pedagogical precision in the variant characterizations of prophets between the Middle and Long Recensions. Both agree that the prophets were people who “lived according to Christ” as demonstrated by their persecution (8.2). However, for much of its argument, the Middle Recension remains imprecise about the temporal location of
Corinthians, PG 61: 475). However, even such pointed references to promises and covenant are couched in a more widespread transformation of everything from body and soul to modes of dress.
351 For an excellent overview of adversus iudaeos traditions, see Limor and Stroumsa, Contra
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such prophets (as well as the source of knowledge about them). It does not specify
whether these prophets were those who lived in ancient times or more recent leaders and spokespeople for early Jesus-believing communities.352 The ambivalence continues into
the subsequent section of the letter in which the prophets are characterized as those who “had conducted themselves (ἀναστραφέντες) in ancient practices (παλαιοῖς
πράγµασιν)”353 and “came into a newness of hope, no longer keeping Sabbath but living
according to the Lord’s day (κατὰκυριακὴνζῶντες, 9.1, MR).”354 Only the conclusion of
the conditional seems to resolve this ambivalence. The conditional that began by assuming a change on the part of prophets (“if those who had conducted themselves in ancient practices…”) concludes with a rhetorical question: “How are we able to live apart from him whom even the prophets, being disciples in the spirit, were expecting
(προσεδόκων) as teacher? (MR 9.2).” The sense of expectation indicated here most properly belongs to figures from the past awaiting a particular future possibility. The use of the imperfect for the act of expectation coupled with a reference in the imperfect to Jesus as “the one who was rightly awaited (ἀνέµενον, 9.2)” is the closest Magnesians
352 That both are possible is clear from other early, retrospectively Christian, works. The canonical gospels typically refer to either biblical prophets or contemporary prophetic figures who are portrayed as in competition with Jesus or his followers (e.g. Mt 2:23; 24:24). Acts and various epistles use the term to talk about both biblical prophets and contemporary prophets (e.g. Acts 3:24; 11:27; 13:1, 6; 15:32; 21:10; Romans 1:2; 1 Corinthians 11-14; Ephesians 2:20; 3:5; 4:11). Similar ambivalence is found among other early “Christian” writings. Barnabas (5) and 1 Clement (17; 43) use the term to refer to biblical prophets, either as prooftexts for Christological
statements or as exempla of devoted living in their own right. The Didache (11; 13), however, presents guidelines for welcoming or rejecting prophets that assume them to be contemporary (and frequently itinerant) participants in communal life.
353 Given that the letter connects this idea to an eventual cessation of Sabbath observance, πρᾶγµα seems to function here as a synonym for πρᾶξις. See LSJ s.v. πρᾶγµα II.3 for a few examples of this usage.
354 As Lieu notes, the latter half of this phrase could be interpreted to mean either “according to the Lord’s life” or “day” as the object of the possessive adjective is not specified. Either reading works for the purposes of my analysis and I suspect this ambivalence was intentional given Ignatius’s concern with “living according to Jesus Christ” and the identification of prophets as “persecuted” which signified their conformity to Christ’s life. However, I follow the translation of “Lord’s day” because of the clear binary it draws between Sabbath and Sunday. See Lieu,