Minutes of the First Four Classes in RelSt 535, Fall 1996 Robert A. Kraft, instructor and editor --- Minutes Religious Studies 535 Friday September 6, 1996 (week #1) by Eleni Zatz Litt 1. There were three handouts: 1st page of Spring 1995 syllabus, chart of important historical figures and a map of the area in our study. 2. Everyone is encouraged to get familiar with email and electronic resources. Check out Bob's home page at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html You might also be interested in the discussions going on in such lists as the following: elenchus ("choice jewel" [Latin], on early Christianity) ecchst-l ("Ecclesiastical History") ancien-l (ancient world) Ioudaios-l (early Judaism) 3. The course will rely on early texts -- many of which are now available via the internet. The published series of "Ante-Nicene" and "Nicene and Post-Nicene" fathers in English, from the last century, have been scanned in and can be accessed on CD-ROM or on the WWW. 4. The Nicene Council took place in 325 CE. It represents a major shift in Christianity. With Constantine's rise to power around 306, Christianity soon become legal; Constantine provided support for the consensus building that the Council of Nicea represents. Nicea marks the beginning of classical/orthodox Christianity as a publicly available option. 5. We will be focusing on what the situation was like for Christianity prior to this period. One can imagine that much was different. We know hardly anything about "Jewish Christianity," for example. The relatively recently discovered Nag Hammadi library is an important resource for the study of Christian "gnosticism," and can be compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls in importance. 6. One of our goals in the course will be to be aware of what sources there are and how we can use them. There are many problems. With rare exceptions, we only have resources that classical Christianity preserved and transmitted, and thus presumably considered important. Much has been lost by neglect or design, which makes it difficult to reconstruct with any confidence how Christianity looked in its earlier manifestations. Often, we must recreate on the basis of certain assumptions that we accept -- see, for example, the work by Jean Danielou on "The Theology of Jewish Christianity" which he finds widespread in the earliest decades of Christian existence. His work is valuable and suggestive, and there is little reason to doubt the Jewish origins and connections of earliest Christianity; but it is difficult to determine whether there were actual "Jewish Christian" communities of the sort he recreates, given the paucity and ambiguity of the preserved materials. 7. Student's question: What is "Jewish Christianity"? Response: There are at least three ways to use such a designation: 1) in terms of genealogical categories, i.e. people of Jewish birth who accepted Joshua/Jesus as Messiah; 2) people who may be of Jewish or gentile origin, but who think about their Christianity in predominately "Jewish" terms and categories, and 3) identifiable groups of on-going Christian communities who maintain certain Jewish practices such as circumcision, Sabbath and dietary laws. It is not clear what the connections are between such groups and the "rabbinic Judaism" that is beginning to develop in the same general period. 8. In reading the material be aware that the same names are sometimes "Anglicized" and sometimes transliterated from Greek or Latin. The Semitic name Jeshua/Joshua becomes Jesus in Greek; Yakov/Jacob becomes James in English! And the famous Latin father Jerome is also known as Hieronymus. He lived in the 4th century and was a contemporary of Augustine. He is known for the production of the Latin Vulgate which he had been commissioned to do by the Bishop of Rome. 9. Around the end of the period with which this course deals, Origen of Alexandria presented Christianity as an educated option in the Greek world, with mixed results. He left a major impact on subsequent Christianity, while being condemned posthumously for "heresy" in some quarters (Jerome translated some of Origen's works into Latin). 10. John "Chrysostom" ("of the golden mouth") was a spellbinding orator and a prolific writer from a later period who helped shape what classical Christianity became in the Greek world. 11. Course requirements include: - participation in class (e.g. taking minutes) and on the net (e.g. reporting on discussions or reviews), - a research paper on an approved topic, - a 30 minute final oral conference/exam covering the entire course and the paper. Read someone like Tyson fairly quickly to get familiar with the names, locations and overall contours of the period. Your goal should be to appreciate how Christianity got from nothing to its favored status under Constantine. What were the costs? What was lost?/gained? A paradox of this course is that it is a "history" course based mainly on literary sources. Keep this in mind when you read the material. If you find the course to be a series of tangents (as already evidenced in these notes!!), don't despair; gradually a framework for coordinating many of the details will emerge if you are responsible about collateral reading, and even reviewing these sets of minutes. Everything will NOT become clear, but hopefully you will become aware of why that is so. 12. There are greater continuities in the history of the region than are sometimes assumed. Be critical of the myths of how and when the Roman Empire fell -- the Latin west is only part of the picture. Also attempt to understand how terms are used in their own context, without the connotations that have been picked up for various reasons -- such as the Christian identification of "Pharisees" with "hypocrites." One might need to undo some of the baggage one brings to an understanding and use of these terms. For example: the Pharisees are one of the primary leadership groups in the development of rabbinic Judaism. For Christians, the Pharisees took on a pejorative connotation, as representing a Judaism that had an adversarial relationship to early Christians and was considered inadequate or even corrupted. 13. A major source of information about our period is Eusebius, who was influential at the Council of Nicea (where another important Christian spokesperson from this period, Athanasius, served much as a graduate student assistant might, taking notes and recording decisions [NOTE: instructor was confused!]). Eusebius collected many earlier sources in his monumental "Ecclesiastical History" written around the time of Nicea. An assignment in this course is to sample the relevant parts of Eusebius' EH (books 1-4). 14. We will be asking questions such as these: When did the NT get collected? Large books in "codex" form don't appear until 3rd or 4th century. Prior to that we have rolls or scrolls which necessarily held only individual books or possibly a few small works (e.g. the "minor prophets" of Jewish scriptures). When larger collections are drawn together in codex form, an important question is what has scriptural authority and gets included. NT as fixed canon is gradual -- Athanasius provides our first preserved listing of exactly the books now contained in the Christian NT, in his Easter sermon of 363. But he does not speak for the entire world of Christendom at that time. 15. Discussion of various languages that are used in the period (and in the sources): Hebrew/Aramaic ("semitic"), Greek, Coptic, Latin. 16. We know very little about the development of Christianity in the east. 17. Names and Titles: certain names are actually titles or nicknames that then become used as proper names. For example, Thomas is a semitic word for "twin" and only gradually becomes a name. There is an early tradition that Thomas was a twin of Joshua/Jesus, and his real name was Judah/Judas, but since Judas took on other unfavorable connotations, the twin nickname (i.e. Thomas) came to be used to identify that Judas. Similarly, Christ (messiah) and Peter (rock) are other examples of titles or descriptions that came to replace or supplement the given names (Joshua/Jesus, Simeon/Simon). 18. Concerning the development of the biblical canon: it is worth noting that the word "canon" comes from a Greek word that also means "cane" in the sense of a measuring stick. Thus the biblical canon is the collection of authoritative texts that measure up to the scriptural criteria and by which truth can be measured. The "apocrypha" were considered less authoritative and, therefore, less authentic . The term can mean "hidden" -- perhaps in the sense of being kept from general use. In the long run, the "apocryphal" books that originated in early Christianity were not included in the classical Christian canon, although a formal category of Jewish "Apocrpyha" was considered part of the Christian "Old Testament." 19. A somewhat free-ranging discussion about collections and types of literature: gospels, acts, epistles and apocalypses (revelations). Comments on the apocryphal NT, illustrated by the Gospel of Peter. Use of the term Apostolic Fathers to refer to the next generation after the Apostles -- the first group of identifiable writings after the NT that were preserved. The Nag Hammadi codices didn't survive by normal means (in living communities). It's a collection of 13 codices with 52 writings. (See Kraft review on Nag Hammadi writings. See Jay Treat's homepage for hotlink to ante-Nicene material.) 20. Our purpose in the course is secular, critical and historical. We won't be taking a sectarian approach, while it is appreciated that people come from different backgrounds and experience with some of the material. Sample fairly widely. Read Tyson for good overview and coverage at a college level. Koester is more detailed, written for a divinity school level -- and is sometimes frustrating for the scarcity of its footnotes when dealing with ambiguous matters! Check out also Harnack's Mission and Expansion of Early Christianity and Bauer's treatment of Orthodoxy and Heresy (on the ccat.sas gopher). 21. Bauer's book inspired a lot of research and generated lots of reactions (see my appendix on the reception of the book); he basically argues that many of the earliest known forms of Christianity later came to be considered heretical -- that in many locations, "heresy" preceded "orthodoxy," and not vice versa. 22. More on logistics: we ll be looking at a particular question each week. Get familiar with the categories of information. Get familiar with collections: Apostolic Fathers, Apocryphal NT, Apologists, etc. 23. Student question: When we use the word collections do we mean a category or genre of material or a collection in the sense of self consciously chosen group of books/documents brought together by a compiler? Response: The point is to get you to think about such things. In clarifying your use of the term, the question evaporates and you are left with an understanding of how to think about the material, documents, books etc. at our disposal. 24. Mention of accusations made against early Christians, and answered by some of the "apologists" led to a suggestion of a possible reason why some Christians might be considered "cannibals" who ate their children. There is evidence of an early practice whereby some Christian groups might eat an aborted fetus. Understanding their thought world ("theology") is crucial; they believed that the goal of existence is to recapture the lost unity of the whole, and that continued "diversification" is bad. Since procreation creates more diversity in the world, it is "bad". The question for such a group then is how to return or get back to this idealized unity through a kind of "sexual eucharist" in which male sperm and female menstrual blood are ingested as the body/blood elements. If in the process of collecting the sperm by interrupted coitus the woman becomes pregnant, the (subsequent) fetus would be aborted and then eaten. Or so it is reported as early as Clement of Alexandria around the year 200. 25. Our job in this course will be to weigh the probabilities in trying to understand the available evidence. Interpretations and understandings change. As one cynic quipped, "if you want to change history, become a historian!" 26. For next time, become familiar with question 2: identify four sub-groups within early Christianity, etc. (See syllabus.) //end of set #1// --- Religious Studies 535: Varieties of Christianity Minutes, September 13, 1996 (Week #2) Reporter: Christine Boulos (cboulos@sas) Present goal is to become acquainted with Early Christianity within the next few weeks. Those among you who may presume they already know quite a bit may attempt to expand that knowledge deeper, the rest of us will just have to continue to play catch up! Prove to Doc Bob that you are extremely interested in the course material by next week: take a look at Kraft's homepage and such Early Christian synthetic treatments as Tyson and Bauer (begin with Chapter 2!). Also, for next week pull up our weekly questions off of gopher@ccat.sas or Kraft's homepage: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html. Begin reading approximately the first four chapters/books of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (abbreviated EH or sometimes HE). Keep in mind that an upcoming assignment will include finding a review of a recent book and completing a brief report on the review (10 minute oral report). One can look up reviews from (a) Bryn Mawr Classical Review - from the gopher site under electronic publications (b) Ioudaios Review - focuses on Judaism in the Greco-Roman period. Also of electronic significance, the discussion list ELENCHUS is currently involved in an ongoing discussion of eschatology and asceticism in relation to the Jesus traditions, including the question of how interested Jesus was in conveying an eschatological message. Some current interpreters argue that Jesus was a cynic-type preacher calling out to people to follow his set of beliefs and ideals about life in the here and now. This is an issue that our class discussions will lead as back to in time. An interesting point made recently on the ELENCHUS discussion group concerns the improbability of early followers of Joshua/Jesus exhibiting a unified outlook - keep in mind that the earliest "Christians" were Jews who brought with them a set of perceptions through which they understood and conveyed the message about "Messiah" Joshua/Jesus. The treatment of "orthodoxy and heresy" by W. Bauer focuses on the problem of unity and diversity at a somewhat later stage. The first of many diversions in class today was about the incredible amount of information found on the various web discussion groups and the time consuming efforts made to respond to the questions and ideas brought up. Unfortunately, if responsible people do not respond inappropriate information begins to circulate unmonitored. A question was raised about the mention of Philo's Therapeutae in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Birger Pearson, a specialist on Gnosticism who has recently published a book on Egyptian Christianity, refers to a claim by Eusebius (EH 2.16-17) that the Therapeutae were an early Christian monastic group. As Bauer points out, this is not a claim that many students of the period today would accept, given our expanded awareness of the varieties of Judaism that existed (indeed, many scholars in the 19th century, with more limited knowledge of first century Judaism, concluded that "Philo's" treatment was actually a Christian forgery). Eusebius was an author at the transitional point between the relatively uncontrolled development of Christianity, and its formal/legal recognition by the Roman Empire. His ecclesiastical history was published around the time of the Nicene Council in 325 CE. He is anxious to show the continuities between early Christianity and his own times. It was at this point that we were just about to go into the weekly assignment (Question #2 on the syllabus handed out the first week of class) when, once again, we were sidetracked!!! When referring to Early Christianity we are basically concentrating on the first 200 years of the common era (ce), the cutoff basically being the time of Irenaeus. To get a thorough understanding of the subject manner, though, one should also at least become superficially familiar with the writings and work of such authors as Clement and Origen of Alexandria, or Tertullian in North Africa, at the end of our period. Origen is considered the Alexandrian Christian Platonist par excellence as a result of his conceptual analyses. His approach builds on the ideas presented by Philo's Judaism, with its Platonic cast. As a result of the respect of Origen and others for Philo, Philo came to be treated almost as a Christian "father" even though he was recognized to be Jewish. Origen came to be condemned as a "heretic" long after his death as a result of various controversial teachings. Generations later, Jerome (ca 400) was embarrassed when he translated some of Origen's writings at a time before he became aware of the controversial nature of aspects of Origen's outlook. Once acquainted with such circumstances Jerome sided against Origen for not holding suficiently "orthodox" views. Jerome's attitude concerning Origen is a prime example of how one's perspectives may drastically change over the course of time. It is recommended that non-experts begin reading Bauer's book with the second chapter, on Egypt and Early Christianity. Egypt is of a dry enough climate to have preserved for us a wealth of written materials, including a large number of valuable texts such as the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library (consider getting earlier edition with the valuable index!). unfortunately, not a great deal of other early material has been preserved in the Coptic language. On the other hand, we do know relatively more about early Egyptian Christianity, but the problem here is that most of this information is from Alexandria in Greek, and it is not clear to what extent it represents the Coptic speaking areas -- or to what extent Coptic speaking Christians were unified. To most historians, what comes to be known as Coptic Christianity began to take form prior to the Council of Nicea -- the Coptic form of writing began being used already in the second century as an alphabetic alternative to the earlier forms of writing the Egyptian language (hieroglyphics, hieratic, demotic). Keep in mind that when Doc Bob uses the term Coptic Christianity he is referring to the group(s) identified by use of Coptic language and not to Egyptian Christianity in general. Finally, we have now made our way to the assignment of the week . Don't worry, we'll get side-tracked once again very shortly! One of the sub-divisions within early Christianity is "gnosticism," representatives of which include Valentinus, Basilides, the Sethians, and in some (but not all) respects Marcion. According to gnosticism as defined by Valentinus, there were three groups of individuals: those who were saved and could not avoid it (the "pneumatics" or "gnostics," spiritual in nature), those who were not going to be saved and could not avoid it ("hylics," the earth-bound), and those who possessed the potential of being saved but needed to choose between the alternatives. Marcion began what is referred to by Tyson as a Gnostic movement (Tyson 385-387). Marcion was a strong follower of Paul and yet he did not accept all of the teachings and writings of Paul, such as the Pastoral letters. Marcion is noted in Tyson as making the first attempt to form an authoritative Christian Scripture. For more information on Marcion see the book Marcion by Adolph Von Harnack. Another representative of early gnostic Christianity is the Ophites, a group known from the second century. The word Ophites means the "serpenters" in Greek, and to them it was the serpent of the Genesis story that brought knowledge to humans. Nahas(h) is the equivalent Hebrew word for serpent, which lies behind the Greek name for another gnostic group, the Naassenes. Thus the Naassenes are also "serpenters," perhaps representatives of a semitic speaking Jewish Gnostic approach. (KNOW NAASSENES FOR FINAL ORAL EXAM!) To the Ophites the serpent was the good agent of the highest GOD, while the creator God was holding humans captive. They believed that the God who created this world, a world of division and perversity, had devolved or emanated from a rift in the stream of divinity. Salvation involves escape from this world to be reunited with the ultimate One. Jesus shows the way. Pauline Christianity is another sub-group of early Christianity reflected in the writings attributed to Paul. Paul's authentic writings are probably the oldest preserved Christian documents. Such documents indicate the strife and disunity that existed from the beginning of Christianity. This supports Bauer's arguments against people who claim that there was always unity in Christianity from the beginning. Bauer argues against everyone from Eusebius to the classical Christian position, against those who believe that unanimity was characteristic of earliest Christianity. But then there comes the problem of how does one define unity, and if unity is the agreement upon the essentials then what are the essentials? To Bauer, many of the earliest and strongest forms of Christianity came to be considered heretical as time went on (and Rome's influence grew) and "orthodoxy" was not as strong as most of its adherents would like us to believe. Footnote on Origen: Origen is known for his system of "allegorical" interpretation, which often is contrasted with "typology." Under allegory, a passage or story from scriptures did not need to occur in history, but was placed in scripture to convey a symbolic message of some sort. On the other hand, typology holds that a story is both historically true and that it represents a more significant meaning in a larger framework. By Origen both are utilized, typology and the allegory. After Origen, many interpreters argue that there exist compatible levels of interpretation, beginning with the literal and extending to the moral and theological. //end of set #2// --- RelSt 535 Class Minutes #3 (9/20/96) by Shira Lander Discussion of [the springboard question on] four key events... Elani began with a definition of her conceptual framework -- given that Judaism was the primary context into which early Christianity fit -- "Christianity is still a subset of Judaism" -- per Kraft ["Christianity" = "Messiah-ism," i.e. followers of Joshua/Jesus as "Messiah" -- the term "Christian" is said to have emerged first in Antioch (Acts 11.26), and "Christianity" as such first appears in the Christian author Ignatius of Antioch -- per the discussion of self-definition which ensued later in class], she first named: 1. 70 CE, i.e. the destruction of The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by Rome This had an impact on Christian as well as Jewish developments (in addition to obvious political events, there were also symbolic effects on both). Kraft cited the setting up of Jamnia/Yavneh -- almost due west of Jerusalem, on the coast -- the seat of rabbinic ordination and the place where Pharisaic Judaism regrouped as proto-rabbinism under Yochanan ben Zakkai. 2. The death of Joshua/Jesus: his crucifixion/resurrection Here Elani encountered a problem with the question -- what is the definition of an "event" -- a historical fact? the proclamation of faith in that fact? Is it something that happens, for which we can produce historical evidence, or a belief which becomes a foundational event as psychologically or sociologically defined? Kraft says it is a phenomenon which shapes the development of any trajectory within a given group which would self-consciously identify that phenomenon as important. [Transcriber's note: We touched on methodological issues throughout our discussion.] Elani mentioned not wanting to disrespect the Christian tradition, though being Jewish she comes from a tradition which takes the perspective that the resurrection event did not happen. 3. Paul's call Donna said that she had thought about Paul's experience "on the way to Damascus" in the same light. Kraft interrupted to say that how you understand and refer to that event ("conversion" or "call" or something else) can influence how you understand Paul in his own context and his understanding of himself (is he "still Jewish"?). Kraft, citing Krister Stendahl [cf. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, (Philadelphia 1977) and "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," HTR 56: 1963, 199-215] argued this is a call within a Jewish prophetic understanding (see e.g. Isaiah and Jeremiah), not a conversion in the sense of movement from one religious tradition to another. The call was to bring the message of the risen Christ to the gentiles -- a new understanding and commision for Paul who had previously persecuted. Using "call" will get you closer to Paul's own language and world view [and that's the point]. Cf. Gal 1.15-17 "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus." (Kraft comments it echoes Jer 1.5 "Before I formed you ih the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." [transcriber's note--NATIONS is the same word in the semitic and in Greek as GENTILES, goyyim, and in LXX/OG and NT, it is ethnos].) Regardless of whether Paul's experience was epiphenomenal or psychological, it helped shaped the development of what came to be "classical" Christianity, and so Christianity would have been different without it. What would have happened without Paul's call? Donna suggested that Christianity would not have survived. Kraft opined that it almost certainly would have been quite different if it did survive without Paul's influences. 4. Resurrection revisited Kraft asked Elani what she meant by resurrection, according to which brand of Judaism? (he meant in the first century, but we got momentarily sidetracked in the present) What would've happened without the belief? What happened in the course of the resurrection disputes over the centuries did shape Christian history so, some argue, it is what makes Christianity Christian. Kraft rephrased the question: Without the claim of Jesus' resurrection, how would you know about Joshua/Jesus? Would he have become a nice Jewish sage like Hilllel (or a not so nice one like Shammai)? His teachings collected in Pirkei Avot ("Sayings of the Fathers," a late second century collection of previous Jewish wisdom supposedly taught by various sages)? Would reflections on the teacher Jesus have been incorporated into Jewish and interpretation by Christianity (which is still present in today's legacy)? Do you think there would be Christianity without the resurrection perception? Elani felt that there would have been Christianity anyway, that the times contained many profound and phenomenal happenings, that Christianity couldn't have been stopped, that it was a constellation of many things. She seemed to reject viewing Jesus' resurrection as the core or essence of Christianity's foundation. Kraft pointed out that some have argued otherwise. 5. Jesus traditions and modern scholarship Kraft called attention to the ongoing discussion about "The Jesus Seminar," eschatology, asceticism, etc., on the electronic discussion group ELENCHUS, dealing with just the kind of questions we're talking about. Many of the scholars involved in the Jesus seminar would like the historical Jesus to be less oriented to Jewish "apocalyptic" -- as the extant sources tend to present him -- and more like an itinerant cynic preacher. Cynics were one of the Greco-Roman philosophical schools who preached (while wandering, street corner style, though some engaged in shockingly antisocial public behavior to make their point) avoidance of the ills of urban social and political life, getting back to nature, being yourself, getting in touch with the universe's oneness. [A digression into current use of "cynical" -- distrustful, misanthropic, bitter, suspicious, and negative -- derived from the message that casts aspersions on comfortable, meaningless living (the word itself means "dogish" in Greek, perhaps because one of the earliest preachers styled himself "Diogenes the dog")]. The "Jesus seminar" members, who voted with colored markers on the degree of probability that Jesus actually did utter the words which appear in the NT, phrase by phrase and word by word -- portray Jesus as an itinerant preacher to the dispossessed, trying to give them a meaningful message rooted in personal ethics. To make such an argument, one examines the sources to determine whether any early material has survived without being colored by the apocalyptic atmosphere that tends to permeate emerging Christianity. Schweitzer, nearly a century ago [Quest of the Historical Jesus], helped fix the scholarly image of Joshua/Jesus as an end-times advocate who even goes to his death in accord with his Jewish apocalyptic expectations. But in what they feel is probably the earliest stratum of preserved teachings of J/J, the Jesus seminar participants find a voice not governed by apocalyptic considerations. The source material on which they draw bears the scholarly nickname "Q" -- probably from the (Spruch)quelle meaning (Sayings) Source -- and consists of sayings attributed to J/J common to G.Matthew and G.Luke (but absent from G.Mark). The most common solution to "the synoptic problem" (how are the similarities and differences between the first three NT gospels to be explained, and their differences as a group from G.John) is to posit two main sources, Mark and "Q," that were used in different ways by G.Matt and G.Luke. If you go back about 50 years, before the Nag Hammadi discoveries, scholars could only speak of "Q" as a hypothetical entity or stratum; now with the discovery of the Coptic sayings gospel of Thomas, a collection of 114 sayings attributed to J/J, there is at least clear evidence for the existence of what "Q" was thought to be. The Q material in G.Matt and G.Luke is neatly illustrated by "the Sermon on the Mount" material in Mt 5.1-7.29, part of which appears in the "sermon on the plain" in Lk 6 and other parts elsewhere in G.Luke; Mt's sermon includes the "Lord's prayer" (the closing words found in most Protestant forms being absent from all but 7 manuscripts), but it is in Luke 11 when Jesus' disciples complain that John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray -- how do we pray? Mt has "debts" where Lk has "sins," which is understandable in terms of the ambiguity of the semitic term that probably lies behind the Greek forms. How did such a situation develop? Either Lk read Mt and took it apart; or Mt used Lk and pulled these pieces together in one constructed narrative; or they both shared a common source. Scholars who opt for the common source hypothesis ("Q"), claim that the source did not provide a narrative framework but contained isolated collected sayings, in the venerable Greco-Roman tradition of "sayings of a wise person." Whether Q is best depicted as an actual single document, or as a stratum of material that might include several smaller clusters and documents (so Kraft), is disputed. And there have always been scholars who challenge the Q hypothesis itself. [See in recent times Frans Neirynck, "The Sumbol Q (=Quelle)," ETL 54: 1978, 119-25 and L. Silberman, "Whence Siglum Q? A Conjecture," JBL 98:1979, 287-88, among others.] The authors of Mt and Lk, then, built their gospels using this Q source and Mark. This theory is called the 2-source hypotheses. This was later elaborated into a four-source hypothesis to account for where Mt and Lk each has material unique to itself, labelled "M" and "L." [ed. note: Some scholars such as William Farmer do not accept this theory, though it is predominant, but prefer the Griesbach hypothesis, arguing for Mt as the earliest gospel, then Lk wrote from Mt, and Mark put together the reader's digest version]. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt (1945-6) radically changed this approach to scholarship, since it preserved some Christian literature (often of "gnostic" outlook) which had not made it into the canon. The text "Gospel of Thomas" is an actual 114 sayings and parabolic discourses of Jesus, as Q theorists had hypothesized, each introduced by "peje Iesous" -- Jesus said -- usually without narrative context and purporting to be the secret words which Jesus spoke and Judas Didymus-Thomas (Jesus' twin brother according to the apocryphal Acts of Thomas -- Thomas is semitic for "twin," and Didymus means the same in Greek) wrote down. This made the Q theory much more plausible as a hypothesis. 6. About synoptic problem and old fashioned scholarship Elani asked: Is the assumption that if we could determine the oldest version, that the oldest text would be the "truer" one? What would the evidence be for claiming that the older was truer? Kraft: Scholars have found it tempting to consider earlier to mean closer to the truth, especially among those who had an investment in getting back to J/J's actual words and actions. They wanted to move as near as possible to the fountainhead of Christianity [Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus deals with some aspects of this phenomenon, especially in 19th century Germany] by recovering the voices of eyewitnesses and if possible, of J/J himself. Theoretically, this makes some sense, but the complexity of the surviving materials and of the contexts from which they derive make it very difficult to argue that even the earliest recoverable witnesses are not seriously flawed, historically speaking. Which is not to say that the attempt to recover the early strata is worthless. Other criteria for determining "authenticity" are reflected in such works as Adolf von Harnack's "What is Christianity," which differs radically from a traditionalist position, and produced a typical universal liberal message that valued the ethics of the J/J traditions (the "kernel") and viewed the eschatology as an unfortunate vestige of Judaism (the "husk"). From a somewhat different perspective, Rudolf Bultmann [e.g., "The Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus" 1962] attempts to "demythologize," or un-mythologize, Christian origins (including especially its eschatological world view) and highlight its solutions to "the human predicament." Such scholars wanted to get rid of embarrassing aspects of Christianity, from the viewpoint of humanism and a modernist perspective. [The German scholars in particular relied on a distinction between the historical and the historic.] This parallels Reform Judaism's Wissenschaft des Judentums, "Science of Judaism," and rationalism -- a general concern for and faith in human progress which informed the turn of this century. Harnack doesn't try to recreate the earliest recoverable form of Christianity as much as to make it applicable to his day. This was in turn-of-the-century Germany, when there was already (or perhaps still) some pre-Hitlerian attacking of Jews (presumably for resisting the truth) in a mainly Christian society, either Catholic or Lutheran. The focus on recovering the Jewish context of J/J's life became more evident after Schweitzer's Quest (c 1906) [see also his Mysticism of Paul], as a historical interest. 7. Scholarship today and our inquiry For our purposes, our mind set is to explore the ancient evidence more broadly and to avoid begging the question about the relative historical Harnack, and even more so his conservative contemporary Theodore Zahn, concluded, or perhaps assumed, that virtually everything that is historically important about J/J is preserved in the canonical gospels [Ginsberg, Strack, and Billerbeck notwithstanding]. Hopefully we don't start with that position anymore -- critical scholarship on the canonical gospels reveals them to be community collections that get passed along, modified, etc., with just as clay feet as the noncanonical literature. Our first point of entry is the Sitz im Leben of the material -- its "life setting" in the experience and environment of the author -- so I as a scholar can be sure that I have contact with a person or group that is concerned about passing it along. I want to know who this text came from, how it was transmitted and why. I want first to understand the dynamics of collecting, adapting, preserving and transmitting the material, which gives me valuable information about some stage in the development of early Christianity. Then I might try to consider whether I can evaluate the reliability and age of what is reported in the materials. Scholars are more savvy today, we hope, than our criticized predecessors, but sometimes still the heart gets in the way of the head. One of the best pedagogical techniques is to look at a tradition other than the one in which the scholar is personally rooted, and try to treat it consistently, applying the same rules and judgments. Professor catches himself preaching. 8.Scholarly Skepticism [or a hermeneutic of suspicion?] Kraft is highly skeptical about using the extant J/J traditions effectively in any search for the "historical" J/J: What I think I know or is probable or is true about who Jesus was depends on the type of Judaism I claim him to represent. I see him in an apocalyptic Jewish context, and I think it is demonstrable that such a Judaism existed in the first half of the first century in the syro-palestinian area. Others may recreate him in other, also defensible, contexts. If you think there was a "Jewish gnosticism" in that world, you could recreate J/J in such a context. Why you choose one type of Judaism, or one type of Jesus, as against another depends on how the information from the sources is synthesized (as you see it). But recognizing that many in the first century were influenced by apocalyptic Judaism creates other problems -- did they modify the Jesus tradition to fit their world view? Jesus could have been non-eschatological, but insofar as his eschatologically oriented followers viewed him through their concerns, he would come out in the sources they produce looking rather different. (A few more comments on the details of The Jesus Seminar's procedure) 9. Speaking of Apocalyptic, what about Paul? Paul does see Jesus through apocalyptic eyes in the sources attributed to Paul, except perhaps for the "prayer of Paul" from Nag Hammadi. So Paul is a good example of an interpreter (wouldn't have written a gospel because Jesus's personality and teachings didn't concern him, compared to the significance of the resurrection as the beginning of the end times and the "new creation") who saw Jesus through an apocalyptic Jewish filter. In some ways this is similar to the other filters we can see in other early Christian presentations. 10. Which brings us back to Methodology Since all material goes through filters (and we are trying to be as good scholars as we can be), how do we evaluate this evidence? Putting aside personal agendas, then what? There is so little material, how can we make historical reconstructions with any confidence? Kraft would approach this by being as aware as possible of the self (what I bring to the materials, my "filtering" inclinations) and trying to avoid being trapped by what we may not be aware of. He likes this self-critical framework, but the second part of it needs precision. How does the scholar achieve methodological integrity? One may have no serious problem getting into the mindset of the producers of the text, context, other info, etc. But that may not be enough; we want to know more, yet as we move away from that base of what we do know into what we want to know, the probability of its accuracy becomes lowered. But there's no mathamatical formula to measure probability. To the extent that the sources allow one to see Joshua/Jesus as a certain type of Jew, there will be other sources that conflict. Knowing what might be unique to J/J is even more difficult, and there is always the insoluable problem of attempting to read someone's mind with historical integrity! Did Jesus think that he was the (or a) Messiah? (Turning to the present)--how would you [students] know if one of you thought you were the Messiah? Some might hide it, or let on to a few -- how could anyone determine what would constitute a reliable picture of your self-perception and then transmit that perception reliably? 11. The Criterion of Dissimiliarity Norman Perrin ["Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus"] advocates the criterion of dissimiliarity, discontinuity, originality, or dual irreducibility, namely, when you find things claimed about J/J that are not consonant with the presumed Jewish tradition of the time and don't fit into what Christianity became, then the dissimiliraity pops out as historically probable--it couldn't have been invented from whole cloth. Kraft said this theory served a purpose in the past, but he feels uncomfortable with that argument because it assumes to know more about early Christianity and early Judaism than we really do. Kraft has no problem recreating a theoretical community or context for Jesus' utterance "No one knows when the son of man will come, not even the son" ["...you do not know on what day your lord is coming...for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect" Mt 24.42,44; Lk 12.40; Mk 13.33, 35.] What do we know about early Christian conflicts and perspectives? A classic example in the J/J resurrection story is the voice at the tomb on "Easter Sunday"/resurrection morning. Mt 28.6-7 and Mk 16.6-7 have "He's not here, for he has risen...Go and tell his disciples...he is going to Galilee. There will you see him." But Lk 24.6-7 has "Why do you seek the living among the dead? Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." And the closest Acts comes to mentioning Jesus' appearing in Galilee in when the Galileans speak in tongues in Jerusalem [Acts 2.7, but cf. Acts 1.11 as well, when the apostles witness the ascension and the two white-robed men address them as "Men of Galilee..."], but the geographical shift to Galilee is never mentioned in Lk. Later in Acts, 9.31, we discover Christians in Galilee, "the church throughout all Judea AND GALILEE and Samaria...," but how did they get there? The author of Acts never tells us. [Though Acts 11.37 suggests John the Baptist had something to do with it--"preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ, the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached...."] Lk is Jerusalo-centric. But does this tell me about the early history of Jesus and his followers or the community that wrote this text down later? Different interests in the Jesus question vis-a-vis geographic considerations led scholars to recreate out of that evidence a lack of harmony between Galilean and Jerusalem resurrection interpretations. Does this type of scholarship get you very far? Yes, you know that there is significant variety early as well as later on. There is probably variety from the very outset, in terms of the perceptions of the reporters. If you get into studying Jewish Christianity in Jerusalem, a very interesting question is the significance of resurrection. You have to take into account that there are some sources in which resurrection doesn't play a significant role, and you might even find a Jesus who is more like the preaching cynic than a risen messiah. 12. About the diversity of Christian groups and 1 Cor 15 Donna observed that you could consider each little Christian geographic community to have had their own brand of Christianity -- Jewish Christians in Palestine, e.g. When we associate the gospel texts each with their own gorup, the diversity is overwhelming, particularly vis-a-vis the resurrection stories. For example, when Paul tells the story, there are no women who witness the resurrection [1 Cor 15.5], but this is not so in the gospels. Kraft: The earliest account of the resurrection tradition is the one in 1 Cor 15.5, where Paul (assume this to be an authentic letter, for today) is addressing a specific problem: some of the Corinthians in this community, followers of Jesus, that Paul is attacking are people who have said things about their own resurrection which Paul thinks is wrong. Some have apparently argued that whatever resurrection was to have happened has already taken place. We call this realized eschatology. 1 Cor 15.12: "Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (that it has passed)?" Paul argues for a way of understanding resurrection (bodily, redeemed from sin/death, etc.) to be talking about the future. While Paul agrees that Jesus' has passed, the other half of the loaf is that his followers have been united with him only participatorily in his resurrection, and there will be a future sense of personal [spiritual] resurrection. He starts off with "I delivered to you (preaching) what I also received." Paul sees himself as a transmitter of the tradition (as opposed to the Paul in Galatians who has a direct line to revelation). And he continues, "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures (these are the Jewish scriptures, of course) that he (Jesus) was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time..." Note that the order of the witnesses is in some ways parallel to what we find immediately following: "Then he appeared to Jacob/James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." We do not find the James episode in the canonical gospels, but it does appear in the Gospel to the Hebrews. There are references to Cephas, if he is identified with the Simon of Lk 24.34--"The Lord has appeared to Simon." Mt 28.16 affirms appearance to the 12 [which by then was reduced to the eleven]. And the various general appearance accounts are usually considered to attest his appearance to a larger group, even though the specific number 500+ is not given as such. 1 Cor was probably written around 52-3 ce, so it gives us a starting point for trying to identify the age of these traditions. 13. Of Apostles and Antioch When Paul refers to apostles (not=12, but he is an apostle), what does this mean? Literally it is "one who is sent forth." But we know it is used in both religious and political circles to mean "delegate," so it seems to suggest one who has been commissioned by the resurrected Jesus. Though the Corinthians passage doesn't mention women in the post-resurrection narrative, at the end of Romans [16.7] there is a reference to an "apostle" woman (probably), Junia. When Paul calls himself an "apostle," he often connects it to his special mission to the gentiles. In Acts, Paul is also commissioned by the Antioch church. Who does he speak for? The Antioch church, or is he a maverick? Is his mission fortified by being kicked out of the cities to which he brings his message? In the "Didache," an early manual of Christian community rules, apostles are itinerant Christian preachers who if they stay more than 3 days, or ask for money, or make aggrandizing demands from the community, they are to be considered false. This rule might have been known in Paul's time. However, the Didache explains, if someone already has the seal of approval from God, then they can do some odd things, "enact one of the worldly mysteries," and still get away with it. Are there similar rules for cynic preachers? Or were they more like Paul, individualistic? 12. Methodology revisted This clarifies a vision of what kinds of questions you can't really answer. You first have to ask yourself what kind of evidence would be useful to have in order to answer these questions? Did Rome and Corinth start with the same kind of Christianity? As time goes on, what creates a standard of agreement between different communities that accounts for homogeneity? As governance is shaped, this becomes clearer: As Bauer comments in chapter ten, Rome, with its superorganization, imposes the unity. In their earliest formations, there was more variety, see Bauer on Egypt. This raises the question we discussed earlier: Does a particular location characterize one type of Christianity, or are there multiple varieties in each region? Paul's letters to the Corinthians reflect a lack of consensus in that early period, and 1 Clement similarly, but afterward the "true" church of Corinth emerges into our sources, leaving the varieties behind and aligning with the growing consensus. Or so Bauer presents things. [[RAK edited closely to this point; sporadically thereafter]] 13. How frustrated eschatology engenders diversity Lots of research on the "delay of the Parousia" (Literally "being there"). Jesus appears to be absent but will be returning. Many kinds of groups are affected by this. For example: The Cargo cults in Melanisia in the 1950's. The native peoples had to accomodate their indigenous religion to take into account the new phenomenon of visits by Westerners. So they looked for a future arrival of cargo which would transform the present rough life into a Utopia. This study was used by John Gager in his "Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (1975)" to explore what happens when the eschatalogical expectations are frustrated, and how Medieval messianic movements dealt with it. 14. The hermeneutic of analogy Sometimes we use such analogies from one time and place in order to understand what we hope is a comparable phenomenon in another time and place.What happens when your teacher had hopes that they would establish a continuity, or if apocalyptic that he would bring in the end--what happens when what you expected doesn't happen? Some might make it happen, so reality conforms to expectation. Some might try to find a built-in solution to the not-yet problem in his teaching. "The son of man must suffer many things...and after three days rise again (Mk 8.31)" Is this an ex post facto interpretation which justifies your interpretation? Lots have predicted they will survive death, so it's certainly possible. If it did happen, what adjustments need to be made when they don't take place in the way your interpretation of your teacher taught? There are two tendencies: one to give it up and the other to make the adjustment. Millenialism--Millenarianism--meant something concrete back then about the 1,000 year reign of Christ (chiliastic--in the greek), after which things can go to pot again--cf. Revelation. Lots of arguments are well-based on analogy, sometimes the base is faulty. Others will go another way and reinterpret "A day with the Lord is as a thousand years in his sight (Ps 90.4)" to mean that the "day of the Lord" refers to not a crass, materialistic, agricultural period and so we shouldn't take it literally. There is a reaction against the heavily literal Millenialism. Papias is identified as a millenarian and the book of Revelation is only rescued [preserved in the canon] because it is read non-literally. 1 Cor 15 was turned into millenialism by those with such tendancies but the millenialism there is kept vague by the non-apocalyptic perspective. There is a great variety of interpretations and developments--How early and where? How much can we take as a clue to the identity of a source with a particular location and time? Will that identification help us identify types of Christianity? Not all Paul's followers agree with him, or he wouldln't have written these letters. Problems inhere in Paul's ambiguity; one could argue that the [general] resurrection has passed from his teachings. 15. The Partings of the Ways--Was circumcision the cut-off? Elani asked: Where did Christianity distinguish itself from Judaism? I can't separate these ideas so easily--leads me to think in more practical terms--gentile circumcision, eg. Did this change the character of that community? The ideas are entangled; it begs the question to ask what's the Jewish perspective on...[???] Kraft: Circumcision was not the lynch pin, if we believe Josephus. He relates (The Antiquities of the Jews 20.2.1) that "Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs..." (and 20.2.4) "When Izates perceived that his mother was highly pleased with the Jewish customs, he made haste to change, and to embrace them entirely; and as he supposed that he could not be thorougly a Jew unless he were circumcised, he was ready to have it done...Ananias (his Jewish tutor) was afraid lest such an action being once become public to all, he should himself be in danger of punishment...and he said that HE MIGHT WORSHIP GOD WITHOUT BEING CIRCUMCISED, even though he did resolve to follow the Jewish law entirely; which worship of God was of a superior nature to circumcision." Then later Izates gets advice to do it from Eleazar from Galilee, who "was esteemed very skillful in the learning of his country,"and he does it straight away. Philo also says some interesting things about circumcision. Philo felt you had to UNDERSTAND what it mean to be circumcised to be Jewish, not actual physical deed. That it meant the golden mean, cutting off material excesses in either direction, ascetic or self-indulgent. Paul sees gentile followers of Jesus as part of the true Israel [the eschatalogical Israel]. Christianity builds up a self-identity which supplants Judaism, as the true Israel, the beloved son, the chosen, etc. They were not so ecumenical to say "we came from them and now we're something else." For Tertuallian there were three races, Jews, Gentiles, Christians =third race. Here's a question of self-identification--who do you think you are and how do you come to be known that way? Don't approach these groups with a label and see if they fit, and if they don't, put them in a different stack. What evidence do you have for non-circumcised Jews? Kraft assumes Philo's family had a few. Take Philo's brother, named Alexander, a very successsful business man who lent money to the Herods and possibly the Roman emperor. He was the custodian of the emperor's mother's estate. His son, Tiberius Julius Alexander, gets the good Greek gymnasia education and trains to become a Roman government official, which he does. In 46/8 he succeeds Fadus as prefect of Judea, then becomes a military adviser on Eastern front (Antiquities 20.5.1-2, The Jewish Wars 2.18.7, 5.1.6). Later on TJA is appointed by Nero governor of Alexandria and ruler of Egypt. When the Jewish revolt breaks out in 66, Vespasian is aware of which Roman forces to call upon, and they include the east, Egypt (War 4.10.6). TJA, the Jew, joins up "readily"to be party to the siege of Jerusalem. His father was almost certainly a Roman citizen by virtue of his status, or by birth (with prior roots in Alexandria). When the city was founded (312 BCE), in order to get the right mix of citizens it invited certain groups in and the Jews were among them, so it is a very old Jewish community. Marcus, the older brother of TJA, was married Berenice, who later becomes a consort of Titus. This is a big time family! No doubt Alexander's son has grown up knowing the mockery of circumcision in the circles he travelled in (some think "the Jewish load" in a papyrus fragment refers to circumcision). Even in Maccabean times (mid 2nd c. BCE) gymnastic games were held in Jerusalem sponsored by Jewish rulers in an attempt to make it more ecumenical. And Jews engaged in epispasm, the surgical reversal of circumcision, to avoid mockery. Is it likely that TJA's father would have cut him out from his socio-political potential? Perhaps we ought to read Philo's metaphoricizing circumcision as representing the family line. Philo has other reasons for his own observance of the custom which might not apply to the rest of the family (namely operating in Jewish communities, and represent it to Gaius). It's not like his nephew is non-Jewish either. Josephus identifies TJA as not AS faithful to ancestral laws as was his father, but this doesn't mean he was an apostate. TJA's inaugural address when he became governor of Egypt is not identifiably Jewish. He is for all the good things (motherhood and apple pie), and he says some humanitarian things. 16. Rescuing the Trash from History--Don't throw anything out Here we have reached Kraft's crusade -- to rescue two folks who got bad press (mainly from Josephus) TJA and Herod. They certainly were Jewish, though different from the Judaism that survives. Herod gets bad press from Josephus who says among all the nasty things he did, the Judeans didn't like him because he was half Idumean -- this was an ethnic slur. But if you look at Herod from his own marketing department, according to Nicoleas of Damascus, Herod was from one of the best Jewish families of Babylonia! So we can forget the slander. All of these folks get shaped by the sources' memory. What did Josephus have at stake when he talked about these folks--who was he sucking up to? On which side was his bread buttered? 17. Final Exhortation Plea about similar phenomena -- take a consistent view, which is sometimes difficult, because there is so much to know. A lot of computer space has been taken up on the Dead Sea Scrolls list "Orion" on Josephus's reliability as an historian. One said we know Josephus was wrong in so many cases, so we can't trust him at all. But you can't throw out the baby with the bath water, and figuring out why he was wrong could be informative, too. Another guy (a conservative Christian) argued for the Acts' reliability, so you see, sometimes analogies can be really off base. In any case, you just can't assume that gentiles are the uncircumcised and Jews are the ones who are circumcised. It's just not that clear-cut. //end of set #3// --- Religious Studies 535--Varieties of Christianity before Irenaeus Class Minutes #4 (9/27/96) by Tom Eisenmann 1. Unanimous praise for Shira Lander's minutes of last session. 2. Class member introductions 3. Discussion of the nature of interests in "theology" from the perspective of history. Theology, it was noted, is very pertinet to our purposes in this course, but strictly as historical data (e.g. the theological stance of Justin Martyr; theological differences between various groups) and not as providing a contemporary evaluative standpoint. 4. Christine requested/prompted clarification of Tyson's presentation of the nature of diversity in "Christianity" before and after 70 CE. Drs. Litt and Kraft confirmed that Tyson presents a diversity of "Christianities" existing prior to 70 CE, but that distinctions among various Christian groups become clearer after that date. Prof. Kraft proposed that for our methodological purposes we take an inductive approach, allowing the sources first to speak for themselves and then to point out commonalities and differences; as opposed to working from a fully explicated definition of Christianity and seeing which groups fit or do not fit that definition, which he termed a "deductive" approached and which Shira Lander likened to Eusebius' approach to Christian history (see also Bauer's presentation). Tom Eisenmann raised the question of a working definition of Christianity, which Prof. Kraft responded to by saying that at best for the moment we should include within the rubric "Christian" groups evidencing special "reverence" (respect) for someone referred to as Messiah or Christ, [and presumably identifying this person with the Jesus/Joshua of early traditions]. 5. Joon Ho asked for clarification of the significance of the emperor Trajan's reign (98-117 CE) for recognizing distinctions between Judaism and Christianity, which prompted consideration of many aspects of the Graeco-Roman political/cultural milieu, namely: a. 132-5 Emperor Hadrian's suppression of "the second" Jewish rebellion in Palestine, expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, reconstitution of the city as "Aelia Capitolina," and construction of a temple to Jupiter on the temple mount. b. 112/13 Pliny the Younger's correspondence with Trajan re: Christians in the region of Bythinia/Pontus. Possibly the oldest preserved reference to Christians in a non-Chriatian and non- Jewish source, he reports having received anonymous complaints about them. c. Suetonius' and Tacitus' reportage on Christianity and Judaism. In the year 48 there is a report of disturbances in Rome among the Jews having to do with a certain "Chrestus," suggesting that there might not have been at that time "official" knowledge among Roman leaders of a distinction between Jews and Christians. In the year 64 (as reported by Tacitus and Suetonius) the burning of Rome is blamed explicitly on Christians, suggesting knowledge of a distinction, although it is possible that this distinction has been read back into those notices, based on later experience such as Pliny's (Tacitus knew Pliny personally); interestingly, the Latin "correspondence between Paul and Seneca" mentions persecution of both Jews and Christians after the fire in 64. Pliny's ignorance of Christians in the years 112-3 raises some questions about the extent of awareness among Roman officialdom at least of Christians as distinct from -- or a distinct subset of -- Judaism. 6. Christianity's legal status Prof. Kraft indicated that a major impetus in the recognition of Christians as distinct from Jews generally came about as a result of some failing to fit into the Roman legal system of legalized, registered collegia. Synagogues, he indicated, generally are thought to have attained legality under the status of funerary societies, and yet of course functioned in many other ways as well. There is probably some connection between this "legal" situation and the development of Jewish and Christian burial catacombs in Rome and elsewhere; the catacombs could provide "funerary societies" additional opportunity to develop in ways that might conflict with or avoid some of the formal obligations of the official imperial cult. Christianity as a religion, it is important to note, may never have been formally declared "illegal" (illicit) by Roman law, and certainly would not have been so in its earliest years. Its illegality was constituted only to the degree that it was conflict with the official cult of Rome. Therefore, depending upon the relative zeal of emperors and officials, Christianity (and its various representatives), down to its legalization under Constantine around 313, experiences widely varying degrees of persecution and toleration. By the time of the last and perhaps most notorious persecution under Diocletian around 303 Christianity has developed far beyond the status of local collegia or "clubs" and so the relation between Christians and the empire by this time is clearly a very different matter than it is for the period under our consideration in this seminar. The case of Ignatius of Antioch is especially significant in a few regards. First, we know of him largely because of his being brought to Rome to face charges stemming in some way from his being a Christian leader, and yet we know very little about the exact nature of those charges. Second, his letters give a very forceful expression to his desire to make a clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity, by virtue of his strong condemnation of "Judaizing." Third, the case of Ignatius brought up the question of the nature and privileges of citizenship under the Roman empire. Does the story of Ignatius imply that he was a Roman citizen? In what ways did local citizenship in a city (e.g. Antioch) relate to being a Roman citizen? Were there significant differences between citizenship in one city compared with another? 7. The writings of the Christian apologists such as Justin Martyr and Athenagoras starting in the second quarter of the second century provide some indication of how Christians were viewed in certain areas at that time. Cannibalism, atheism and general and sexual immorality were among the more frequent charges the apologists felt called upon to answer. [See the excerpts in A New Eusebius!] 8. "Pagan" philosophies/theologies and religions The final segment of class was devoted to identifying possible "pagan" correlates to the various groups we would clearly classify as Jewish/Christian. Prof. Kraft proposed we identify these groups each at a point along a spectrum the two extremes of which would be "philosophical/rationalist" and "religious/mysteries" respectively. Starting with the rationalist end of the spectrum and leaving the more religious for next time, we considered the following individuals/groups: a) Pythagoras/Pythagoreans b) Socrates c) Plato & "the Academy" d) Xenophon as an alternate portrayer of Socrates e) Aristotle and "the Peripatetics" [ Alexander the Great ] f) Zeno and "the Stoics" g) Epicurus and the Epicureans h) Plotinus and neo-Platonism //end of set #4// //end of file//