Several years before his death the Irish novelist and playwright, George Moore, wrote his “one joyous book,” A Story Teller's Holiday Combining “oddments of folklore” and the “rich Anglo-Irish idiom,” Moore traced in Boccaccian fashion the ancient Christian practice of syneisactism in early Celtic Christianity. In his work Moore was admittedly stimulated by the great Celticist, Kuno Meyer, and by the then burgeoning translations of ancient Irish manuscripts describing syneisactism.

The admonition to ransom captives has a long paraenetic and social tradition that is documented in a variety of genres in early Christian literature. It is a tradition which, like many of its companion pieces in paraenetic literature, springs from roots in the Hebrew Scriptures which were consciously adopted by Christians as an important base upon which to build their own theology. The development of this particular tradition in early Christianity is an interesting example and test case of how a theological and moral conviction was not limited to verbal expression but was effectively translated into practice and creatively adapted to changing situations.

Maurice Friedman, the leading scholar of Martin Buber's work, notes that “the question must even arise whether the philosophy of dialogue, the I-Thou relation between man and man, cannot stand by itself as an autonomous ethic, grounded in Buber's anthropology, but not necessarily tied with the relation between man and God.” Friedman then suggests that Buber's philosophy of religion and interpretation of the Bible do provide an important source of his ethics. An examination of Buber's thought reveals, however, that the tie between his philosophy of dialogue as an ethics and his view of the relation between man and God is indeed not necessary in some ways and perhaps not even possible.

I have chosen this subject for my contribution to the memorial volume to Paul Lapp since I feel he would have been interested in it. I would have enjoyed discussing it with him. His methods might in detail have differed, and we could have had plenty of arguments, but he would have taken the points. We shared a knowledge of the problems of excavating a Palestinian tell. It is in part because of this that I have a special personal sense of loss at his untimely death. I should have very much valued his appreciation and criticism of the publications of the tell of Jericho and of Jerusalem when they in due course appear.

I. The Crisis of the Historical and Theological Criteria.

Already Walter Bauer, well known as a lexicographer, but unfortunately little known as a historian of the Ancient Church, in his ingenious monograph Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), had demonstrated convincingly that such Christian groups which were later labelled “heretical,” actually dominated in the first two or three centuries, both geographically and theologically. Recent discoveries, especially those of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, have made it definitely clear that Walter Bauer was essentially right and that a thorough and extensive re-evaluation of early Christian history is called for.

Les morceaux des rouleaux de peau appartenant aux écrits hénochiques qui proviennent de la Grotte 4 de Qumrân se répartissent en onze manuscrits, dont sept portent les sigles 4QHena,b,c,d,e,f,g et les quatre autres, représentant l'ouvrage astronomique attribué à Hénoch, sont marqués par 4QHenastra,b,c,d. Aucun fragment manuscrit qui puisse correspondre d'une façon quelconque à la deuxième section de l'Hénoch éthiopien, à savoir les chapitres 37 à 71, ou “livre des Paraboles,” n'a été identifié dans la masse innombrable des fragments de 4Q (restes de la bibliothèque centrale du monastère essénien du Ḫirbet Qumrân) ni non plus dans les lots plus réduits de manuscrits retrouvés dans dix autres grottes de la région qumranienne. Cet indice négatif, mais assez éloquent aux termes du calcul des probabilités, en faveur de la date post-qumranienne de ce livre se laissera facilement renforcer par des considérations d'ordre littéraire.J'ai pu, par contre, identifier tout récemment une composition hénochique fort importante qui, au IIIe siècle de notre ère, a été admise dans le canon des livres saints manichéens sous le titre de “livre des Géants.” J'en ai répéré une dizaine, sinon une quinzaine, de manuscrits très fragmentaires parmi les lots des grottes de Qumrân publiés ou inédits. Les onze manuscrits mentionnés, de même que 4QHen-Géantsa, seront édités intégralement par moi, avec la collaboration de Matthew Black, dans la monographie The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4.

If the book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) was written in Alexandria in the Late Ptolemaic or early Imperial period, as seems most probable, it is a priori likely that its author and intended audience were familiar with the Egyptian goddess Isis, at least in her hellenized form. This is all the more likely since, as many critics have acknowledged, the author of Wisdom was cognizant of other aspects of Hellenism and was able to adopt some of these in his presentation of Jewish theology. Thus, for example, there are reminiscences of Homer and Hesiod, allusions to Egyptian religious practices, and Greek philosophical vocabulary. That the author was aware of Isis and her mythology need not mean, of course, that this influenced his representation of Sophia to any significant degree. But given the popularity of the goddess, this possibility can scarcely be excluded. It will be the purpose of this article to examine the evidence for the influence of Isis upon Sophia and to inquire into the function of the reshaping of Jewish wisdom speculation as it is encountered in the Wisdom of Solomon.

The scathing insults that fill texts by sixteenth-century Christian reformers can shock even a jaded modern reader. In the prefatory letter to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for example, Martin Luther begins by wishing for “grace and peace in Christ” before launching his attack on the “brainless and illiterate beast in papist form” and its “whole filthy pack of … asses,” and concludes by exhorting his reader to rise up against the Catholic hierarchy: “Continue courageously, noble sir; in this way the disgrace of the Bohemian name will be abolished, and the sludge of the harlot's lies and whoring shall again be taken up in her breast.” Or consider the nasty invectives by the English Lord Chancellor and future Catholic martyr, Thomas More, against not only Luther but also Matthew Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English. More calls these men the “devil's disciples”: Luther “a pimp, an apostate, a rustic, and a friar”; and Tyndale “a babbler, and a devil's ape.” Even Desiderius Erasmus, the erudite Catholic humanist, filled his writings with insults both satirical and blunt and proclaimed that theologians “are more stupid than any pig” (sue stupidiores). Fierce words commonly appear in the midst of religious controversies, and one may choose to skim past this hyperbolic outrage in search of the real message. Insulting rhetoric, however, does provide a sensitive barometer of religious concerns in the sixteenth century and yields unexpectedly complex answers to a simple question. What does negative speech accomplish?

Isa 52:13–53:12 has long served Jews and Christians as a source for the resolution of questions resulting from seemingly inexplicable human suffering and death. The fact that such suffering affected the primary links between God and humankind, the people Israel for the Jew and Jesus of Nazareth for the Christian, proved to be an especially perplexing problem that could have undermined fundamental religious beliefs. From the patristic age Isaiah 53 was interpreted so as to provide a rationale for Jesus' suffering on the cross. Medieval and modern Jewish exegetes saw in this prophecy an explanation for the tragedies which the Jews experienced in the exile. Interestingly, in adapting the so-called Suffering Servant passage for their own purposes, Jewish interpreters, of both the medieval and the modern periods, incorporated certain Christian concepts into their exegesis. This study will trace the transference of elements of a Christian exegetical tradition regarding Isaiah 53 into medieval and modern Jewish biblical interpretation.

The concept, “act of God,” is central to the biblical understanding of God and his relation to the world. Repeatedly we are told of the great works performed by God in behalf of his people and in execution of his own purposes in history. From the “song of Moses,” which celebrates the “glorious deeds” (Ex. 15:11) through which Yahweh secured the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, to the letters of Paul, which proclaim God's great act delivering us “from the dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13) and reconciling us with himself, we are confronted with a “God who acts.” The “mighty acts” (Ps. 145:4), the “wondrous deeds” (Ps. 40:5), the “wonderful works” (Ps. 107:21) of God are the fundamental subject-matter of biblical history, and the object of biblical faith is clearly the One who has acted repeatedly and with power in the past and may be expected to do so in the future.

The view that God is incorporeal, without body or parts, has been the hallmark of Christian orthodoxy, but in the beginning it was not so. In this article I show that ordinary Christians for at least the first three centuries of the current era commonly (and perhaps generally) believed God to be corporeal. The belief was abandoned (and then only gradually) as Neoplatonism became more and more entrenched as the dominant world view of Christian thinkers.

Unlike Christianity, which regards the word “Pharisee” as synonymous with “hypocrite,” “legalist,” and “petty-bourgeois,” Jews have always understood Pharisaism as the correct and trustworthy side of Judaism. Since the eighteenth century, all disputants who participated in the great controversies and schisms within Judaism have claimed to represent the true heirs of the Pharisees. For example, adherents of the strong anti-Hasidic movement initiated by R. Eliyahu of Vilna in the second half of the eighteenth century, who are usually referred to in literature by the negative appellation “opposers” (םירננחמ), referred to themselves by the positive title “Pharisees” (םישורפ). When the Reform movement was founded in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, with the goal of reforming the Jewish religion to make it more “modern” and acceptable to its neighbors, the reformers perceived themselves as the true heirs of the Pharisees. In his important study of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Abraham Geiger, one of the founders, of Wissenschaft des Judentums and an important spokesman for the radical wing of the Reform movement, formulated the view of the flexible open-minded Pharisees, who reformed Judaism to the point of contradicting the laws set out in the Pentateuch, in order to accommodate them to their changing needs. Geiger's opponents easily produced evidence that negated his findings and proved beyond doubt that they, in their conservative strain, were the real heirs of Pharisaism. To his opponents, Geiger was a representative of the detestable Sadducees or their later counterparts, the Karaites.

In his 1989 article entitled “Apologetic Literature and Ambassadorial Activities,” William R. Schoedel considers “aspects of the form of apologetic literature in the early church and Judaism.” More specifically, he attempts to discover possible models for the literary character of the Christian apologies, and in particular the Embassy of Athenagoras, in the various kinds of addresses that ambassadors delivered before the emperor when presenting appeals and requests. Examples of such addresses include the ambassadorial speech discussed by the third-century rhetorician Menander Rhetor, the legal oration as exemplified by Philostratus in his treatment of the trial of Apollonius of Tyana, and the imperial libellus or petition. Schoedel draws two clear conclusions from this investigation. The first is that the literary form of Athenagoras's Embassy is an “apologetically grounded petition,” that is, a “mixed form that as such appears to have no real precedent in the Greco-Roman literary tradition.” The second is that “there is good reason to think that [it] was written to be presented to the emperor or delivered before him.” The present article will explore the ideas and arguments that led Schoedel to each of his conclusions and will offer an alternative interpretation of the evidence in each case.

Since the resurgence of interest in the Augustan period, the myriad of sixteenth- seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary attacks on the Puritans have been enumerated, catalogued, analyzed, and elucidated. Although the Puritans were accused of a seemingly endless series of malefactions, most of the anti-sectarian assaults, we have been told, charged them with ignorance — the inability to see the value of the established church — or hypocrisy — the desire to use religion to advance political ambitions, secure riches, or satisfy libidinous interests. By mid-seventeenth century, however, a change occurred in the nature of the attacks which has not been adequately discussed. Instead of questioning the sincerity of the Puritans' religious countenance or ascribing the usual peccadillos to them, Puritan traducers charged the sectaries with insanity. Although societies in all ages have protected themselves from unpopular and dissenting opinions by declaring them products of a deranged mind, anti-sectarians in the Restoration and eighteenth century established a rationale for their charges of madness by employing contemporary medical theory to demonstrate that the Puritans suffered from mental and emotional disorders as a result of natural physical causes. Enthusiasts were seen as splenetic sufferers, and their erratic behavior and religious delusions were explained as the inevitable consequence of melancholic vapors.

Although it was discovered in 1962 and its excavation was completed by the mid-1970s, the synagogue of ancient Sardis in western Asia Minor, with its nearly eighty Greek inscriptions, remains the single most important archaeological source for our knowledge of western diasporan Judaism and its relationship to the wider Greco-Roman world. Despite its historical importance, however, scholars have rarely questioned the assumptions and conclusions of its original interpreters, Andrew Seager and Thomas Kraabel. Yet, for example, on the crucial question of dating (that is, when the building actually became a synagogue) these authors clearly disagreed among themselves, as is evident from a careful reading of their jointly written analysis, published in 1983. Their long-awaited report on the Sardis synagogue may clarify this question as well as other important issues. At present, however, confusion abounds in the secondary literature, because in general this literature continues to accept uncritically Kraabel's selection and interpretation of the relevant evidence. Although I have reexamined the major aspects of the question of dating in a previous article, as has Helga Botermann independently and in more detail, the analysis of the building history reflected in this present article is also indebted to John H. Kroll's excellent but still unpublished manuscript of the Greek inscriptions.

Before melancholy, gratitude. First to Elizabeth and Ernest Monrad, for their countless gifts to Harvard University and, today in particular, to the Divinity School. It is a great honor to hold the Elizabeth H. Monrad Chair in Christian Studies and I hope I can do so in ways that at least partially reflect the grace and generosity of the chair's namesake and of its donors. My gratitude to Bill Graham, Dean of the Divinity School, is enormous, both for his professional confidence in me and for his persistent and inspiring vision of what Harvard Divinity School is and can be. It is wonderful to be here and for that I thank my colleagues—the faculty, administration, staff, and students of HDS. And finally, for helping me think through this particular bit of work, special thanks to Constance Furey, Stephanie Paulsell, and Melissa Zeiger.

During the last couple of years two articles have appeared in these pages, both concerned primarily with what one of them calls “the theology of nominalism.” This in itself is significant because it reflects a growing interest among theologians and ecclesiastical historians in the theological positions characteristic of those late medieval thinkers who belonged to the “nominalist” or “terminist” school. But more significant is the fact that the authors of the two articles should adopt diametrically opposed approaches to these positions, for it illustrates in a very concrete fashion the pioneer state in which the study of later medieval scholasticism still lingers. Much of the land on this particular frontier is not merely untenanted but even uncharted, and those brave or foolhardy enough to work in the area enjoy a freedom of movement bewildering to others whose business confines them to the more settled regions of earlier or later centuries. It is not so much that the wilderness is trackless as that one is still free to choose from among several possible routes each of which has its own potent inducements to offer to those who are anxious to grasp the lay of the land. There is still a great deal of debate about the respective worth of these various routes and nothing that can be said at present is likely to put an end to it.

In the thirteenth book of his Ancient History of the Jews, Josephus relates (Ant. xiii. 1–5) the doings and fortunes of Jonathan, the brother of Judas Maccabaeus and after the death of Judas (161 B.C.) the leader of the rebellious Jews in their struggle with the Syrian rulers. In the sequel of Jonathan's embassies to Rome and Sparta, and not long before he fell into the hands of Tryphon and was put to death, we read (Ant. xiii. 5, 9):

About this time there were three philosophical schools (αἱρέσɛις) among the Jews, which entertained different opinions about human affairs. One of them was called that of the Pharisees, one of the Sadducees, and the third of the Essenes.