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The Epic of Theodotus and The Hellenism of the Hasmoneans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

John J. Collins
John J. Collins
Affiliation:
DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60614
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Extract

In view of the enormous expansion of biblical studies in the last century it is highly exceptional when a book published more than a hundred years ago remains today the basic work on its subject. Such is Jakob Freudenthal's study of the Hellenistic Jewish writers preserved by Alexander Polyhistor. Like any classic which remains influential for a long time, Freudenthal's work has not only laid the foundations for further study but has also perpetuated a number of misconceptions. One case where Freudenthal's opinion has distorted subsequent research is the epic poem of Theodotus, preserved in Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica 9.22.1–11. Freudenthal classified Theodotus with the so-called Ps. Eupolemus, Cleodemus Malchas, and Thallus, all of whom he regarded as Samaritans and all of whom have strongly syncretistic features. This view of Theodotus has persisted in much of the literature, from Schürer down to the recent reviews by Denis, Hengel, and Wacholder. We will argue, on the contrary, that the surviving fragments present a rigidly exclusive view of Judaism and reflect the anti-Samaritan propaganda of the Hasmoneans. The combination of a distinctively Hellenistic form with a militant and exclusive Judaism provides an interesting example of the blending of Judaism and Hellenism in the period following the Maccabean revolt.

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Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 73 , Issue 1-2 , April 1980 , pp. 91 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

1 Freudenthal, J., Hellenistische Studien. Heft 1 und 2. Alexander Polyhistor und die von ihm erhaltenen Reste judäischer und samaritanischer Geschichtswerke (Breslau: Skutsch, 1875).Google Scholar Significant recent treatments of this material can be found in Dalbert, P., Die Theologie der hellenistisch-jüdischen Missionsliteratur unter Ausschluss von Philo und Josephus (Hamburg: Reich, 1954);Google ScholarGutman, Y., The Beginnings of Jewish-Hellenistic Literature (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1958)Google Scholar (in Hebrew); Walter, N., Untersuchungen zu den Fragmenten der jüdisch-hellenistischen Historiker (Diss., Halle-Wittenberg, 1968);Google Scholar idem, Fragmente jüdisch-hellenistischer Historiker (JSHRZ 1/2; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1976);Google Scholar idem, Fragmente jüdisch-hellenistischer Exegeten (JSHRZ 3/2; 1975);Google ScholarHengel, M., “Anonymität, Pseudepigraphie und ‘Literarische Fälschung’ in der jüdisch-hellenistischen Literatur,” in Entretiens sur l'Antiquité Classique 18 (Pseudepigrapha 1) (1972) 231–309;Google ScholarDenis, A. M., Introduction aux pseudépigraphes grecs d'Ancien Testament (SVTP 1; Leiden: Brill, 1970) 239–83;Google ScholarFraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 1. 687–716Google Scholar. Translations of the fragments, with introductions and notes, are forthcoming in J. H. Charlesworth's edition of the Pseudepigrapha, to be published by Doubleday.

2 Mras, K., ed., Eusebius Werke, 8. Die Praeparatio Evangelica (GCS 43/1; Berlin: Akademie, 1954) 512–16Google Scholar. The text is conveniently reprinted in Denis, A. M., Fragmenta Pseudepigraphorum quae Supersunt Graeca (PVTG 3; Leiden: Brill, 1970) 204–7Google Scholar. For a study of the text see Ludwich, A., De Theodoti Carmine Graeco-Judaico (Konigsberg: Konigsberg University, 1899)Google Scholar.

3 Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, 99–103. “Ps. Eupolemus” consists of two fragments: PE 9.17 is said to be from Eupolemus but the attribution is certainly mistaken; PE 9.18.2 appears to be a briefer summary of the same source but is said to be from an anonymous work. The Samaritan origin of Ps. Eupolemus is generally admitted. See Walter, Fragmente … Historiker, 137–40; Hengel, M., Judaism and Hellenism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1. 88–92Google Scholar. Cleodemus Malchas is cited by Josephus Ant. 1.15 (239–41) and from Josephus by Eusebius (PE 9.20.2–4). There is no reason to think that he was a Samaritan, since his syncretistic approach to history is equally well attested in Jewish authors (Walter, Fragmente … Historiker, 115–20; Hengel, “Anonymität,” 241–42). Thallus has survived in eight scattered fragments which have been collected by Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 2B (Berlin: Weidmann, 1929) 1156–58Google Scholar. The supposition that he was a Samaritan rests on his identifiation with the Thallus mentioned by Josephus in Ant. 18.6.4 (167) who was a Samaritan by birth and was a freedman of Tiberius.

4 Schürer, E., Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (Vol. 3, 4th ed.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) 499;Google ScholarBull, R. J., “A Note on Theodotus' Description of Shechem,” HTR 60 (1967) 221–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2. 986; Denis, Introduction, 272; Hengel, “Anonymität,” 242; Wacholder, B. Z., Eupolemus (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1973) 285Google Scholar. This consensus has recently been challenged by Kippenberg, H. G., Garizim und Synagoge (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971) 84;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Charlesworth, J. H., The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research (SCS 7; Missoula: Scholars, 1976) 210Google Scholar.

5 Cities, and the story of their foundation, constituted a favorite topic of Hellenistic poets. Gutman, Y. (“Philo the Epic Poet,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 1 [1954] 60–63)Google Scholar points especially to the analogy of the Messēniaka of Rhianus of Crete, who wrote in the second half of the third century B.C.E. Apollonius of Rhodes, author of the Argonautica, also composed a Ktiseis, a series of poems concerning foundation legends. Fraser (Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1. 626) comments on the geographical interests of Apollonius as a typically Alexandrian feature. On the Hellenistic epic see further Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1. 624–49 and the literature there cited.

6 Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, 99–100.

7 Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 84; Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha, 210.

8 See Ludwich, De Theodoti Carmine, 6.

9 On Artapanus see my forthcoming discussion in Charlesworth's edition of the Pseudepigrapha.

10 Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 84: “Weil der Verfasser kein Samaritaner war, kann er denn auch das Wichtigste, das uralte, von Abraham vorgefundene Garizim-Heiligtum einfach übergehen.” Abraham is said to have visited Gerizim by Ps. Eupolemus (PE 9.17.5–6) who locates the encounter with Melchizedek there.

11 “Josephus Ant. 12.5.5 (257–64).

12 The people of Shechem are described as “doers of violence” in the Aramaic Cambridge Fragments of T. Levi Col. b(3) and c(78) (Charles, R. H., The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1908]Google Scholar Appendix 3, 245, 254.

13 Purvis, J. D., “Ben Sira and the Foolish People of Shechem,” JNES 24 (1965) 88–94Google Scholar, reprinted in The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (HSM 2; Cambridge: Harvard, 1968) 119–29Google Scholar. Purvis discusses the tensions between Jews and Samaritans at the beginning of the second century B.C.E. See also Coggins, R. J., Samaritans and Jews (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975) 82–86Google Scholar.

14 Compare Num 25:1–12, where Phinehas receives a covenant of peace and the covenant of a perpetual priesthood because of his violent zeal.

15 Judith 5:16: “They drove out from before them the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites and Shechem and all the Girgashites.”

16 2 Kgs 17:24–41. For a critical treatment of this account see Coggins, Samaritans and Jews, 13–28.

17 Josephus Ant. 11.8.6 (340–47); 12.5.5 (257–64). Josephus very explicitly equates these Sidonians with the Samaritans, but some scholars have thought that the letter to Antiochus in Ant. 12 was sent by an actual colony of Sidonians at Shechem. See Delcor, M., “Vom Sichem der hellenistischen Epoche zum Sychar des Neuen Testaments,” ZDPV 78 (1962) 34–48Google Scholar, and M. Rostovtzeff in CAH 7. 191. Both point to the existence of a colony of Sidonians at Marissa. Yet the fact that the Sidonians in question make a petition about the temple of Gerizim supports the view that they were simply the Samaritans. Coggins (Samaritans and Jews, 99) dismisses the title as a slighting reference to the ancestry of the Samaritans by a Jewish author, but the authenticity of the letter has been convincingly established by Bickermann, E. (“Un document relatif à la persécution d'Antiochus IV Epiphane,” RHR 115 [1937] 118–223)Google Scholar.

18 Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 90.

19 Ezra 4 records Samaritan opposition to the rebuilding of the temple. Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 38–41; Coggins, Samaritans and Jews, 37–74.

20 Ant. 12.5.5 (257–64). See Bickermann, “Un document relatif,” and Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1. 293–94.

21 Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 79–80, regards Xenios as the more probable name and attributes “Hellenios” to a Jewish redactor who wished to emphasize the syncretistic character of the cult. Kippenberg accepts Delcor's explanation of the Sidonians (above, n. 17). He further argues that some Samaritans opposed the policy of Hellenization, since 2 Macc 5:22–23 says that Andronicus was left at Garizim “to afflict the people.” 2 Maccabees does not, however, record any Samaritan resistance.

22 Ant. 13.9.1 (254–58); 13.10.2–3 (275–81); J.W. 1.62–65. Purvis, The Samaritan Pentateuch, 112–13; Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge, 85–87.

23 Hellenistische Studien, 100.

24 Tcherikover, V. (Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews [New York: Atheneum, 1970] 249)Google Scholar cites the statement of Simon in 1 Macc 15:33–34: “We have not taken foreign soil, but the inheritance of our fathers, which fell into the hands of our foes unjustly, and now the land has returned to its first owners.” Tcherikover comments: “According to this view, the whole of Palestine was to be united under the rule of the Hasmoneans, and its inhabitants were again to be Jews.”

25 Bull, “A Note on Theodotus' Description of Shechem,” 227 (above, n. 4).

26 teichos lisson … aipythen herkos. The word aipythen literally means “from the heights” but Bull correctly discounts the view that the wall in question ran down the side of the mountain. Such a wall would have served no purpose, and there is no archaeological evidence for it.

27 Bull, “A Note on Theodotus' Description of Shechem,” 226–27. See also Wright, G. E., Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965) 57–79Google Scholar, 170–84.

28 Ant. 13.14.1 (377). The reference to the city of Shechem might only refer to the site and not necessarily imply that the city was still standing.

29 Wright, Shechem, 262, n. 25.

30 A definite terminus ante quem is provided by the fact that the poem was known to Alexander Polyhistor in the middle of the first century. B.C.E.

31 E.g., Hengel, “Anonymität,” 242–43.

32 Freudenthal, Hellenistische Sludien, 25–26, provides another example of the substitution of a name from Greek mythology by Polyhistor. The summary of Sib. Or. 3:97–110 found in Syncellus substitutes Prometheus for lapetos (Japheth).

33 On Philo the epic poet see Wacholder, Eupolemus, 282–83. Wacholder suggests that this Philo was a priest from Jerusalem.

34 See Momigliano, A., “The Second Book of Maccabees,” Classical Philology 70 (1975) 81–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Momigliano argues that the epitome of the the history of Jason of Cyrene was made about 124 B.C.E. for dispatch to Egypt in connection with the letters urging the observane of Hanukkah.

35 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization, 248.

36 On the identity of Eupolemus and the nature of his history see Wacholder, Eupolemus.

37 See most recently Doran, R., “Studies in the Style and Literary Character of 2 Maccabees” (Th.D. Diss.; Harvard Divinity School, 1977)Google Scholar.

38 Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1.96.

39 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization, 252–53.