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Early Christianity and Society: A Jewish Legacy in the Pre-Constantinian Era*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

W. H. C. Frend
W. H. C. Frend
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

It was near the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–80) ca. 178 that a well-read provincial, perhaps a Syrian, of Platonist inclinations set out to analyze the new Christian religion and to warn his fellow provincials of the danger of its spread. Celsus' work, entitled “The True Word,” has only survived in the considerable fragments that Origen cites in his attempted refutation some seventy years later. Celsus took the trouble to observe the practices of different Christian groups, to read a number of Jewish and Christian works, including the Gospels of Matthew and John and parts, at any rate, of the Book of Enoch, and he was well aware of the stark divergencies and dissensions within the church. His description of the profound hostility between the Great Church and its gnostic opponents, and towards the Marcionites, and the strong feminine element among these opponents qualify him as a perceptive observer, and invite what he has to say about the attitude of Christianity in the mid-second century towards pagan society to be taken seriously.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 53 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 Origen, Contra Celsum 5.62 and 63 (ed. and trans. Chadwick, Henry; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953).Google Scholar For the attitude of educated provincials towards the Christians in the second century, see Wilken, Robert L., “The Christians as the Romans (and Greeks) saw them,” in Sanders, E. P., ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 100–125.Google Scholar

2 Origen Contra Celsum 4.23.

3 Ibid., 1.1.

4 Ibid., 3.55; cf. 3.52.

5 Ibid., 1.9 and 6.11; cf. 1.27.

6 Ibid., 3.1.

7 Ibid., 2.2 and 4, and see Wilken, “Christians as the Romans (and Greeks) Saw Them,” 119–23.

8 Thus, John, 9:28 and Justin Dialogue with Trypho 16.4 (ed. and trans. Williams, A. Lukyn; London: SPCK, 1930)Google Scholar (Christians “cursed in the synagogues,” and cf. Ibid., 47.4).

9 Thus, I Pet 1:1 and James 1.

10 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.24.3.

11 Ep. ad Diognetum 5.17.

12 Justin Dialogue 45.3.

13 Ibid., 47.

14 Contra Celsum 3.12.

15 See Jones, H., “Response to G. Quispel's ‘Gnosticism and the New Testament,’” in Hyatt, J. P., ed., The Bible in Modern Scholarship (Nashville: Abingdon, 1965) 286–93.Google Scholar For the role of Wisdom in gnosticism, see MacRae, George W., “The Jewish Background of the Sophia Myth,” NovT 12 (1970) 86–101.Google Scholar

16 The Gospel of Philip II.52 (trans. Wesley W. Isenberg, NHLE, 132).

17 Heracleon apud Origen Comm. in Joann. 10.19. See Pagels, Elaine, “Valentinian Interpretation of Baptism and Eucharist,” HTR 65 (1972) 153–69, esp. 162–63.Google Scholar

18 Apocryphon of John II.1 (trans. Frederik Wisse, NHLE, 99).

19 See Daniélou, J., The Origins of Latin Christianity (trans. Smith, David and Baker, John Austin; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977) 173–76. “An interest in the Sibyllines is therefore a feature specific to Tertullian's writings” (p. 176).Google Scholar

20 Josephus C. Apion. 1.8.42 (trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL) and cf. Philo Legatio 31.210 (trans. E. M. Smallwood, LCL).

21 Philo Legatio 29.192.

22 Ibid., 32.229ff.

23 Eusebius Hist. eccl.. 5.1.55; also 5.1.26 and Frend, W. H. C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965) 19–21.Google Scholar

24 Cyprian Ep. 58.6 (ed. W. Hartel, CSEL, 3/2. 661).

25 See Frend, Marytrdom and Persecution, chap. 2.

26 Philo Legatio 21.144.

27 The best comparison between the “political theology” of Philo and Eusebius is that of Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem (Leipzig: Hegner, 1935) 48–72.Google Scholar

28 Josephus Ant. 18.23 (trans. Thackeray, LCL).

29 Ibid., 18.21. Cf. Philo Quod omnis probus liber sit 79 (trans. F. H. Colson, LCL).

30 Philo Quod omnis probus liber sit 76: “The first thing about these people is that they live in villages and avoid the cities because of the iniquities which have become inveterate among city-dwellers.”

31 Thus, the well-known statement by Rabbi Hanina, the deputy High Priest (A.D. 20?–70), recorded in Aboda Zara 3.2: “Pray for the peace of government, for were it not for the awe attached to it, we should have swallowed each other alive.” For other similar texts, see Loewe, Herbert, Render unto Caesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1940) 20–33; for a parallel Christian standpoint, see Tertullian Apology 32.1.Google Scholar

32 Aristides Apology 15.7–11: “They despise not the widow and grieve not the orphan. He that hath, distributeth liberally to him who hath not. If they see a stranger they bring him under their roof … but when one of their poor passes away from the world and any of them see him, and he provides for his burial accordingly” (trans, from Greek and Syrian versions in Stevenson, J., A New Eusebius [London: SPCK, 1957] 57).Google Scholar

33 Acts 17:11–12.

34 See Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, “Early Christian Attitudes towards Property and Slavery,” in Baker, L. R. D., ed., Studies in Church History 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975) 3–38.Google Scholar

35 Thus, Didache 1.2 and the advice to a catechumen contained in chaps. 4 and 5.

36 Thus in chap. 63, the messengers bearing l Clement are described as “faithful and prudent men who have lived among us without blame from youth to old age.”

37 Didache 4.11.

38 Pol. Phil. 3.2. On moral teaching from Proverbs, see Ibid., 6.3.

39 Ibid., 10.2. Given the chance to address a hostile audience of Jews and pagans in the amphitheater of Smyrna in 165, Polycarp simply waved his arms at them and groaned “Away with the Atheists” (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.15.19). Gentiles were beyond hope!

40 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.15.30.

41 Ign. Smyrn. 13.2, and cf. Ign. Pol. 8.2 (“the wife of Epitropus [or ‘the steward’] and the whole house of herself and her children”) and 4.3 (slavery was an accepted institution and slaves were “not to be puffed up” and not to desire their freedom “at the church's expense, that they be not found slaves of lust”).

42 Josephus Bell. 7.8.10 (ed. Thackeray, LCL).

43 Pliny Ep. 10.96.8.

44 Hermas Vis. 2.7 and 3.2; cf. 4.3.3–4 and Origen Contra Celsum 4.23.

45 The Latin text is given in Rufinus' translation of Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.9 and is referred to as an act of favor by Melito, Ibid., 4.26.7.

46 Tatian Oratio 35.

47 Ibid., 28; cf. also 32.

48 Lucian Peregrinus 11–13 (trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL).

49 Ibid., 18.

50 Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 10.11.1 (trans. J. C. Rolfe, LCL): “Multo hercle dicere eum utiliter at honests audivimus.” He describes Peregrinus as “living in a hut outside the city of Athens.”

51 Lucian Peregrinus 35–36; Athenagoras Supplicatio 26.

52 Quoted from what appears to be a fragment of P. Oxyrhynchus 3008, in which there is an inconclusive discussion about the supposed duality of elements in each body. For other examples, see MacMullen, Ramsay, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University, 1981) 71.Google Scholar

53 Justin 2 Apology 12.

54 Thus I Apology 68: “For we forewarn you (the emperor) that you will not escape the coming judgment of God, if you continue your injustice.”

55 Ibid., 44.

56 Ibid., 55.6. See Chadwick, Henry, “Justin Martyr's Defence of Christianity,” BJRL 47 (1965) 287.Google Scholar

57 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.26.7.

58 See Melito's De Pascha lines 55ff. (ed. Hall, S. G., Oxford Early Christian Texts [Oxford: Oxford University, 1979]), where a parallel is drawn between the Jewish Passover experience and Christ's Passion and Crucifixion. For Melito as a Quartodeciman, see Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.24.5–6.Google Scholar

59 Origen Contra Celsum 3.44.

60 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.1.14.

61 Ibid., 5.1.5.

62 Ibid., 5.1.9.

63 See Frend, W. H. C., “Blandina and Perpetua: Two Early Christian Heroines,” in Les Martyrs de Lyons (Colloques Internationaux du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique 575; Paris, 1978) 167–77.Google Scholar

64 As in the time of Peregrinus; see Lucian Peregrinus for the ideal; see Aristides Apology 15 and Tertullian Apology 39.7–8.

65 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.18.2 and Epiphanius, Panarion 47.14 (ed. Holl, K.; Leipzig, 1922).Google Scholar

66 See Calder, W. M., “Philadelphia and Montanism,” BJRL 7 (1923) 309–51Google Scholar, and Gibson, Elsa, “The Christians for Christians” Inscriptions of Phrygia (HTS 32; Missoula: Scholars, 1978).Google Scholar

67 Calder, “Philadelphia and Montanism,” figs. 4 and 345.

68 Noted by Gibson, Christians for Christians, 35 lines 1 and 3. For the relative prosperity of northern and central Phrygia in the second and third centuries A.D., see Roueche, Charlotte, “Rome, Asia and Aphrodisias,” JRS 71 (1981) 117 (citing C. H. Haspels).Google Scholar

69 This is the point to make. The “Christians for Christians” inscriptions represent rural Christianity. It would seem hypercritical to doubt their Montanist allegiance in third-century Phrygia (cf. Gibson, Christians for Christians, 131–44). Novatianism also flourished in the Tembris Valley in the fourth century.

70 See Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution, chap. 14.

71 See Calder, “Philadelphia and Montanism,” 314–18.

72 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 7.30.19 (Antioch) and Lactantius De mort. pers. 12.3 (ed. J. Moreau, SC 39): “In alto enim constituta ecclesia ex palatio videbatur.”

73 Gesta apud Zenophilum (= Optatus De schismate Donatistarum; ed. C. Ziwsa, CSEL 26, Appendix i, p. 186).

74 Clement of Alexandria The Rich Man's Salvation 2 (ed. and trans. Butterworth, G. W.; London: Heinemann, 1919)Google Scholar, where Clement quotes Matt 19:23 only to water down its significance in subsequent chapters. The command “sell all” meant, to Clement, “strip the soul of its passions” (Ibid., 12).

75 Origen Contra Celsum 3.9.

76 Cyprian Ep. 62.4 (ed. Hartel, p. 706). On clerical salaries, see Ep. 34.2.

77 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 6.43.11.

78 Lactantius De mort. pers. 23.7– 8.

79 Ibid., 23.4.

80 Synod of Elvira, canon 5. Cf. canon 18 (adulterous clergy) and canon 1 (those who sacrificed to idols after baptism); in both cases permanent exclusion from communion was ordered.

81 Passio Sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis in Musurillo, Herbert, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Oxford University, 1972) 106–32; see esp. Saturus' vision of Paradise in chaps. 12 and 13, and see Frend, “Blandina and Perpetua,” 172.Google Scholar

82 Tertullian Apology 38.3.

83 Ibid., 50.13; cf. 21.25.

84 Ibid., 25.13.

85 De praescriptione 7.

86 De patientia 1.

87 Apology 27.5 (“rascal slaves … mingle insolence with fear”).

88 Athanasius Vita Antonii 2 (PG 26. 841).

89 Ibid., 44 (PG 26. 907). “No grumblings” of tax collectors are to be heard in Antony's community.

90 Ibid., 16.

91 See Jerome Praefatio in regulam S. Pachomii 5.6 (PL 23. 67B).

92 For Constantine's entering into personal correspondence with Antony, see Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 1.13.1 (ed. Bidez, Joseph and Hansen, Günther; Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 50; Berlin: Akademie, 1960).Google Scholar

93 See Eusebius Vita Constantini 2.26–27 (Constantine's proclamation to the people of Palestine) and 2.54: “the perpetrators of this dreadful guilt (persecution) are now no more.” Also, one of the themes of the themes of the Tricennial Oration (chap. 16), Constantine's predecessors were “an inferior and godless crew,” whose deeds Constantine utterly rejected.

94 Anonymous Passio Advocati et Donati 2–3 (PL 8. 754).

95 See Frend, W. H. C., The Donatist Church (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952) 315–17.Google Scholar

96 Optatus De schismate 3.1; cf. 1.22.

97 Ibid., 3.4 (ed. Ziwsa, pp. 81–83).

98 Council of Gangra, canon 3.

99 John Chrysostom Argumentum ad Philemon (PG 62. 704).

100 I Apology 27.2.

101 Clement Paed. 3.21. See Chadwick, “Justin Martyr's Defence of Christianity,” 286.

102 Julian Ep. 22 to Arsacius (trans. W. C. Wright, LCL, 429D).

103 Augustine Ep. 105.5, and cf. Optatus De schismate 3.3 (ed. Ziwsa, p. 74).