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Words and Deeds: Jesus as Teacher and Jesus as Pattern of Life*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Gregory J. Riley
Gregory J. Riley
Affiliation:
Claremont School of Theology
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Extract

The theme of this special issue is “Jesus’ Sayings in the Life of the Early Church.” I wish to expand the theme slightly to “Jesus’ Sayings and Deeds in the Life and Appeal of the Early Church.” I add the word “deeds” because the two concepts of words and deeds are intimately linked in the classical tradition and the culture in which Christianity arose. I have added the word “appeal” because this article will present a chain of events indicating how the words and deeds of Jesus, as emulated by Christians, strongly appealed to the Greco-Roman world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 90 , Issue 4: Special Issue Honoring Helmut Koester , October 1997 , pp. 427 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1997

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References

1 Variations on this theme include: “our philosophy” ( Tatian Or. Graec. 31); “the philosophy of the Christians” (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2.13.6); “the teacher Christ” (Justin Martyr I Apol. 4).

2 Lucian Pergr. mort. 13.

3 On Christianity as “nothing wonderful or new,” see Origen Cels. 4.11. Even Christians claimed that they were teaching many of the same things as the philosophers. See, for example, Justin 2 Apol. 13; Dial. 1.3; and Minucius Felix Octav. 19.3

4 Tertullian Apol. 46.2.

5 Mark 14:58; Matt 26:61; John 2:19; Acts 6:14; Gos. Thorm. 71.

6 Notably, Justin Martyr I Apol. 15–19.

7 Il. 1.258. The translations are from Richmond Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951).Google Scholar

8 Il. 2.202–3. For further examples of “council and battle,” compare also, Il. 1.491 –92; 2.273; 3.150–51; 9.374; 11.630; 12.213–14; 18.106, 252; 19.218.

9 Il. 11.408–10.

10 Compare Tyrtaeus 9.1–9; Xenophanes 2.1–14; Sophocles Ai. 1250–52; Xenophon Mem. 1.2.4.

11 Compare especially the account of Christian immoralities in Minucius Felix (Octav. 9), based (apparently) on the lost speech against the Christians by M. Cornelius Fronte (ca.95–166CE). Athenagoras reduced the charges to the simple phrase “Thyestian feasts and Oedipean intercourse” (Suppl. 3.1).

12 Compare Pliny's comments on the “positive” results of his persecution: “It is true enough that the temples, until now almost deserted, have begun to be crowded, and the solemn rites, long neglected, are being resumed; and the meat of victims is generally available, a buyer for which was to this point only rarely found. From this it is easy to suppose that a multitude of people may be able to be reformed, if there be place for repentance” (Epist. 10.96).

13 Tertullian Apol. 50.13. Here and elsewhere throughout the article the translations are my own, unless specifically stated otherwise.

14 Livy 39.15.13–14.

15 Pliny remarks that such shows properly held would “incite to beautiful wounds and contempt of death, since even in the persons of slaves and criminals love of praise and desire for victory may be discerned” (Pliny Pan. 33). Compare Cicero Tusc. 2.41.

16 Tertullian Apol. 50.14–15.

17 Epictetus Diss. 4.7.6.

18 Pliny Episl. 10.96.

19 Tertullian Apol. 50.3.

20 Lucian Pergr. mort. 13.

21 I Clem. 5.1.

22 Ibid. 5.4.

23 Ibid. 5.5–6.

24 Il. 9.411–16.

25 I Clem. 5.5–7.

26 Ibid. 6.1–2.

27 Tertullian Apol. 50.2.