“’Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-history? The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies” [pre-print] more

“Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies by ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED The topic of this volume, “Antiquity in Antiquity,” serves as a poignant reminder that the past, as we see it, is always and already a product of a continued process of recollection, interpretation, re-contextualization, and selective preservation.1 In the centuries following the conquests of Alexander of Macedon, the ancient Greek past became a prime site for dialogue and contestation among the diverse cultures brought into contact by Hellenistic and Roman imperial rule.2 Jews, and later Christians, numbered among those who defined themselves, both positively and negatively, in terms of their relationship to an idealized antiquity emblematized by Homer and Plato and enshrined in the rhetoric and education of late antique elites.3 ————— * Research for this essay was supported by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Earlier portions were presented at the University of Pennsylvania (February 12, 2007) and University of California, Los Angeles (April 20, 2007); I benefited much from the discussions at both events. Special thanks to Adam H. Becker, Ra‘anan S. Boustan, Benjamin Fleming, Bob Kraft, Claudia Rapp, and Karl Shuve for their questions and suggestions. I am also grateful to Gregg Gardner and Kevin Osterloh for the opportunity to contribute to this wonderful and timely volume. 1 On the past as “remembered present” see e.g. A. Funkenstein, Perceptions on Jewish History (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1993) 3–21. 2 On the emergence of ideas about the classical past in Alexandrian scholarship, see e.g. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 87–279. 3 E.g. E. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1998) esp. 246–91; A.J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübingen: Mohr, 1988); D. Ridings, The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers (Göteborg: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995); A. Cameron, “Remaking the Past,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World, ed. G.W. Bowersock, P. Brown, and O. Grabar (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999) 1–20. 2 Annette Yoshiko Reed Of course, for Jews and Christians, this “classical” past was often understood through the lens of another ancient era – a “biblical” past populated by ancient Israelite patriarchs, kings, priests, and prophets.4 Jews and Christians appealed to biblical history and heroes for diverse aims, ranging from apologetics and polemics to religious legitimization and ritual and communal etiology.5 And, arguably, contact with the parallel reflections on the classical past served to intensify the process whereby the biblical past came to be conceptualized as both historical foundation and timeless paradigm for the present.6 In this essay, I am interested in the emergence of a third privileged realm in the Christian imagination – namely, the “apostolic” past.7 Already in the NT Book of Acts, the age of Peter, Paul, and the other apostles emerges as a locus for the historiographical articulation of Christian identity. Inasmuch as the apostles were credited with the faithful transmission and mediation of Jesus’ message to later generations, these figures were readily redeployed by later authors as emblems of authority and authenticity in debates about theology, epistemology, and ritual practice.8 Across the full range of our early ————— 4 For the Jewish conceptualization of the biblical past, the Babylonian Exile and the return under Persian rule are widely viewed as critical precipitants. The process of remembrance, retelling, and reflection seems to have been tightly tied to the practice of reading and writing, such that the intensive idealization of this past seems to have gone hand-in-hand with the elevation of certain texts to the status of “Scripture.” For a summary of these developments and their ramifications, see J. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999) 2–6. 5 Striking, in this regard, is the quantity of Second Temple Jewish literature which is composed in the name of an ancient biblical figure and/or which interprets or expands older scriptures (esp. Pentateuch); see further A.Y. Reed, “Pseudepigraphy, Authorship and the Reception of ‘the Bible’ in Late Antiquity,” in The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity, ed. L. DiTommaso and L. Turcescu (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 6 As Glen Bowersock notes, “(i)t can often happen that the partial appropriation of cultural motifs, images, and even ideas from another community or tradition deepens the understanding of one’s own heritage”; “The Greek Moses: Confusion of Ethnic and Cultural Components in Later Roman and Early Byzantine Palestine,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine, ed. H. Lapin (Bethesda: U. Press of Maryland, 1998) 47. 7 I.e., the first century CE. The term “apostle” is generally reserved for the twelve disciples whom Jesus chooses to be his apostles and spread his message in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 10:2; Mark 3:14; Luke 6:13), together with Paul (e.g., Rom 1:1). For a recent discussion of the prehistory and development of the notion of the “apostle” as a link in the chain of tradition from Jesus to the church, see T. Korteweg, “Origin and Early History of the Apostolic Office,” in The Apostolic Age in Patristic Thought, ed. A. Hilhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 1–10. 8 This is perhaps most poignantly expressed by the proliferation of apostolic pseudepigrapha, ranging from letters penned in the name of Paul (e.g., Pastoral “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 3 Christian literature – including Patristic writings, so-called NT apocrypha, and Nag Hammadi literature – we find evidence of the explanatory and polemical power of the apostles as potently pivotal figures, perched between the life of Jesus and the institutionalization of the church. In texts ranging from Papias’ Logion Kyriakon Exegesis to the Apocryphon of James, the apostles are foci for the expression of anxieties attendant on the loss of the “living voice” of Jesus.9 In apocryphal acts and Patristic heresiologies alike, stories about the apostles and their followers are used to explore the continuities and discontinuities between the life of Jesus and the norms of those communities that claimed to preserve his memory and message.10 Appeals to apostles are prominent in arguments about the acceptable range of difference among those who claimed the name “Christian.”11 Likewise, in the first centuries of Christianity, discussions of their written, oral, and institutional legacy played a central role in debates about the nature, scope, and sources of religious authority.12 Interestingly, however, it is not until the fourth century that the idealization of apostles becomes explicitly articulated in terms of a periodization of history that elevates the apostolic age to a status akin to ————— Epistles), gospels in the name of other apostles (e.g., Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Thomas), and ritual materials attributed to “the twelve” as a group (e.g., Didache, Didascalia Apostolorum). See J.-D. Kaestli, “Mémoire et pseudépigraphie dans le christianisme de l’âge post-apostolique,” Revue de théologie et de philosophie, 125 (1993) 41–63. 9 Papias expresses his preference for the “living voice” but nevertheless makes efforts to link written records of Jesus’ life and sayings with apostles (Papias apud Eusebius, Hist. eccl. III 29.4). Also poignant is the image, at the beginning of the Apocryphon of James, of the twelve disciples “all sitting together, recalling what the Saviour had said to each one of them, whether in secret or openly, and putting it into books” (Apoc.James 2.9–15 [NHC I,2]). On orality, textuality, and the anxieties surrounding memory in early Christianity, see W.H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); P. Perkins, “Spirit and Letter: Poking Holes in the Canon,” Journal of Religion 76 (1996) 307–27; R.A. Horsley, J.A. Draper, and J.M. Foley, eds., Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006). 10 Note, e.g., the debates about women surrounding the apostle Paul; D.R. MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983). 11 The heresiological appeal to apostolic authority is perhaps most clear in the writings of Irenaeus. As is well known, he constructs “heresy” as the opposite of apostolic truth, depicting the apostles as guarantors of tradition and interpretation, and authenticating Christian writings through association with specific apostles (adv. Haer. 1.10.2; 3.1.1; 3.4.1–2; 4.33.8; 5.20.1–2; note also 3.1.1; 3.4.1; 4.33.8). See further G.G. Blum, Tradition und Sukzession: Studien zum Normbegriff des Apostolischen von Paulus bis Irenäus (Berlin and Hamburg: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1963). 12 Early examples include 1 Clement 44.1–2. 4 Annette Yoshiko Reed the biblical or classical past. Peter van Deun, for instance, points to Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (II 14.3; III 31.6) as the earliest known Christian text to apply the Greek adjective apostolikos to a time period.13 Eusebius here delineates the “apostolic period” (apostolikôn chronôn) as encompassing the years from Christ’s ascension to the reign of Trajan (III 31.6). Writing from a self-consciously post-apostolic perspective, he describes this era as a bygone age of miracles and wonders (V 7.6) in which the light of truth shone so brightly that even “heresy” posed no real threat (II 14.3). Eusebius also presents the apostolic age as determinative for all that came after: it was then, in his view, that Christianity spread throughout the known world (III 4.1), while Judaism fell to deserved decline (III 5.3). Studies of Late Antiquity have richly explored the processes by which Christian reflection on the classical and biblical past contributed to the delineation of a Christian collective identity as distinct from so-called “paganism.” In this essay, I will ask how the construction and idealization of the apostolic past may have similarly served to articulate the place of Judaism in Christian self-definition. Towards this goal, I will examine two conflicting fourth-century representations of this period: the account of apostolic history in books I–IV of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the novelistic narrative about the apostolic past in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The contrast between them, I suggest, sheds light on the role of historiography in the articulation of collective identities in Late Antiquity and, moreover, may further our understanding of the fourth century as a formative age for the conceptualization of “Judaism” and “Christianity” as distinct entities with distinct histories. It may also help to expose some of the prehistory of our modern perspectives on the late antique past, as formed through selective acts of remembering and forgetting, forged in debates over identity and continuity, and indebted to the interplay between histories and counter-histories. The Pseudo-Clementines and the History of the Apostolic Age The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions are famous for presenting a picture of the apostolic age that differs radically from the ————— 13 P. van Deun, “The Notion Apostolikos: A Terminological Survey,” in Apostolic Age, 49. After Eusebius, we increasingly find a notion of “apostolic times” as the age that saw the birth of the church (e.g. Epiphanius, Pan. 73.2.11). On later views of this age, see e.g. B. Dehandschutter, “Primum enim omnes docebant: Awareness of discontinuity in the early church: The case of ecclesiastical office,” in Apostolic Age, 219–27. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 5 image in the NT Book of Acts. For Luke, the story of the rise of Christianity is framed as the tale of the conversion of Gentiles and the spread of the gospel beyond Judaea.14 By contrast, the Homilies and Recognitions offer a different vision: the Jerusalem church of Peter and James here remains central, and ethnic Jews continue to play a leading role in the church. Penned in the name of Clement of Rome, this pair of parallel novels tells of Clement’s travels with the apostle Peter. Throughout these two accounts, Peter is depicted as the defender of the true teachings of Jesus, and the criterion for proper belief and practice is coherence with the Jerusalem church and its leader James.15 Whereas Luke describes the apostolic age as one of harmony between the apostles and downplays any conflict between Peter and Paul (cf. Galatians 2), the Pseudo-Clementines promote Peter and contain traces of anti-Pauline polemics.16 Affixed to the Homilies, moreover, is a letter that purports to be written by Peter himself, wherein he bemoans the popularity of antinomian teachings among Jesus’ Gentile followers and counters the misrepresentation of his own teachings as negating the need for Torahobservance (cf. Acts 15).17 Could some elements in these accounts reflect historical reality? Might the Pseudo-Clementine literature preserve a lost Petrine perspective that was hostile to Paul, suppressed by Luke, and forgotten by the Gentile Christians who embraced Pauline and Lukan writings as normative? These are the questions that have, until recently, shaped research on the ————— 14 I.e., as outlined in Acts 1:8, the narrative progression of Acts communicates its notion of the Christian community as spreading outwards from Jerusalem (2:1–8:3) to Judea and Samaria (8:4–12:25), then throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, and finally culminating at Rome (13:1–28:31); see G.E. Sterling, Historiography and SelfDefinition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography (NovTSup 64; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 348–49. 15 Note e.g. the instruction in Hom. 11.35 to “shun any apostle or teacher or prophet who does not first accurately compare his preaching with that of James, who was called the brother of my lord and to whom was entrusted to administer the church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem” (cf. Rec. 4.35). On James as bishop and as appointed leader of the early church, see Rec. 1.43, 66, 73, and the preface to the Epistle of Clement to James. 16 G. Lüdemann, Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity (trans. E. Boring; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 169–94. 17 Esp. Epistle of Peter to James 2.3–4: “Some from among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching (nomimon… kêrugma), attaching themselves to certain lawless and trifling preaching (anomon… kai phluarôdê… didaskalian) of the man who is my enemy (tou echthrou anthrôpou). Some have attempted these things while I am still alive, to transform my words by certain intricate interpretations towards the dissolution of the Law (eis tên tou nomou katalusin) – as though I myself were also of such a mind but did not freely proclaim it; God forbid!” Most scholars interpret Peter’s “enemy” as Paul (cf. Galatians 2) and the one “transforming” Peter’s message as Luke (cf. Acts 15). 6 Annette Yoshiko Reed Homilies and Recognitions. For nearly a century, studies of these late antique texts have been primarily source-critical. Scholars have approached the Homilies and Recognitions as mines for information about earlier eras, culling them for data about Christian Origins and using them to reconstruct first- and second-century forms of “Jewish Christianity.” Accordingly, the popularity of the Pseudo-Clementine literature has risen and fallen with scholarly judgments about their historical value as sources for early traditions about Peter, James, and the Jerusalem church.18 In recent years, however, attention has turned to the literary and rhetorical features of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. F. Stanley Jones, for instance, has proposed that the early source preserved in Rec. 1.27–71 (ca. 200 CE) is best read as a work of competitive historiography.19 Jones demonstrates that Rec. 1.27–71 was dependant on Luke-Acts and framed as a rival account of apostolic history. To Luke’s image of the communal apostolic leadership of the primitive church, this source asserts James’ preeminence (Rec. 1.43.3), depicting him as the bishop appointed by Jesus to lead the church.20 James is the one credited with successfully spreading the message of Jesus to the Jewish people (Rec. 1.69.8; cf. Acts 2:41, 4:4).21 Moreover, his success is here said to have been thwarted only because of “the enemy”; the Jewish people were persuaded by James’ preaching, but their conversion was forestalled by his death, as precipitated by the pernicious efforts of Saul/Paul to undermine the Jerusalem church. Whereas Luke appeals to the Holy Spirit to authorize the mission to the Gentiles, Rec. 1.27–71 depicts the inclusion of the Gentiles as occasioned by the need to fill the number of the chosen left empty by the Jews.22 ————— 18 I discuss this tendency in the history of scholarship in detail in “‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways’: Approaches to Historiography and SelfDefinition in the Pseudo-Clementine Literature,” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. A. H. Becker and A. Y. Reed (TSAJ 95; Tübingen: Mohr, 2003) 188–231, building on F.S. Jones’ insights in “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research, Part II,” Second Century 2 (1982) 84–96. 19 F.S. Jones, “An Ancient Jewish Christian Rejoinder to Luke’s Acts of the Apostles: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71,” in Semeia 80: The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Intertextual Perspectives, ed. R. Stoops (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 239–40. 20 Jones, “Ancient Jewish-Christian Rejoinder,” 242. 21 Jones, “Ancient Jewish-Christian Rejoinder,” 242. 22 Jones, “Ancient Jewish-Christian Rejoinder,” 242–43. This contrast is emblematized by the differences between Acts 13:46 and Rec. 1.63.2, two parallel statements asserting that the mission to the Jews preceded the mission to the Gentiles. The statement in Acts 13:46 (“It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you (i.e., Jews). Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles!”) is attributed to Paul and Barnabus; it “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 7 Elsewhere, Jones has similarly shed light on the literary and rhetorical features of the putative third-century source shared by the Homilies and Recognitions (i.e., the Pseudo-Clementine Grundschrift). Jones’ reconstruction of the structure and aims of the Grundschrift highlights its points of resonance with debates about fate and astrology in late antique Syria.23 Likewise, Mark Edwards, Dominique Côté, and others have investigated themes shared by both extant novels, exploring the strategic appropriation of “pagan” literary and philosophical tropes in the PseudoClementine tradition.24 Other recent studies have focused on the rhetoric of the redacted form of the Recognitions: Kate Cooper, William Robins, and Meinolf Vielberg have considered its adoption and subversion of the genre of the Greco-Roman novel,25 while Nicole Kelley has investigated the dynamics of its discourse about knowledge, situating its concerns with authority and epistemology in the context of competing claims, both Christian and “pagan,” in fourth-century Syria.26 ————— occurs in the context of the rejection of Paul’s preaching by a crowd of Jews (13:47) and is followed by Paul’s appeal to Isa 49:6 as prophetic prooftext for the mission to the Gentiles (13:49). The parallel in Rec. 1.63.2 presents the same information with a different spin. The contrast is clearest with the Syriac version, in which Peter says: “Finally, I counseled them that before we should go to the nations to preach the knowledge of the God who is above all, they should reconcile their people to God by receiving Jesus” (trans. Jones). This is followed by polemics, not against the Jews as a people, but rather against the Temple and sacrificial cult. 23 F.S. Jones, “Eros and astrology in the Periodoi Petrou: The sense of the PseudoClementine novel,” Apocrypha 12 (2001) 53–78. 24 M.J. Edwards, “The Clementina: A Christian response to the pagan novel,” Classical Quarterly 42 (1992) 459–74; D. Côté, Le thème de l’opposition entre Pierre et Simon dans les Pseudo-Clémentines (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 2001); idem, “La fonction littéraire de Simon le Magicien dans les Pseudo-Clémentines,” Laval Théologique et Philosophique 57 (2001) 513–23. 25 W. Robins, “Romance and Renunciation at the Turn of the Fifth Century,” JECS 8 (2000) 531–57; K. Cooper, “Matthidia’s Wish: Division, Reunion, and the Early Christian Family in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts/La narativité dans la Bible et les textes apparentés, ed. G. J. Brooke and J.-D. Kaestli (Leuven: Peeters, 2000) 243–64; M. Vielberg, Klemens in den pseudoklementischen Rekognitionen: Studien zur literarischen Form des spätankiken Romans (Berlin: Akademie, 2000). 26 N. Kelley, Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines (Tübingen: Mohr, 2006). Note also her recent conference papers on the fourth-century context of the Recognitions, e.g. “Astrological Knowledge and Apostolic Competition: The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions in the Context of Fourth-Century Syria,” paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Christian Apocrypha Section, November 2005; “What is the Value of Sense Perception in the Pseudo-Clementine Romance?” paper presented at the 2006 Colloque sur la littérature apocryphe chrétienne, Université de Genève and Université de Lausanne; “Pseudo-Clementine Polemics against Sacrifice: A Window onto Religious Life in the Fourth Century?” paper presented at Christian Apocryphal Texts for the New Millennium, University of Ottawa, September 2006. 8 Annette Yoshiko Reed In what follows, I will bring a similar perspective to bear on the Homilies, the oldest form of the Pseudo-Clementine novel to survive in full. The Homilies dates to the first half of the fourth century.27 Like the hypothetical Grundschrift and later Recognitions, it probably took form in Syria.28 It is likely, in my view, that this text does indeed preserve earlier sources. Whatever the precise scope and character of these sources, however, the authors/redactors of the Homilies have clearly reworked their received material in ways that speak to their own time.29 The language used to describe Jesus, for instance, betrays their engagement with Christological debates of the Nicene age.30 Moreover, the story of Clement is here framed as an extended defense of apostolic succession and an assertion of the antiquity and necessity of ecclesiastical offices.31 Throughout novel, tales about Peter’s travels along from city to city are ————— 27 See n. 36 and n. 38 below. 28 Its Syrian provenance was established by G. Uhlhorn, Die Homilien und Recognitionen des Clemens Romanus nach ihren Ursprung und Inhalt dargestellt (Göttingen: Dieterische Buchhandlung, 1854) 381–429; C. Biggs, “The Clementine Homilies,” Studia biblica et ecclesiastica 2 (1890) 191–92. See, more recently, J.N. Bremmer, “Pseudo-Clementines: Texts, Dates, Places, Authors and Magic,” in The Pseudo-Clementines I: Homilies, ed. J.N. Bremmer (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming). 29 The value of situating the Homilies in its fourth-century context has explored in a number of recent conference papers, including various papers presented at the 2006 Colloque sur la littérature apocryphe chrétienne, Université de Genève and Université de Lausanne (esp. D. Côté, “Les procédés rhétoriques dans les Pseudo-Clémentines: L'éloge de l'adultère du grammairien Apion”; A.Y. Reed, “From Judaism and Hellenism to Christianity and Paganism: Cultural Identities and Religious Polemics in the PseudoClementine Homilies”; K. Shuve, “The Doctrine of the False Pericopes and Other Late Antique Approaches to the Problem of Scripture’s Unity”). Note also A.Y. Reed, “Fourth-century Rabbinic Judaism and the redaction of the Homilies,” paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Christian Apocrypha section, November 2005; eadem, “Rabbis, Jewish Christians and other late antique Jews: Reflections on the fate of Judaism(s) after 70 C.E.,” in The Changing Face of Judaism, Christianity and Other Greco-Roman Religions in Antiquity, ed. I. Henderson and G. Oegama (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006) 323–48; D. Côté, “Orphic Theogony and the Context of the Clementines,” paper presented at Christian Apocryphal Texts for the New Millennium, University of Ottawa, September 2006. These new approaches build on insights in 19th century research on the Homilies, on which see n. 36 below. 30 Note the Homilies’ statement – unparalleled in the Recognitions – that Christ the Son is “of the same substance (tês autês ousias)” as God the Father (16.15) and the use of the term homoousios in Hom. 20.5, 7. These references were pivotal for Biggs’ initial establishment of a date for the Homilies in the decades surrounding the Council of Nicaea (“Clementine Homilies,” 167, 191–92). Biggs’ suggestion of the Homilies’ affinities with Arianism, however, have never been fully explored. 31 Esp. Ep. Clem. 6–7, 12–18; Hom. 3.60–72. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 9 punctuated by his ordination of bishops.32 The Homilies’ overarching narrative also functions to assert Clement’s close relationship with Peter and, by extension, the connections between Rome and Jerusalem.33 The novel’s heresiological concerns, as embodied in its accounts of Peter’s debates with Simon Magus (3.30–59; 16.1–21; 18.1–23; 19.24–20.10), similarly reflect its late antique context, as perhaps most clear from its approach to the genealogy of error as an inverse parallel to apostolic succession.34 The Homilies has usually been dismissed as a record of a heterodox movement with no influence on the late antique church and/or treated as a relic of an apostolic “Jewish Christianity” rendered irrelevant by the rise of “Gentile Christianity” and Christianity’s “Parting of the Ways” with Judaism.35 When we turn our attention to its final form and fourth-century context, however, this text may emerge as an important piece of evidence for the variety of voices in the late antique Christian discourse about “orthodoxy,” Judaism, and the apostolic past.36 ————— 32 Hom. 3.60–73 (Zacchaeus in Caesarea; cf. Luke 19:5; Hist. eccl. 4.5.3); 7.5 (unnamed elder in Tyre); 7.8 (unnamed elder in Sidon); 7.12 (unnamed elder in Berytus); 11.36 (Maroones in Tripolis); 20.23 (unnamed elder in Laodicea). It is also notable that the Epistle of Clement to Rome, one of the two letters prefaced to the Homilies, tells of Clement’s ordination by Peter in Rome (esp. 19). 33 Chapman, “On the date of the Pseudo-Clementines,” 155. 34 On the Homilies and late antique heresiology, see A.Y. Reed, “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel: Narrativized Polemics in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in Heresy and Self-Definition in Late Antiquity, ed. E. Iricinschi and H. Zelletin (Tübingen: Mohr, forthcoming). On the trope of “heretical succession,” see A. Ferreiro, “Sexual Depravity, Doctrinal Error, and Character Assassination in the Fourth Century: Jerome against the Priscillianists,” Studia Patristica 28 (1993) 29–38. 35 See further Reed, “Jewish Christianity,” 188–231. 36 The final form of the Homilies has not been a topic of focused inquiry since the 19th century. Especially notable – for our purposes – is the work of Gerhard Uhlhorn, who stressed the unity of the Homilies in its present form and the need to consider the aims of its redactors (Homilien und Recognitionen, esp. 153); note also A. Schliemann, Die Clementinen nebst den verwandten Schriften und der Ebionitismus (Hamburg, 1844) 130–251; A. Hilgenfeld, Die clementinischen Recognitionen und Homilien nach ihrem Ursprung und Inhalt dargetellt (Leipzig, 1848). These studies, however, were penned prior to the establishment of its fourth-century date and thus seek to locate the text in the second century CE. Some interesting suggestions about the late antique context of the Pseudo-Clementines were made at the turn of the century, when its fourth-century date was established in Biggs, “Clementine Homilies,” 157–93; J. Chapman, “On the Date of the Clementines,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 9 (1908) 147–59. Until recently, however, these suggestions have been largely ignored, consistent with the source-critical focus of almost all 20th century research on the Pseudo-Clementines. 10 Annette Yoshiko Reed The Homilies and Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History To recover the significance of the Homilies for our understanding of the fourth century, comparison with Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History proves helpful. Books I–IV of the latter treat many of the same events, themes, and figures that make up the focus of the former: the life of Clement and his contacts with apostles (Hist. eccl. III 4.9; 15), the activities of Simon Magus (II 1.11; 13.1–5), Peter’s struggles against Simon (II 14.1–15.2), the Alexandrian Apion’s slander against the Jews (II 5.3–4; cf. III 38.5; Hom. 4–6), and – more broadly – the story of apostolic succession and the spread of Jesus’ message beyond the bounds of Judaea. Moreover, the two texts are temporally and geographically proximate. The first edition of the Ecclesiastical History (books I–VII) is typically dated between 290 and 312 CE,37 a few decades before the compilation of the Homilies.38 Whereas Eusebius penned his history in Caesarea, the Homilies was most likely compiled in Edessa or Antioch.39 Eusebius himself attests the transmission of texts and traditions between these cities in the fourth century (Hist. eccl. I 13).40 The movement of material between Palestinian and Syrian locales is further evinced by the reception-history of his Ecclesiastical History, which was translated into Syriac soon after its composition.41 To my knowledge, no study has explored the rhetorical and discursive parallels between these two texts. Rather, research on the Pseudo————— 37 R.M. Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980) 13–14; A. Louth, “The date of Eusebius’ Historia ecclesiastica,” JTS 41 (1990) 111–23; R.W. Burgess, “The dates and editions of Eusebius’ Chronici canones and Historia ecclesiastica,” JTS 48 (1997) 471–504. 38 Since Biggs (see n. 36), scholars have concurred that the Homilies should be dated to the first half of the fourth century. A topic of continued debate, however, is whether it should be placed before or after the Council of Nicaea. C. Schmidt, O. Cullman, and G. Strecker, for instance, see the Homilies as pre-Nicene composition, while H. Waitz and B. Rehm place its composition shortly after 325 CE. See e.g. H. Waitz, Die Pseudoklementinen: Homilien und Rekognitionen: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung (Leipzig: J. Hinrichs, 1904) 369; G. Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen (TU 702; Berlin: Akademie, 1981) 268; and the summary of the debate in Jones, “Pseudo-Clementines,” 73–74. 39 See n. 28 above. Notably, Caesarea may have also played a part in the pseudepigraphical claims in the Pseudo-Clementine Grundschrift, albeit in a manner whose precise significance is now difficult to recover; cf. Hom. 1.20.2; Rec. 1.17.2. 40 See, however, S. Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. H.W. Attridge and G. Hata (SPB 42; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 212–34. 41 The Syriac translation survives in a manuscript from 461/462 CE (Leningrad, Public Library, Cod. Syr. 1, New Series). See W. Wright and N. McLean, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius in Syriac (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1898). “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 11 Clementines has looked to the Ecclesiastical History mainly to test the historical accuracy of the description of figures and events in the Homilies and Recognitions.42 In addition, scholars have appealed to Eusebius’ references to Petrine and Clementine pseudepigrapha (III 3.2, 38.5) to support source-critical hypotheses concerning the ultimate origins of material now found in the Homilies.43 Due partly to the power of traditional meta-narratives about “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” on the one hand, and “Gentile Christianity” and “Jewish Christianity,” on the other, the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History have been studied in different specialist circles. Moreover, like the Homilies, the Ecclesiastical History has often been treated as a reservoir of data about earlier times and sources; scholars have too rarely considered its significance as a late antique narrative construction.44 In my view, however, there are good reasons to read the Ecclesiastical History and the Homilies in terms of a shared fourth-century discourse about the apostolic past. Not only are two texts contemporaneous, but they exhibit many of the same concerns. Both trace the paths of apostolic succession and to assert ecclesiastical authority. They answer “pagan” critiques of Christianity and defend “orthodoxy” against “heresy.” Moreover, they seek to map the place of Judaism in apostolic history and late antique Christian identity. To address these concerns, Eusebius and the authors/redactors of the Homilies choose different literary genres.45 It may be significant, ————— 42 On one level, for instance, H.-J. Schoeps’ Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1949) can be read as a comprehensive attempt to fit the evidence of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions into the framework of Christian history laid out in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. 43 In particular, Eusebius’ statements in Hist. eccl. III 38.5 have played an important role in scholarly debates about the sources of Hom. 4–6. For a summary of the various positions, see Jones, “Pseudo-Clementines,” 27–31. 44 Elizabeth Clark, for instance, notes how the influence of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History has rendered his own assumptions almost invisible. Although the accuracy of his details have often been questioned, not enough has been done to explore how his history “shores up claims for the dominance of the proto-orthodox Church, enhances its leaders’ prestige, and justifies particular institutions and teachings”; History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2004) 169. Important exceptions include Grant, Eusebius; A.J. Droge, “The Apologetic Dimensions of the Ecclesiastical History,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, 492–509; D.B. Martin, Inventing Superstition: From Hippocrates to the Christians (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2004) 207–25. 45 To a modern reader, their choice of different genres might seem to preclude their participation in a common discourse. This, however, may say more about the gap between premodern and modern notions of “history” than about literary production in Late Antiquity. That Eusebius and the authors/redactors of the Homilies express so many of the same concerns by means of these different genres may, in fact, confirm recent insights into the close connections between history and narrative in Greco- 12 Annette Yoshiko Reed however, that both engage in the large-scale appropriation and subversion of “pagan” literary forms: just as the Homilies is our earliest extant example of the Christian use of the genre of the Greco-Roman novel,46 so Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History applies Hellenistic historiographical tropes to the whole of Christian history.47 When we look beyond the issue of genre, we also see how the two texts are shaped by many of the same literary practices. Most notable is their integration, consolidation, and reworking of earlier source-materials, including Hellenistic Jewish as well as early Christian writings.48 To be sure, Eusebius signals his use of sources in a manner consistent with the conventions of the historical genre,49 while the authors/redactors of the Homilies interweave them without notice.50 Studies of Eusebius’ use of sources, however, have shown how he – no less than the Homilies – reworks his received material in the service of his own aims.51 In addition, Eusebius and the authors/redactors of the Homilies may draw on much the same reservoir of sources, even as they hold different opinions about what constitutes authentic records of the apostolic past. Eusebius, for instance, is familiar with a variety of Petrine and ————— Roman culture. On these connections, see e.g. A. Cameron, ed., History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History (Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Press, 1990), and on the novelistic background of both Greek and Jewish historiography, A. Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (Sather Classical Lectures 54; Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1990) 15–16. 46 Although novelistic tropes are evident in earlier Jewish and Christian literature (e.g., apocryphal acts), the Pseudo-Clementines are widely acknowledged to be the first full-fledged Christian novel still extant; B.E. Perry, Ancient Romances: A LiteraryHistorical Account of their Origins (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1967) 285–93; T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1983) 154–65. On the Pseudo-Clementines’ subversion of the genre, see the sources cited in n. 25 above. 47 Cf. Hist. eccl. I 1.3–5; Grant, Eusebius, 22–32. His debt to the histories of Hellenistic philosophical schools, in particular, is stressed by Momigliano, Classical Foundations, 140–41. 48 For a summary of research on the sources of the Pseudo-Clementines, see Jones, “Pseudo-Clementines,” 8–33. On the possibility that Hom. 4–6 draws on a Hellenistic Jewish apology, for instance, see W. Heintze, Der Klemensroman und seine griechischen Quellen (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1914) esp. 48–50, 108–9, 112; C. Schmidt, Studien zu den Pseudo-Clementinen (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1929) 160–239; W.A. Adler, “Apion’s enconomium of adultery: A Jewish satire of Greek paideia in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies,” HUCA 64 (1993) 28–30. 49 On Eusebius’ sources, see e.g. Grant, Eusebius, 17–19; T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1981) 130–31. 50 See below on the possible motivations for this choice. 51 E.g. G. Hata, “Eusebius and Josephus: The way Eusebius misused and abused Josephus,” Patristica: Proceedings of the Colloquia of the Japanese Society for Patristic Studies, supp. 1 (2001) 49–66; S. Inowlocki, “Eusebius of Caesarea's Interpretatio Christiana of Philo’s De vita contemplativa,” HTR 97 (2004) 305–28. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 13 Clementine pseudepigrapha (Hist. eccl. III 3.2, 38.5), including a book that circulated in the name of Clement that records Peter’s debates with Apion.52 Although he cites these sources only to reject them, it is striking that he nevertheless felt compelled to mention them. In turn, the Homilies contains hints of awareness of the Pauline epistles so central to Eusebius’ understanding of “orthodoxy,” even as its authors/redactors seek to purge the apostolic past of any traces of Paul’s positive influence.53 In other words, we find – in both texts – evidence for fourth-century efforts to consolidate certain images of the past by anthologizing, reworking, and reframing earlier sources. In each case, some sources are privileged, while others are subverted or silenced. Like Eusebius, the authors/redactors of the Homilies seem to have drawn selectively on source materials to remodel the apostolic past in the image of their own particular vision of “orthodoxy.” In my view, it may not be coincidental that they do so in the middle of the fourth century, concurrent with attempts – by Eusebius and others – to deny the continued place of Judaism in church history and Christian identity. For, as we shall see, they answer the denial of the vitality of “Jewish Christianity” with a radical assertion. According to the Homilies Christianity’s continuity with Judaism is not just inexorable, but the teachings of the two traditions are the same; the true apostolic religion is, in essence, the revelation of Judaism to the Gentiles. Apostolic Succession and the Transmission of Truth At the beginning of the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius stresses his aim to narrate “the successions of the holy apostles” (tas tôn hierôn apostolôn diadochas; I 1.1).54 As is well known, this aim lies at the heart of his history of the early church and shapes his focus on its teachers and leaders.55 Apostolic succession is similarly pivotal for the plot of the Homilies, which focuses on a single instantiation. The novel purports to record Clement of Rome’s own account of how he came to Christianity, and it establishes his close relationship with the apostle Peter. In its descriptions of Peter’s teachings, the theme of proper succession repeatedly arises. ————— 52 Hist. eccl. III 38.5: “And certain men have lately brought forward other wordy and lengthy writings under his (i.e. Clement’s) name, containing dialogues of Peter and Apion (Petrou dê kai Apiônos dialogous periechonta).” Cf. Clement’s debates with Appion in Hom. 4–6 and discussion below. 53 See discussion below. 54 English translations of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History are revised from G.A. Williamson, trans., Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (Baltimore, 1965), with reference to G. Bardy, ed. and trans., Eusèbe de Césarée, Histoire Ecclésiastique, Livres I–IV (SC 31; Paris: Cerf, 1952). 55 Grant, Eusebius, 45–83. 14 Annette Yoshiko Reed Peter presents himself as heir to Jesus, and he stresses that the truth that leads to salvation is known and verified through the lines of succession that run through the Jerusalem church (Hom. 2.6–12; 3.15, 19; 11.35). Jesus, as True Prophet, “alone knows the truth; if anyone else knows anything, he has received it from him or from his disciples” (2.12).56 The epistemological significance of succession is here matched by its importance for ensuring the legitimacy of leaders and institutions. Central to the Homilies are tales about Peter’s journeys to preach in different cities, where he founds communities and appoints bishops (Hom. 3.72; 7.5, 8, 12; 11.36; 20.23). In the course of Peter’s public preaching, he stresses the need for ecclesiastical offices that mirror and maintain proper succession: the sole rule of God over the cosmos is reflected in the bishop’s monarchic rule over his community, which is legitimated through the succession from Jesus to Peter and which thus ensures the continued preservation and transmission of true teachings (3.60–71; also Ep.Clem. 2–6). Whereas Eusebius treats the succession of bishops and Christian teachers as different lines that only sometimes converge,57 the authors/redactors of the Homilies identify apostolic succession with the office of the bishop, and they present this line of succession as the sole conduit for the transmission of Christian truth. Just as the apostles are depicted as Jesus’ true and trustworthy heirs, charged with preserving and spreading his teachings (Hom. 1.15; 7.11; 17.19), so proper succession vouchsafes the faithful transmission of these teachings and enables the institutional settings for their maintenance in belief and practice. Primordial Truth, Jewish Succession, and Apostolic Teaching In both the Homilies and the Ecclesiastical History, however, the importance of the era of the apostles goes well beyond the appeal to apostolic succession to authenticate teachings and to legitimize leaders and communities. This era is granted a special place in human history. In both texts, it is celebrated as a glorious age in which hidden truth shone forth upon the earth (e.g., Hist. eccl. II 3.1–2; Hom. 1.18–19). In both, moreover, apostolic teaching opens the ways for the restoration of ————— 56 English translations of the Homilies are revised from Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (repr. ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1951) 8.224–52, 324–30, with reference to B. Rehm, Die Pseudoklementinen, I: Homilien (Berlin: Akademie, 1969) as well as A. Le Boulluec et al., trans., “Roman pseudo-clémentin: Homélies,” Écrits apocryphes chrétiens II, ed. P. Geoltrain and J.-D. Kaestli (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2005) 1193–589. On the treatment of proper succession and the transmission of knowledge in the Recognitions, see Kelley, Knowledge, 135–79. 57 Grant, Eusebius, 45–47. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 15 primordial religion (e.g., Hist. eccl. I 2.18–19, 4.4, 4.15; Hom. 8.10; 10.6). In the Ecclesiastical History, this assertion is explicitly framed as a response to “pagan” polemics against Christianity.58 Lest anyone “imagine that his teaching is new and strange (nean… kai ksenên), framed by a man of recent date no different from other men” (I 4.1; also I 2.1, 3.21, 4.15), Eusebius stresses Christ’s status as Logos. Prior to the Incarnation, Christ played a part in creation (I 2.3–5, 8, 14–16) as well as appearing to Abraham, Moses, and other Hebrew patriarchs and prophets (I 2.6–7, 10-13, 21; I 4.8). It was his revelation of the Torah to Moses that first enabled seeds of truth to spread to other nations (I 2.22–23). His role in spreading truth is also, according to Eusebius, evident in the predictions about his Incarnation embedded in the writings of Moses and other Hebrew authors (e.g., I 2.24–3.6), who thus serve as witnesses to the true antiquity of Christ and the Christian faith. Not only did Christ play an important role in the cosmos before the birth of Jesus, but – Eusebius claims – there were Christians on the earth, long prior to the emergence of the group that now takes that name. Due to the Logos’ activities among the Hebrews, some lived as Christians: With regard to all these men who have been witnessed as righteous, going back from Abraham himself to the first man, one would not be departing far from the truth in calling them Christians in practice if not in name (ergô Christianous ei kai mê onomati). (Hist. eccl. I 4.6)59 Eusebius stresses that Christianity is same religion discovered in the age of Abraham, to whom Christ/Logos appeared in the guise of an angel (I 2.7; cf. Gen 18:1): It is obviously necessary to regard the religion proclaimed in recent years to all nations through Christ’s teaching as none other than the first, most ancient, and most primitive of all religions (protên… kai pantôn paliotatên te kai archaitatên theosebeias), discovered by Abraham and his followers… (Hist. eccl. I 4.10) Consequently, he is able to argue that “the practice of religion as communicated to us by Christ’s teaching is… not new and strange (nean kai ksenên), but – if the truth be told – primary, unique, and true” (prôtên… kai monên kai alêthê; I 4.15). When describing the religion of Abraham, Eusebius takes care to clarify that the pious Hebrews of the distant past did not practice circumcision, kashrut, or Sabbath-observance like later Jews (I 4.8, 11– 13). The implications for the lack of continuity in the Jewish transmission ————— 58 See further Droge, “Apologetic,” 493–98. On the place of anti-“pagan” polemics in Eusebius’ work more broadly, see A. Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesaria against Paganism (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 59 This view of pre-Christian Christians builds, e.g., on Justin, 1 Apol. 46. 16 Annette Yoshiko Reed of Abrahamic religion are developed in his references of the Mosaic Torah, which he describes as preserving true revelations of Christ/Logos only as metaphors and mysteries (I 4.8). Eusebius’ assertion of the continuity between Abraham and Christianity is thus predicated on the denial of any inherent connection between the patriarch and his Jewish heirs.60 The theme of discontinuity is also determinative in his descriptions of later forms of Judaism. In Hist. eccl. I 10.3, Eusebius stresses the lack of continuity in the proper succession of the high priesthood under Roman rule, speculating about the resultant loss of knowledge about purity and ritual practice. Likewise, in III 10.4, he quotes Josephus’ assertion that the “accurate succession of prophets” ceased at the time of Artaxerxes (cf. Ap. 1.8). As in his treatment of Christian history, succession is a key theme, and the question of continuity is pivotal. Here, however, the rhetoric of succession is used to convey rupture. The issue of Jewish succession is also central to Eusebius’ explanation of the precise timing of Jesus’ earthly sojourn (Hist. eccl. I 6.1–8).61 He stresses that the proper succession of Jewish rulers continued unbroken from the days of Moses to the first century CE (I 6.2, 5–6). Citing LXX Gen 49:10, however, he proposes that the Incarnation occurred when the succession was finally broken (I 6.1–8); with the Idumaean Herod, “their rulers and leaders, who had ruled in regular succession from the time of Moses himself (eks autou Môuseôs kata diadochên), came to an end” (I 6.4). Consistent with Eusebius’ stated aim of recording apostolic successions together with “the calamities that immediately after their conspiracy (epiboulês) against our Saviour overwhelmed the entire Jewish people” (I 1.2), books I–IV of the Ecclesiastical History tell the story of Jesus and apostles in counterpoint to the history of the Jews.62 ————— 60 For the many precedents for this use of Abraham, see J. Siker, Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991) 61 Strikingly, diadochê and related terms occur five times in this single passage, and Eusebius here makes efforts to stress the continuity of royal and priestly succession between Moses and first-century Judaism – even during the Babylonian Exile, etc. – so as to be able to assert that the breaks in these lines occurred directly prior to the birth of Jesus. 62 See further Hist. eccl. II 5.6–10; III 5.2–7, 7.7–9, where calamities amongst the Jews are direct results of their mistreatment of Jesus and his apostles. For a discussion of the Christian precedents for this approach to Jewish history, see Grant, Eusebius, 97– 113. On the extension of these views in his Preparatio Evangelica and Demonstratio Evangelica, see A. Kofsky, “Eusebius of Caesaria and the Christian–Jewish Polemic,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Jews and Christians, ed. O. Limor and G.G. Stroumsa (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996) 59–84. For a comprehensive survey of Eusebius’ references to Jews and Judaism, see J. Ulrich, Eusebius von “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 17 For this pattern, LXX Gen 49:10 serves to provide a prophetic explanation. In Eusebius’ reading,63 this verse becomes an ancient prediction of the time when the scepter would fall from Judah, thereby opening the way for the fulfillment of “the expectation of the nations” with the coming of Christ: It was without question in his (i.e. Herod’s) time that the advent of Christ occurred; and the expected salvation and calling of the Gentiles followed at once, in accordance with the prophecy (i.e. LXX Gen 49:10). As soon as the rulers and leaders of Judah – those from the Jewish people – came to an end, not surprisingly the high priesthood, which had passed in regular succession (epi tous eggista diadochous), from generation to generation, was plunged into confusion. (Hist. eccl. I 6.8) Eusebius thus argues that a break in Jewish succession ushered in the birth of Jesus and the establishment of apostolic succession, just as the downfall of the Jewish nation accompanied the birth of a new nation, namely, the Christians (I 4.2).64 In the Homilies, the theme of succession similarly serves as a means to answer “pagan” critiques of Christianity. By means of speeches attributed to Peter, the text asserts that monotheistic piety is the natural state of humankind (Hom. 8.10; 10.6), to which polytheistic corruptions accrued, due to the weaknesses of humankind, the intervention of demons, and the teachings of false prophets (e.g., 1.18; 2.16–18; 3.23–25; 8.11–20; 9.2– 18; 10.7–23). As in the Ecclesiastical History, Jesus’ Incarnation is presented as ushering in a new era of illumination and salvation for the Gentiles, whereupon the apostles spread the truth of the most ancient religion to those long shackled by idolatry, polytheism, and impiety (e.g., Hom. 2.33; 3.19). Where the texts differ, however, is in their presentation of Judaism. Like Eusebius, the authors/redactors of the Homilies stress that Jesus is not a new teacher: he is the ultimate source of all truth in every age. Instead of appealing to the doctrine of the Logos,65 the Homilies presents Jesus as the True Prophet who “has changed his forms and his names from the beginning of the world and so reappeared again and again in the ————— Caesarea und die Juden: Studien zur Rolle der Juden in der Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999). 63 There are precedents for this interpretation, e.g., in Irenaeus, adv. Haer. 4.10.2 and Origen, Princ. 4.1.3. 64 The view of Christians as an ethnos is developed in more detail in his Preparatio Evangelica, on which see A.P. Johnson, “Identity, Descent, and Polemic: Ethnic Argumentation in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica,” JECS 12 (2004) 23–56. 65 This omission is consistent with the Homilies’ polemic against Hellenistic philosophy, on which see below. 18 Annette Yoshiko Reed world” (Hom. 3.20).66 He is identified with a series of prophets, including Adam and Moses, who were sent by God to preach the same message of monotheism (2.16–17; 3.17–21). In the Homilies, Jesus himself is thus placed in an ancient line of prophetic succession.67 Perhaps most notably, this understanding of succession enables the authors/redactors of the Homilies to assert the identity of Moses and Jesus. In Hom. 8.6–7, for instance, the two are presented as equal sources of the truth: …Jesus is concealed from the Hebrews who have taken Moses as their teacher (apo men Hebraiôn ton Môusên didaskalon eilêphotôn kaluptetai ho Iêsous), just as Moses is hidden from those who have believed Jesus (apo de tôn Iêsou pepisteukotôn ho Môusês apokruptetai). Since there is a single teaching by both (mias gar di’ amphoterôn didaskalias), God accepts one who has believed either of these. To believe a teacher is for the sake of doing the things spoken by God. And our lord himself (i.e. Jesus) says that this is so: “I thank you, Father of heaven and earth, because you have concealed these things from the wise and prudent, and you have revealed them to sucking babes” (cf. Matt 11:25/Luke 10:21). Thus God Himself has concealed a teacher from some (i.e., Jews), who foreknew what they should do (tois men ekrupsen didaskalon hôs proegnôkosin ha dei prattein), and He has revealed (him) to others (i.e., “pagans”), who are ignorant about what they should do (tois de apekalupsen hôs agnoousin ha chrê poiein). (Hom. 8.6.1–5)68 In effect, Christianity is here granted an ancient pedigree by means of its equation with Judaism. Whereas Eusebius answers “pagan” critics of Christianity by constructing a Hebrew heritage from broken fragments of Jewish scripture and history, the Homilies depicts Jesus’ teachings as essentially the revelation of Moses’ teachings to the Gentiles. ————— 66 See further L. Cerfaux, “Le vrai prophète des Clémentines,” Recherches de science religieuse 18 (1928) 143–63; Strecker, Judenchristentum, 145–53; H.J.W. Drijvers, “Adam and the True Prophet in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in Loyalitätskonflikte in der Religionsgeschichte. FS Carsten Colpe, ed. C. Elsas and H. Kippenberg (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1990) 314–23; C.A. Gieschen, “The Seven Pillars of the World: Ideal Figure Lists in the True Prophet Christology of the Pseudo-Clementines,” Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha 12 (1994) 47–82. 67 Although the identification of Jesus as True Prophet serves primarily to stress his true antiquity and to strengthen the connection between Christianity and the Israelite/Jewish past, it is noted that Jesus is the last of the line and that he will be revealed in the end-times as the Christos (Hom. 2.17). As such, the salvation of the Gentiles is depicted as a mark of the impending Eschaton. 68 For a comparison with the parallel in Rec. 4.5, see Reed, “Jewish Christianity,” 213–17. God’s justice in hiding Jesus from the Jews is addressed in Hom. 18.6–7. Inasmuch as the truth was long hidden from the Gentiles, it is deemed fair that the last avatar of the True Prophet is now hidden from the Jews (18.6). The text there affirms that the “way that leads to the kingdom” is still available to them, even though “things of the kingdom” are now hidden from them (18.7). “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 19 Accordingly, in the Homilies, apostolic succession stands in a close relationship to succession amongst the Jews. Whereas Eusebius stresses the break in the succession of Jewish kings, priests, and prophets, the authors/redactors of the Homilies affirm the continued oral transmission of Moses’ teachings among the Jews in a line that stretches from the seventy elders of Num 11:16 (Hom. 2.38; also Ep.Pet. 1.2) to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time (Hom. 3.18–19; 11.29).69 Just the Homilies describes Moses and Jesus as two earthly manifestations of the True Prophet (2.16–17), sent by God to teach the same truths to different peoples (8.6–7), so its authors/redactors depict apostolic succession and Pharisaic succession as separate but equal lines for the transmission of true knowledge. Interestingly, the authors/redactors of the Homilies establish the continuance of proper succession among the Jews with appeal to a saying of Jesus. Specifically, they repeatedly cite his assertion that the Pharisees sit in the “seat of Moses” (tês kathedras Môuseôs; cf. Matt 23:2; Hom. 3.18–19; 3.70; 11:29; also Ep.Pet. 1.2). In Hom. 3.18–19, for instance, Jesus’ reference to the “seat of Moses” is used to explain how the transmission of Moses’ teachings by Jews relates to the transmission of Jesus’ teachings by apostles. Peter begins by affirming that the Pharisees, as Moses’ heirs, possess the prophetic truth: …“Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will declare to you” (Deut 32:7). It is necessary to seek this father (i.e. Adam = the True Prophet) and to make further search for these elders (i.e., the Jews)! But you have not sought out concerning the one to whose time belongs the kingdom and to whom belongs the seat of prophecy (tês prophêteias kathedras), even though he himself (i.e. Jesus = the True Prophet) points this out himself, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses (tês kathedras Môuseôs); all things that they say to you, hear them” (cf. Matt 23:2–3). “Hear them,” he said, “as entrusted with the key of the kingdom (tên kleida tês basileias), which is knowledge (cf. Luke 11:52),70 which alone can open the gate of life, through which alone is the entrance to eternal life.”… (Hom. 3.18.1–3) As in the traditions about the Pharisees in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Matt 23:2–3, 13; Luke 11:52), it is here affirmed that these Jews have the knowledge that leads to salvation – and that they have kept it to themselves. In Matthew and Luke, the Pharisees are sharply criticized on these grounds. The authors/redactors of the Homilies offer a different interpretation of Jesus’ words.71 Jews are not blamed for keeping Mosaic ————— 69 These statements are unparalleled in the Recognitions. 70 Note also Matt 16:19, where it is Peter who is said to have “the key of the kingdom of heaven (tas kleidas tês basileias tôn ouranôn).” 71 Elsewhere in the Homilies, Peter explains that when Jesus called Pharisees “hypocrites,” he was referring only to some of them: “Our teacher, when dealing with certain of the Pharisees and scribes among us – who are separated yet as scribes know 20 Annette Yoshiko Reed wisdom from the Gentiles inasmuch as God’s plan involves a division of prophetic labor. Consequently, it is the Pharisees’ act of concealment that occasions the Incarnation: “Truly,” he says, “they possess the key, but those wishing to enter they do not suffer to do so” (cf. Matt 23:13). On this account, I say, he himself – rising from his seat (kathedras) like a father for his children, proclaiming the things which from the beginning were transmitted in secret to the worthy (ta apo aiônos en kruptô aksiois paradidomena kêrussôn), extending mercy even to the Gentiles, and having compassion for the souls of all – neglected his own blood (idiou haimatos êmelei). (Hom. 3.18.3–19.1) The True Prophet, in other words, took on the form of Jesus precisely to reveal prophetic truths to Gentiles. Just as the Homilies here depict the “seat of prophecy” (tês prophêteias kathedras) as the source of salvific knowledge and describe the True Prophet as rising from this seat to come to earth, so the reader is assured that his teachings are still transmitted on earth through parallel lines of prophetic succession – with the Pharisees in the “seat of Moses” (tês kathedras Môuseôs; 3.18–19; 3.70; 11:29) and Peter’s bishops in the “seat of Christ” (tês Christou kathedras; 3.60). As in the Ecclesiastical History (I 6.1–8), Jewish succession is thus central to an explanation of the timing and motivation for the Incarnation. Whereas Eusebius focuses on Jewish kingship and asserts a first-century break in the continuity of Jewish royal and priestly lines of succession, the Homilies focuses on Jewish learning and affirm the continuity that links Moses to the Pharisees. Accordingly, the authors/redactors of the Homilies use LXX Gen 49:10 in a manner quite different than did Eusebius. In both the Ecclesiastical History and the Homilies, this verse is interpreted as a Mosaic prediction of Jesus’ Incarnation. Whereas Eusebius cites the verse to support his supersessionist approach to Jewish history (Hist. eccl. I 6.1–8), the authors/redactors of the Homilies present it as a prooftext for Jesus’ appointed status as the prophet who points Gentiles to the truths in the Jewish scriptures (Hom. 3.49). Not only do the Homilies allow for the Mosaic authority of the Pharisees, but they further propose that proper teaching and leadership ————— the matters of the Law more than others – still reproved them as hypocrites, because they cleansed only the things that appear to men… He spoke the truth with respect to the hypocrites among them, not with respect to all of them (pros tous hupokritas autôn ou pros pantas). To some he said that obedience was to be rendered, because they were entrusted with the chair of Moses (cf. Matt 23:2). But, to the hypocrites, he said: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…’ (cf. Matt 23:13)” (Hom. 11.28–29). Cf. Hom. 3.70: “Therefore, honor the throne of Christ (thronon oun Christou timêsete); for you are commanded to honor the seat of Moses (hoti kai Môuseôs kathedran timan ekeleusthête), even if those who occupy it are accounted sinners (kan hoi prokathezomenoi hamartôloi nomizôntai).” “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 21 are preserved among the Jewish people due to their maintenance of the succession from Moses. In Hom. 2.38, Peter asserts that Moses “gave (paradedôkotos) the Law with the explanations (sun tais epilusesin)” to the seventy elders.72 This oral tradition is later linked to the continuance of proper leadership among the Jews: The Law of God was given, through Moses, without writing (agraphôs) to seventy wise men (cf. Num 11:16), to be handed down (paradidosthai), so that the government might be carried on by succession (tê didadochê). (Hom. 3.47.1) These assertions prove particularly intriguing in light of the authority claims being made by Rabbis in Palestine, around the same time that the Homilies was taking form in nearby Syria. Early Rabbis similarly used the rhetoric of succession to trace their authority to Moses (m. Avot 1– 5).73 And, by the fourth century, this assertion of continuity was being articulated in terms of claims to possess, not just the Written Torah, but also the Oral Torah revealed to Moses at Mt. Sinai.74 This confluence of ideas has led Al Baumgarten to suggest that the Pseudo-Clementine authors/redactors may have had contact with late antique Rabbis.75 If so, then it proves all the more significant that the authors/redactors of the Homilies appear to accept the Mosaic authority of their Jewish contemporaries. Arguably, their own understanding of succession may even be shaped by an effort to accommodate Rabbinic authority claims into a Christian schema.76 Whereas Eusebius seems to ————— 72 This assertion is significant inasmuch as the authors/redactors of the Homilies view the written scriptures as corrupted by interpolations; see Hom. 2.38–52, 3.4–6, 3.9–11, 3.17–21, 3.37–51, 16.9–14, 18.12–13, 18.18–22. See further Strecker, Judenchristentum, 166–86; Shuve, “Doctrine of the False Pericopes.” 73 On the Rabbinic use of succession lists, see e.g. A. Tropper, “Tractate Avot and Early Christian Succession Lists,” in Ways that Never Parted, 159–88. 74 E.g. Sifre Deut. 351; y. Megillah 4.1; y. Pe’ah 2.6; Pesikta Rabbati 14b; b. Shabbat 13a; and discussion in M.S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE–400 CE (New York: Oxford UP, 2001). 75 The acceptance of Pharisaic claims to possess oral Mosaic traditions is one of several features that leads Baumgarten to suggest that they viewed “the Jewish past in much the same way as the Pharisees and/or their rabbinic heirs did”; “Literary Evidence for Jewish Christianity in the Galilee,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Levine (New York: JTSA, 1992) 43. I discuss other Rabbinic parallels in the above cited articles. 76 This is made explicit in Ep.Pet. 1–2, where proper Jewish succession is held up as a model for proper Christian succession: “I beg and beseech you not to communicate to any of the Gentiles the books of my preachings that I sent to you (tôn hemôn kêrugmatôn has epempsa soi biblous) nor to anyone of our own tribe before trial. But if anyone has been proved and found worthy, then to commit them to him, after the manner in which Moses delivered his books to the Seventy who succeeded to his chair (kath’ hên kai tois hebdomêkonta ho Môusês paredôke tois tên kathedran autou pareilêphosin)… For, his countrymen (i.e., the Jews) keep the same rule of monarchy 22 Annette Yoshiko Reed pattern his understanding of succession on the lineages of Hellenistic philosophical schools,77 the Homilies’ model of succession may be indebted instead to Rabbinic models. At the very least, the views expressed in the Homilies represent a striking departure from the supersessionist ideas current in the Christianity of its time. Like Eusebius, the authors/redactors of the Homilies answer “pagan” critiques by arguing for an authentic Christian claim to continuity and connection with the biblical past. They, however, also affirm Jewish claims to continuity and connection with the same past. The result is a surprisingly harmonious picture of Judaism and Christianity, conceived in terms of supplementarity rather than supersession. The Apostolic Mission Despite their very different views of Jews and Judaism, the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History both characterize Christianity as a primarily Gentile phenomenon. Moreover, in both of these texts, this characterization has important ramifications for the scope and aims of the apostolic mission. Eusebius describes the apostolic mission to the Jews in much the same manner as he portrays the Jewish people – as important for a delineated period of time but ultimately doomed to failure. When recounting the apostles’ missionary activities prior to Saul/Paul, for instance, he notes that the apostles initially preached to Jews. He stresses, however, that they did so solely out of necessity (II 1.8; cf. Acts 11:19). After describing Saul/Paul’s commission by the risen Christ (II 1.14), however, Eusebius evokes a very different situation: Thus, with the powerful cooperation of heaven, the whole world was suddenly lit by the sunshine of the saving Logos. At once, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, the voice of its inspired evangelists and apostles went forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (cf. Ps 19:4)… Those who, following ancestral tradition and ancient error, were shackled by the old sickness of idolatrous superstition (hoi te ek progonôn diadochês kai tês anekathen planês palaia nosô deisidaimonias eidôlôn tas psuchas pepedêmenoi) were freed, as it were – by the power of Christ and through the teachings of his followers and the miracles they wrought – from cruel masters and found liberation from heavy ————— and polity (tês monarchias kai politeias phulassousi kanona) everywhere, being unable in any way to think otherwise or to be led out of the way of the much-indicating scriptures. According to the rule (kanona) delivered to them, they endeavor to correct the discordances of the scriptures if anyone, not knowing the traditions (paradoseis), is confounded at the various utterances of the prophets. Therefore they charge no one to teach, unless he has first learned how the scriptures must be used. And thus they have amongst them one God, one Law, one hope.” 77 E.g. Momigliano, Classical Foundations, 140–41. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? chains. They turned their backs on demonic polytheism in all its forms (pasês… daimonikês kateptuon polutheias) and acknowledged that there was one God only, the fashioner of all things... (Hist. eccl. II 3.1–2) 23 Whereas Eusebius celebrates the worldwide spread of Christianity as the long-fated acceptance of Abraham’s religion by the Gentiles who are the patriarch’s true heirs (I 4.12; cf. Gen 18:18; Gal 3:15–29), the Homilies presents the apostolic mission as an attempt by Peter and other “Jewish Christians” to convince “pagans” of truths already known to the Jews. Indeed, by the logic of Hom. 8.5–7, no Jewish mission is needed; Jews will be saved through the teachings of Moses, and the appointed task of Jesus and his apostles is solely to save “pagans.”78 Accordingly, the Homilies depicts Peter and the other apostles as proselytizing, not their fellow Jews, but only Gentiles like Clement. The Homilies has been so celebrated by modern scholars as a source of “Jewish Christian” traditions that it can be easy to forget that the text’s own focus falls on “pagans.”79 Peter here preaches about the dangers of polytheism, idolatry, “magic,” philosophy, and astrology (e.g., 1.7; 3.7–8; 7:20; 9.2–18; 10.7–24; 11.6–15; 14.4–5, 11; 15.5; 16.7), and Clement works to expose the impurity and impiety of Greek paideia (e.g., 1.11– 12; 4.12–21; 6.12–25).80 Moreover, consistent with the Homilies’ twofold model of prophetic succession, Jesus’ followers are depicted as ————— 78 We also find references elsewhere in the Homilies suggesting that Jews are already safe both from demonic influence (e.g., 9.20) and from temptations to polytheism and “heresy”: “And with us, who have had handed down from our forefathers the worship of the God who made all things (kai hêmin men tois ek progonôn pareilêphosin ton ta panta ktisanta sebein theon) as well as the mystery of the books which are able to deceive, he (i.e. Simon) will not prevail. But with those from among the Gentiles who have been brought up in the polytheistic manner (tois de apo ethnôn tên polutheon hupolêpsin suntrophon echousin) and who do not know the falsehoods of the scriptures, he will prevail much” (3.4). Notably, this is one among several passages in which Peter is depicted as contrasting “us” with “Gentiles,” thereby communicating his self-identification with the Jewish people. 79 This focus is consistent with the prominence of Hellenism, flowering of Neoplatonism, and continued survival of “paganism” in fourth-century Syria, on which see e.g. G.W.E. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1990) 29–53; H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Persistence of Pagan Cults and Practices in Christian Syria,” in East of Antioch: Studies in Early Syriac Christianity (Variorum Reprints; London: Variorum, 1984) XVI; Kelley, Knowledge, 194–97. 80 On Greek paideia in fourth-century Antioch, see e.g. A.J. Festugière, Antioche païenne et chrétienne: Libanius, Chrysostome et les moines de Syrie (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1959). Interestingly, Clement is credited in Hom. 4 with an opinion not unlike that expressed by Ephraim: “Blessed is the one who has never tasted the poison of the wisdom of the Greeks” (De fide, CSCO 154.7); see further S. Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syrian Attitudes towards Greek Learning,” in Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (Variorum Reprints; London: Variorum, 1984) V.19. 24 Annette Yoshiko Reed joining in the struggle against “paganism” long and still fought by the Jews.81 Peter, Paul, and Clement of Rome Given the Homilies’ focus on the Gentile mission, its omission of Paul is notable. The story of Christianity’s spread is here told without any direct reference to the man elsewhere celebrated as “the apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom 11:13; Gal 2:2). When read in light of the extreme prominence of Paul in other fourth-century Christian writings,82 the silence seems pointed. Although the Homilies lacks the explicit anti-Pauline polemics found in other Pseudo-Clementine sources (e.g., Rec. 1.66–70; Ep.Pet. 2.3–7), the text may include an indirect jab at Paul’s authority.83 In the course of a debate about the nature of revelation (17.13–17), Simon Magus accuses Peter as follows: You claim that you have learned the things of your teacher exactly, because you have directly seen and heard him, but that it is impossible to for another to learn the same thing by means of a dream or vision (oramati ê optasia; cf. 2 Cor 12:1). (Hom. 17.13.1) In his response, Peter makes his own position clear: Whoever trusts an apparition, vision, or dream is prone to error (ho de optasia pisteuôn ê horamati kai enupniô episphalês estin). He does not know whom he is trusting; for it is possible it may be an evil spirit or a deceptive spirit, pretending in his speeches to be what it is not. (Hom. 17.14.3–4) Peter, moreover, goes on to contest any authority rooted in visions and to defend his own apostleship. Interestingly, the words here placed in his mouth resonate both with Paul’s defense of his apostleship and with his ————— 81 I explore these dynamics further in “From Judaism and Hellenism.” 82 E.g., M.M. Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); W. Erdt, Marius Victorinus Afer, der erste lateinische Pauluskommentar: Studien zu seinen Pauluskommentaren im Zusammenhang der Wiederentdeckung des Paulus in der abendländischen Theologie des 4. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: P.D. Lang, 1980); T.F. Martin, “Vox Pauli: Augustine and the Claims to Speak for Paul, an Exploration of Rhetoric at the Service of Exegesis,” JECS 8 (2000) 238–42; A.S. Jacobs, “A Jew's Jew: Paul and the Early Christian Problem of Jewish Origins,” Journal of Religion 86 (2006) 258–86. See also, more broadly, M. Wiles, The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles in the Early Church (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967); W.S. Babcock, ed., Paul and the Legacies of Paul (Dallas: Southern Methodist UP, 1990). 83 Although some have read the Pseudo-Clementine Simon as merely a stand-in for Paul, I concur with Côté that this equation is too simplistic; see further “La fonction littéraire de Simon le Magicien dans les Pseudo-Clémentines,” Laval Théologique et Philosophique 37 (2001) 514–16, 19. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 25 accusations of Peter (esp. Gal 1:11–2:21; 1 Cor 9:1–5: 15:7–9; 2 Cor 11:4–14): If our Jesus appeared to you in a vision (di’ hormatos opstheis), made himself known to you, and spoke to you, it was as one who is enraged with an adversary – and this is the reason why it was through visions and dreams (di’ horamatôn kai enupniôn; cf. Acts 18:9) or through revelations that were from without (di’ apokalupseôn eksôthen ousôn; cf. Gal 1:16) that he spoke to you! Can anyone be rendered fit for instruction through apparitions (cf. Gal 1:11–12)?... How are we to believe you, when you tell us that he appeared to you? How is it that he appeared to you, when you entertain opinions contrary to his teaching?84 If you were seen and taught by him and became his apostle, even for a single hour, then proclaim his utterances, interpret his teaching, love his apostles, and do not contend with me who accompanied with him (emoi tô suggenomenô autô mê machou)! For you now stand in direct opposition to me (pros… enantios anthestêkas moi) – who am a firm rock, the foundation of the church (cf. Matt 16:18)!... If you say that I am ‘condemned’ (kategnôsmenous; Gal 2:11), you bring an accusation against God, who revealed the Christ to me… (Hom. 17.19.1–6) Ferdinand Christian Baur, Gerd Lüdemann, and others have proposed that this passage meant to counter Paul’s claim to be an apostle by virtue of his vision of the risen Christ (e.g., Gal 1:12; 1 Cor 15:8–10; also Acts 9:3–20).85 If so, then the association with Simon may prove particularly significant, hinting at a view of Paul’s heirs as truly “heretics.”86 By contrast, Eusebius readily accepts Paul’s claims. For him, in fact, it is a mark of Paul’s preeminence that he became an apostle “‘not of men neither through men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ himself (di’ apokalupseôs d’ autou Iêsou Christou) and of God the Father who raised him from the dead’ (Gal 1:1)… being made worthy of the call by a vision ————— 84 Lüdemann further suggests that the false gospel referenced in Hom. 2.17 is Paul’s gospel (Opposition, 185; so too Strecker, Judenchristentum, 188–90). 85 E.g., F.C. Baur, “Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeide, der Gegensatz des petrinischen and paulischen Christentums in der alten Kirche, der Apostel Petrus in Rom,” Tübinger Zeitschrift fur Theologie 5 (1831) 116; Lüdemann, Opposition, 185– 88. Inasmuch as Baur followed 19th century Pseudo-Clementine scholarship in dating the Homilies to the second century CE (see n. 36 above), this passage was central to his famous theory that the early church was split into Petrine and Pauline factions. For the history of research, see Lüdemann, Opposition, 1–32, 303; Côté, “Fonction,” 515. 86 Whether or not the tradition, in its present form, is anti-Pauline in any pointed sense, it functions in the Homilies as part of the overarching defense of an epistemology rooted in succession directly from Jesus’ disciples – a point rightly stressed by Kelley, Knowledge, 135–38. Notably, the critique of knowledge gained from dreams and visions also resonates with debates about prophecy in the early fourth century; see P. Athanassiadi, “Dreams, Theurgy and Freelance Divination: The Testimony of Iamblichus,” Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993) 115–30. Here, as elsewhere, the authors/redactors of the Homilies may take full advantage of the polysemy that the novelistic genre permits, taking aim at multiple enemies. 26 Annette Yoshiko Reed and by a voice which was uttered in a revelation from heaven (di’ optasias kai tês kata tên apokalupsin ouraniou phonês aksiôtheis tês klêseôs)” (Hist. eccl. II 1.14). In his account of apostolic history, moreover, Eusebius privileges the Pauline version of events, even to the detriment of Peter. In books I–II of the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius follows the NT literature in granting Peter a central place in the earliest church and a leading role among the other apostles. When he turns to describe the worldwide spread of Christianity in book III, however, it is Paul who looms large. As in Gal 2:7–10, Paul is credited with the mission to the Gentiles, while Peter’s activities are almost solely limited to Jews.87 Book III opens with a summary account of the apostles’ respective roles in spreading Christianity, articulated in explicit contrast to the purported decline of the Jews (III 1.1). Eusebius here celebrates the dispersion of Christ’s apostles and disciples “throughout the known world” (ef’ hapasan… tên oikoumenên): Thomas in Parthia, Andrew in Scythia, John in Asia (III 1.1). Following 1 Pet 1.1, he states that Peter preached to “the Jews of the Diaspora” (tois (ek) diasporas Ioudaiois) in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia (III 1.2).88 The account, however, culminates with Paul. Following Rom 15:19, Eusebius credits the apostle with “preaching the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum” (III 1.3). Also telling are the parallel descriptions of Paul and Peter in Hist. eccl. III 4.1–2. Here, Eusebius appeals again to Rom 15:19, together with the witness of Luke, to assert that Paul “preached to the Gentiles and laid the foundations of the churches from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum” (III 4.1). Peter, by contrast, is said to have “preached Christ and taught the doctrine of the new covenant to those of the circumcision (tous ek peritomês),” and he is described as writing “to the Hebrews in the Diaspora (tois ek Hebraiôn ousin en diaspora) in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (III 4.2).89 Although the activities of the two are paralleled, Paul is celebrated as the apostle responsible for Christianity’s worldwide spread, while Peter is associated with the early mission to the Jews.90 ————— 87 The sole exception is Hist. eccl. II 3.3, which follows Acts 10–11. Even there, however, Peter’s activities remain geographically limited to Judaea. 88 I.e., inasmuch as 1 Pet 1:1 is addressed to the “exiles of the dispersion” (parepidêmois diasporas) in these lands. 89 Note also Hist. eccl. II 7.1 where Peter is said to have met Philo of Alexandria when the two were in Rome. 90 Contrast Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 3.1.1, where Matthew is associated with evangelizing Jews through his Gospel, while “Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church.” “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 27 In effect, Eusebius repeatedly elevates Paul as the one responsible for the worldwide spread of Christianity, which – in his presentation – is synonymous with its spread among Gentiles outside of Judaea. To this, Peter’s preaching pales in significance; his mission is presented as a relic of the pre-Pauline pattern of preaching within Judaea and to Diaspora Jews (II 1.8). Of course, Peter must be permitted some role in authorizing the succession of bishops in the church of Rome. Even in this role, however, Eusebius consistently pairs him with Paul. Both Peter and Paul are associated with Rome by means of their martyrdoms (II 25.5, 8; III 1.2– 3). In Hist. eccl. III 2.1, for instance, Eusebius presents Linus’ rise to the Roman episcopacy as occurring after the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter. Rather than describing Linus as Peter’s successor, however, Eusebius takes the opportunity to note his connection with Paul, associating the bishop with the figure of the same name in 2 Tim 4:21.91 When he mentions Linus again in III 4.9, it is in the context of a list of Paul’s companions; even though Linus is here called Peter’s successor, the connection with Paul remains primary. Accordingly, Eusebius refers to later bishops of Rome, not as the successors of Peter, but rather as those “who held the episcopate there after Paul and Peter” (III 11.2; also IV 1.1).92 Of special relevance, for our purposes, is Eusebius’ approach to Clement of Rome.93 The first reference to Clement in the Ecclesiastical History occurs in the context of his summary of early Christians associated with Paul (III 4.6–11). After discussing Luke, Crescens, and Linus, he adds that “Clement too, who became the third bishop of the church of the Romans, was Paul’s co-laborer (sunergos) and fellowsoldier (sunathlêtês), as he himself testifies” (III 4.9), identifying Clement with the man of the same name mentioned by Paul in Phil 4:3.94 He repeats this claim in III 15, when recounting the early succession of bishops at Rome. Whereas the Homilies purports to preserve Clement’s ————— 91 I.e. following Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 3.3.3. 92 Cf. Hist. eccl. III 36.2, where Ignatius is called the “chosen bishop of Antioch, second in succession to Peter.” Note also the precedent of Irenaeus, who describes the Roman church as “founded and organized” by Peter and Paul (Adv. haer. 3.3.2). Eusebius seems to resolve the problem of the apparent conflict between Peter and Paul by identifying the “Cephas” of Gal 2:11 with someone other than Peter (Hist. eccl. I 12.2); he does not explain Acts 15. 93 Compare Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 3.3.3, in which Clement is associated with the apostles in general, rather than any specific apostle. 94 In this identification, Eusebius likely follows Origen, In Joann. 1.29. 28 Annette Yoshiko Reed first-person account of his travels with Peter, Eusebius aligns the famous Roman bishop solely with Paul.95 “Orthodoxy” and “Heresy” We also find interesting points of contrast and comparison in their respective accounts of the rivalry between Peter and Simon Magus. This rivalry is central to the plot of the Homilies.96 Throughout the novel, Peter’s missionary travels are occasioned by the need to chase Simon. The apostle scurries from city to city along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean, seeking to correct the errors spread by the “heretic” and to force him into public debates. Whereas Simon lures his listeners into idolatry and moral corruption, Peter preaches chastity, piety, and ritual purity (e.g., 3.2–4; 7.2–4, 8). Whereas Simon proclaims multiple divinities, Peter defends the unity and goodness of the One God who created the cosmos (e.g., 2.22; 3.38–40; 18.1–4). In the Homilies, this rivalry is presented as part of a broader historical pattern, namely, the rule of syzygies. For every true prophet, we are here told that God sends a false one in advance: Cain came before Abel, Ishmael before Isaac, Esau before Jacob, Aaron before Moses, and John the Baptist before Jesus (2.16–17, 33; 7.2). Likewise for Simon and Peter: It is possible, following this order (tê taxei), to perceive to which Simon belongs, who came before me to the Gentiles (ho pro emou eis ta ethnê prôtos elthôn), and to which I belong – I who have come after him and have come in on him as light on darkness, as knowledge on ignorance, as healing on disease. (Hom. 2.17) When Simon and Peter compete to persuade “pagans,” they thus act as agents of true and false prophesy, taking up the perennial battle between the two. Just as Peter learns and transmits the truth, by virtue of his connection to True Prophet Jesus, so Simon stands in a long line of error. According to the Homilies, “heresy” always precedes “orthodoxy.” By comparison, Eusebius’ treatment of Simon and Peter is quite brief. Interestingly, however, it integrates many of the same elements found in the Homilies: Simon is the “author of all heresy,” and his error is marked by the promotion of idolatry, sacrifice, and libations as well as by his own desire to be worshipped (Hist. eccl. II 13.6; cf. Hom. 2.21). And, even as Eusebius stresses that “heresy” was not yet a real threat in the apostolic age (II 14.2), he nevertheless depicts the conflict between Simon and Peter as a battle between divine and demonic forces: At that time, the evil power (ponêra dunamis) which hates all that is good and plots against the salvation of humankind raised up Simon… to be a great ————— 95 Tertullian, by contrast, describes Clement as Peter’s immediate successor as bishop of Rome in Prescription against Heretics 32. 96 See further Côté, Thème, 22–59. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? opponent of great men, our Saviour’s inspired apostles. Nevertheless, divine and celestial grace (hê theia kai huperouranios charis) worked with its ministers, by their advent and presence speedily extinguishing the flames of the evil one before they could spread… (Hist. eccl. II 14.1–2) 29 As in the Homilies, Simon flees, and Peter gives chase: The sorcerer (goês) of whom we have been speaking – having been struck as though his mind’s eye by a divine miraculous flash of light when earlier, in Judaea, his evil machinations had been exposed by the apostle Peter – promptly undertook a very long journey overseas from East to West…. (Hist. eccl. II 14.4) These similarities have led Robert Grant to propose that Eusebius here draws on an early version of the Pseudo-Clementine novel.97 If he is correct, then the points of contrast with the Homilies prove all the more significant. In the Ecclesiastical History, the challenge posed by Simon is the impetus for Peter’s journey to Rome, whereby he brings the wisdom of the East to the West and establishes Rome as a centre from which Christian truth then radiates (Hist. eccl. II 14.5–6; cf. Hom. 1.16); Eusebius further claims that Peter’s preaching in Rome is preserved in the Gospel of Mark (II 15.1). In the Homilies, Simon’s actions similarly motivate Peter’s journeys, but Clement is the one who records his preachings (Hom. 1.1; also Ep.Clem. 19–20), and Rome proves less central. Clement hails from Rome, and his interest in Jesus is piqued when rumors reach Rome and when he sees an unnamed preacher proclaiming the message of eternal life (Hom. 1.6–7). To learn the truth, however, Clement must travel to its source in Judaea (1.7). The action of the novel is centred on the port cities of Palestine and Syria: Caesaria, Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Byblos, Tripolis, Aradus, Laodicea. Consistent with the probable Syrian provenance of the Homilies, Peter’s journeys are oriented towards – and culminate in – Antioch (11.36; 12.1, 24; 14.12; 16.1; 20.11, 13, 18, 20–21, 23). In the Homilies, this is the city where Peter bests Simon and where he has resolved “to remain some length of time” (12.24). Whereas Eusebius refracts the apostolic past through his belief in the centrality of Rome and the Roman Empire for Christian history, the Homilies privileges Syria.98 In addition, the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History offer very different assessments of “heresy,” its appearance, and its power. Eusebius famously asserts that “orthodoxy” precedes “heresy.” He depicts the former as the obvious truth, proclaimed in one voice by the apostles and ————— 97 Grant, Eusebius, 87. I.e. presumably the Pseudo-Clementine Grundschrift. Cf. Strecker, Judenchristentum, 28, 84, 268. 98 Eusebius’ dismissive approach to Syriac Christianity, both within and beyond the Roman Empire, is noted by Brock, “Eusebius,” 212. 30 Annette Yoshiko Reed all their true heirs; “heresies” are derivative, dividing, and ultimately impotent (esp. IV 7.13).99 By contrast, the Homilies depicts “heresy” as a dire challenge to “orthodoxy”: not only does error precede truth, but the two are mirror images of one another.100 Moreover, it can be difficult to determine the difference between them – not least because “heresy” is often more popular of the two (Hom. 2.18). Who, then, is here imagined as “heretical”? Consistent with the apostolic narrative setting of the Homilies, no reference is made to any specific post-apostolic group. Rather, the nature of “heresy” is sketched solely by means of the conflate character of Simon.101 In his speeches, he is credited with a number of Marcionite beliefs.102 At the same time, however, he is also associated with Samaritan anti-Judaism, Alexandrian philosophy, and Greco-Egyptian “magic” (e.g., 2.21–26; 5.2), and chief among his followers are an astrologer, an Alexandrian grammarian, and an Athenian Epicurean (e.g., 4.6). Consequently, as Côté has demonstrated, the Homilies departs from earlier traditions to stress Simon’s link to Hellenism.103 Within the Homilies, the figure of Simon may thus serve, not just to counter Marcionites, but also to establish the Gentile genealogy of “heresy” and to throw doubt on the “orthodoxy” of all Christians who draw on Hellenistic learning.104 “Jewish Christianity” For the authors/redactors of the Homilies, a term such as “Jewish Christianity” would have likely seemed highly redundant. The Homilies, as we have seen, depicts the apostolic age as an extension of biblical and Jewish history, marked by the opening of a parallel line of salvation for the Gentiles. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the terms “Christian” and “Christianity” are never used in the Homilies. The text speaks of Jews (and Pharisees in particular) as heirs to the teachings of the prophet Moses. Peter and Barnabus refer to their own Jewish ethnicity and selfidentify with Jews and Israel (e.g., 1.13; 3.4; 9.20). Even when referring to Clement and other Gentile followers of Jesus, the text refrains from distinguishing them as “Christians.” Most often, they are termed “God————— 99 On the heresiologial comments in the Ecclesiastical History, together with their various sources, see e.g. Grant, Eusebius, 84–96; Barnes, Constantine, 133–35. 100 On the parallels between Peter and Simon, see Côté, Thème, 23–29. 101 That the Pseudo-Clementine Simon is a conflate character, not to be identified with any single group or figure, has been convincingly established by D. Côté, “Fonction,” 513–23; see also Edwards, “Clementina,” 462. 102 A. Salles, “Simon le magicien ou Marcion?” VC 12 (1958) 197–224. 103 Côté, Thème, 195–96. 104 I here summarize the results of my more focused inquiries into the issue in “Heresiology” and “From Judaism and Hellenism.” “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 31 fearers” (theosebeis), the well-known label that we find elsewhere applied to Gentile sympathizers with Judaism.105 Moreover, in Hom. 11.16, the term “Jew” is redefined so as to include Jewish followers of Moses as well as Gentile followers of Jesus: If anyone acts impiously, he is not pious. In the same way, if a foreigner keeps the Law, he is a Jew (ean ho allophulos ton nomon praksê, Ioudaios estin), while he who does not is a Greek (mê praksas de Hellên). For the Jew, believing in God, keeps the Law (ho gar Ioudaios pisteuôn theô poiei ton nomon). (Hom. 11.16) The category of “Jew” here denotes anyone who follows the Law that God laid out for them. As a result, the category of “apostle” is not a subset or paradigm of “Christian”; rather, it serves to mark adherence to the true religion proclaimed by Moses and Jesus, in contrast to polytheistic and idolatrous “pagan” religions and the “heresies” that use Christ’s name to promote false beliefs and impure practices. If Christianity and Judaism appear to be different, the reader of the Homilies is assured that this is only because God chose to hide the prophet of one from the followers of the other (8.6). Even as the Homilies thus acknowledges that most Jews and Christians are blind to Christianity’s true nature as the divine disclosure of Judaism to other nations, it depicts those who understand as specially blessed. Through the mouth of the Jewish apostle Peter, the authors/redactors reveal that no one is richer in wisdom than the few who embrace both Moses and Jesus: If anyone has been thought worthy to recognize by himself both (i.e. Moses and Jesus) as preaching one doctrine (kataksiôtheiê tous amphoterous epignônai hôs mias didaskalias hup’ autôn kekrugmenês), that one has been counted rich in God, understanding both the old things as new in time and the new things as old” (Hom. 8.7; cf. Rec. 4.5). Through Peter, they thus propose that there are two paths to salvation, and the two paths are actually one. Jews can be saved as Jews; Christians can be saved as Christians; and “Jewish Christians” are the best of all. By contrast, Eusebius promotes an image of Christianity as a new/old ethnos (e.g., 1.1.9) with a history and religion distinct from those of the Jews. To this effort, Jewish converts to Christianity would seem to pose a problem. Not only does their combination of Christian belief and Jewish ethnicity undermine his claims concerning the historical and spiritual disjunction between Judaism and Abrahamic/Christian religion, but the very fact of their belief in Jesus as messiah might speak against his theory ————— 105 E.g. J. Reynolds and R. Tannebaum, Jews and God-Fearers at Aphrodisias: Greek Inscriptions with Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987) 48–66. 32 Annette Yoshiko Reed that God brought the destruction of the Temple and other calamities to punish the Jews for rejecting Jesus and his apostles.106 Arguably, Eusebius solves such problems through his account of the Jerusalem church, on the one hand, and his description of the Ebionites, on the other. Both accounts echo his treatment of Judaism in poignant ways. And, in each case, issues of succession are emphasized. We noted above how Eusebius stresses the discontinuity in Jewish history in multiple ways, extricating Abrahamic religion from Judaism and stressing the breaks in the lines of Jewish prophetic, royal, and priestly succession. Similarly, in his description of the Jerusalem church, there is a striking over-determination in the assertion of discontinuity. When discussing the first Jewish revolt against Rome (III 5–8), Eusebius famously claims that the Christians of Jerusalem left the city for Pella prior to the Roman siege of 70 CE: Furthermore, the people of the Jerusalem church (tou laou tês en Hierosolumois ekklêseias), by means of a prophesy given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the city before the war began and settle in a town in Peraea called Pella. When those who believed in Christ from Jerusalem migrated (tôn eis Christon pepisteukotôn apo tês Hierousalêm metôkismenôn), it was as if holy men had utterly abandoned the royal metropolis of the Jews and the entire Jewish land, and the judgment of God (hê ek theo dikê) at last overtook them for their crimes against Christ and his apostles, completely blotting that wicked generation from among men. (Hist. eccl. III 5.3)107 Following this passage, we might infer that there was no Christian presence in Jerusalem between the first Jewish War and the city’s repopulation by Gentile Christians. Yet, when Eusebius later recounts the succession of bishops at Jerusalem (IV 5.1–4), he lists its “Jewish Christian” bishops up to the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt: All are said to have been Hebrews (Hebraious) in origin, who had received the knowledge of Christ legitimately (tên gnôsin tou Christou gnêsiôs ————— 106 That the problem of “Jewish Christianity” was a “live” issue for Eusebius may be confirmed by several instances in which he seems to have changed his mind on related topics; see Grant, Eusebius, 15. 107 The historicity of the tradition has been hotly debated. See e.g. J. Munck, “Jewish Christianity in Post-Apostolic Times,” NTS 6 (1959) 103–4; M. Simon, “La migration à Pella: Légende ou réalité?” Recherches de science religieuse 60 (1972) 37–54; G. Lüdemann, “The Successors of Pre-70 Jerusalem Christianity: A Critical Evaluation of the Pella Tradition,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 1, The Shaping of Christianity in the Second and Third Centuries, ed. E.P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 161–73; J. Verheyden, “The Flight of Christians to Pella,” Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 66 (1990) 368–84; J. Wehnert, “Die Auswanderung der Jerusalemer Christen nach Pella – historische Faktum oder theologische Konstruktion?” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 102 (1991) 321–55. For our present purposes, its accuracy proves less significant than its function in Eusebius’ depiction of the fate of apostolic “Jewish Christianity.” “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? katadeksasthai), with the result that those in a position to decide such matters judged them worthy of the episcopal office. For at that time their whole church consisted of Hebrew believers (eks Hebraiôn pistôn) who had continued from apostolic times (apo tôn apostolôn) down to the later siege in which the Jews, after revolting a second time from the Romans, were overwhelmed in a full-scale war. (Hist. eccl. IV 5.2) 33 In contrast to Hist. eccl. III 5.3, this passage assumes a Christian presence in Jerusalem after 70 CE. Here, Eusebius argues that it was the Bar Kokhba Revolt (IV 6.1–3) that marked the break in the apostolic continuity of the Jerusalem church: When in this way the city (i.e. Jerusalem) had been emptied of the Jewish nation (eis erêmian tou Ioudaiôn ethnous) and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants (pantelê te phthoran tôn palai oikêtorôn), it was colonized by a different race (elthousês eks allophulou te genous sunoikistheisês) and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia, in honor of the emperor Aelius Hadrian. And as the church there was now composed of Gentiles (tês autothi ekklêsias eks ethnôn sugkrotêtheisês), the first one to assume the government of it, after the bishops of the circumcision (meta tous ek peritomês episkopous), was Marcus. (Hist. eccl. IV 6.4). To make this argument, Eusebius must posit that the life-spans of Jerusalem’s first fifteen bishops were all extremely brief (IV 5.1). Nevertheless, he stresses that the “Jewish Christian” succession at Jerusalem was lost in 135 CE. From that point onwards – according to Eusebius – the bishops at Jerusalem were all Gentiles (see V 12). Whereas Eusebius’ account of the flight to Pella served to extricate the fate of Jerusalem’s Christians from the fate of the Jews, the list of Jerusalemite bishops conflates them: not only was the break in their succession caused by the purportedly deserved calamities upon the Jews, but it resulted in the replacement of Jews by Gentiles, simultaneously in the city of Jerusalem and within the Jerusalem church.108 From a chronological perspective, the details of these two accounts of the Jerusalem church are contradictory. The two accounts, however, work together to make one point very clear: the Jerusalem church was marred by discontinuities, all caused by its geographical and ethnic associations with the Jews. Furthermore, through his descriptions of the sect of the Ebionites (III 27; V 8.10; VI 17), Eusebius effectively distinguishes the apostolic ————— 108 The limitation of the influence of the Jerusalem church may also reflect Eusebius’ general tendency, in his early writings, to downplay the sanctity of Jerusalem, associate it with Jewish failure, and deny it any central place in Christian thought – as no doubt spurred, at least in part, by the ecclesiastical rivalry between Jerusalem and Caesarea in his own time. See further P.W.L. Walker, Holy City, Holy Places? Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990) 51–92. 34 Annette Yoshiko Reed “Jewish Christianity” of the Jerusalem church from all forms of “Jewish Christianity” that came afterwards.109 In second-hand sources like the heresiologies of Epiphanius and the sermons of John Chrysostom – as well as in first-hand sources like the Homilies – we find hints of continued efforts, by some late antique Christians, to combine Jewish and Christian identities in ways that differed from the combination that later came to be defined as “Christian.”110 For Eusebius, however, the Ebionites emblematize the “heretical” nature of all such efforts. For Eusebius, “Jewish Christianity” is numbered among the many and diverse “heretical” corruptions of the single and unchanging “orthodoxy” that was established already in the apostolic age – an “orthodoxy” that Eusebius defines with primary appeal to the apostle Paul and to the Gentile Christians who came after him. In Eusebius’ schema, Ebionites are actually the heirs, not to the apostolic “Jewish Christianity” of the Jerusalem Church, but rather to the “heresy” of Simon Magus. Unlike the Jews and the Jerusalem church, the Ebionites are granted participation in a unbroken line of succession. This, however, is a line of error, which runs straight back to Simon by means of Menander (III 26–27). As in the Homilies, Simon is thus placed in a genealogy of error that parallels and threatens the “orthodoxy” vouchsafed by apostolic succession. Whereas the Homilies uses this trope to associate “heresy” with Hellenism, Eusebius draws the lines of “heretical” succession so to include, amongst Simon’s heirs, all Christ-believers who reject Paul and observe the Torah (III 27). ————— 109 The continuity between the Jerusalem church and post-apostolic forms of “Jewish Christianity” remains a topic of debate. For different assessments, see e.g. Schoeps, Theologie; J. Munck, “Primitive Jewish Christianity and late Jewish Christianity: Continuation or Rupture?” in Aspects du Judéo-Christianisme: Colloque de Strasbourg, 23–25 avril 1964 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965) 77–94; J. Taylor, “The Phenomenon of Early Jewish-Christianity: Reality or Scholarly Invention?” VigChr 44 (1990) 313–34. 110 R.L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1983) 66–94; J.G. Gager, “Jews, Christians, and the Dangerous Ones in Between,” in Interpretation in Religion, ed. S. Biderman and B. Scharfstein (Leiden: Brill, 1992) 249–57; Reed, “Jewish Christianity,” 193, 227–30. With regard to “Jewish Christians,” S.G. Wilson concludes that “the evidence seems to point neither to their rapid marginalization nor to their dominance after 70 CE, but rather to their survival as a significant minority”; Related Strangers: Jews and Christians, 70–170 C.E. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 158. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 35 History and Counter-history In modern historiography, it is Eusebius’ image of the past that has prevailed. As Arthur Droge notes, the reception of the Ecclesiastical History has been largely marked by the embrace of his overall picture of Christian history: From the publication of the Ecclesiastical History down to the modern era the history of early Christianity has been written and rewritten in the terms established by Eusebius. Not until the publication in 1934 of Walter Bauer’s Rechtgläbigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum was the Eusebian view of church history finally deconstructed and reconfigured. Though Eusebius’ accuracy and veracity as a historian had been challenged by numerous scholars, from antiquity to the present, his description of the contours of early Christian history had generally been endorsed.111 Of course, modern scholars of early Christianity have had no choice but to depend on Eusebius. For a number of figures, events, and texts, he is our main or only source. Hence, it is perhaps not surprising that many of his opinions have become absorbed, naturalized, and internalized in the scholarly discourse about the development of Christianity. To this day, a number of his overarching categories and concerns are arguably embricated in the field of Patristics – embodied in its disciplinary boundaries and reinforced by the trajectories of training and research.112 With regard to “heresy,” “paganism,” and Judaism, some efforts have been made to move beyond Eusebius’ meta-narratives. Just as Walter Bauer shed doubt on the Eusebian view of “heresy” as secondary and derivative,113 so Marcel Simon challenged the portrayal of post-70 ————— 111 Droge, “Apologetic Dimensions,” 506. On the late antique, medieval, and early modern reception of the Ecclesiastical History – and especially the resurgence of its influence after the Protestant Reformation – see Momigliano, Classical Foundations, 141–52; G.F. Chesnut, “Eusebius, Augustine, Orosius, and the Late Patristic and Medieval Christian Historians,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, 687–713; I. Backus, “Calvin’s judgment of Eusebius of Caesarea: An analysis,” Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991) 419–37. 112 Brock notes that “(t)he all pervasive influence of Eusebius has meant that the existence of a third cultural tradition, represented by Syriac Christianity, has consistently been neglected or marginalized by church historians, both ancient and modern” (“Eusebius,” 212; so too A.H. Becker, “Beyond the Spatial and Temporal Limes: Questioning the ‘Parting of the Ways’ Outside the Roman Empire,” in Ways that Never Parted, esp. 373–74). Arguably, Eusebius’ depiction of Judaism has similarly helped to excuse generations of Patristics scholars from the need to study the literature and languages of late antique Judaism. 113 Bauer’s alternative account of “orthodoxy” and “heresy” is arguably founded on his interpretation of the Ecclesiastical History as an apologetic account with many deliberate omissions and misrepresentations; Rechtgläubigkeit und ketzerei im altesten Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934; rev.ed. by G. Strecker, 1964) e.g. 135–49. 36 Annette Yoshiko Reed Judaism as a religion in decline.114 The insights of the former have been debated and developed, particularly in the wake of the discoveries at Nag Hammadi,115 while the insights of the latter are still being refined, not least because of increased interaction between scholars of Judaism and Christianity.116 Likewise, the continued vitality – and, indeed, resurgence – of late antique “paganism” has been stressed by Peter Brown and others, concurrent with the emergence of “Late Antiquity” as a lively subfield of History.117 With respect to “Jewish Christianity,” however, Eusebian models still remain regnant. It is perhaps telling, for instance, that when Bauer deconstructed Eusebius’ depiction of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” he neglected to consider those who saw Jewish practice as consonant with belief in Christ. Even in the revised edition of Rechtgläbigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, “Jewish Christianity” earns only an Appendix.118 Likewise, even when Simon mounted a concerted challenge to traditional views of Judaism’s post-70 decline, he still dismissed “Jewish Christians” as ossified relics of the apostolic past.119 Although the bulk of our evidence for “Jewish Christianity” comes from the late third, fourth, and fifth centuries CE, most scholars persist in characterizing its post-apostolic fate as one of deterioration and/or irrelevance.120 And, just as Eusebius frames the story of “Jewish Christianity” as a tale of a first-century phenomenon that died with the ————— 114 M. Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (AD 135–425), trans. H. McKeating (London: Littman, 1996). 115 See e.g. G. Strecker, “The Reception of the Book” (rev. R.A. Kraft), in W. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, trans. and ed. by R.A. Kraft and G. Kroedel with a team from PSCO (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 286–316; D.J. Harrington, “The Reception of Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity during the Last Decade,” HTR 73 (1980) 289–98; K.L. King, What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2003) esp. 110–15. 116 See e.g., A.I. Baumgarten, “Marcel Simon’s Verus Israel as a Contribution to Jewish History,” HTR 92 (1999) 465–78, and the essays collected in Limor and Stroumsa, eds., Contra Iudaeos, and Becker and Reed, eds., Ways that Never Parted. 117 See e.g., P. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, AD 150–750 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971) 70–95; G. Fowden, “Bishops and Temples in the Eastern Roman Empire 320–425,” JTS 29 (1978) 53–78; R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale UP, 1981) esp. 62–72; R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Knopf, 1987); P. Chuvin, A Chronicle of the Last Pagans, trans. B.A. Archer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1990). 118 I.e., G. Strecker, “The Problem of Jewish Christianity,” in Orthodoxy and Heresy, 241–85. 119 Simon, Verus Israel, 238–44. 120 E.g., J. Carleton Paget, “Jewish Christianity,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3, The Early Roman Period, ed. W. Horbury, W.D. Davies, and J. Sturdy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999) 750–52; A.J. Saldarini, “The Social World of Christian Jews and Jewish Christians,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities, 154. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 37 rise of the Gentile church, so research on “Jewish Christians” still remains the domain of specialists in the New Testament and Christian Origins. The phenomenon remains little discussed in research on Late Antiquity. Somewhat surprisingly, post-modern studies have followed much the same path. In recent years, scholars have increasingly turned our attention to the rhetorical and discursive features of our late antique Christian literature. Inspired by post-structural approaches to language and postcolonialist approaches to power, they have read the writings of Eusebius and other Church Fathers – not as unmediated descriptions of a fullyformed “Christianity” with an ancient and obvious “orthodoxy” – but rather as part of the very process of constructing and promoting these categories and concepts.121 Such approaches have had exciting results, which have greatly enriched our understanding of Patristic literature, pushing us to read these texts with new attention to their gaps and silences as well as to the power struggles that their rhetorics can hide. At the same time, however, such approaches have sometimes served to re-inscribe one of the most trenchant biases in the field of Patristics, namely, the privileging of retrospectively “orthodox” writings.122 If earlier research had accepted Eusebius’ own claim to be an objective archivist of the history of Christian “orthodoxy,” more recent studies have tended to frame him as one of its architects – those who are ultimately responsible for creating, by means of their powerful rhetorics, “Christianity” as we know it. And, whereas earlier scholarship had naively accepted the negative assessment of “Jewish Christianity” by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and others, such new approaches often relegate “Jewish Christians” to the role of the suppressed, treating our evidence for “Jewish Christianity” merely as an echo of the varied Christian voices that were silenced, excluded, and disenfranchised by literate elites in Late Antiquity. Daniel Boyarin, for instance, often cites the Pseudo-Clementines as evidence for the permeability between “Jewish” and “Christian” traditions “on the ground.”123 For him, however, this evidence forms part ————— 121 On this important recent shift in the field of Patristics see Clark, History, Theory, Text, as well as the essays collected in D.B. Martin and P.C. Miller, eds., The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography (Durham: Duke UP, 2005). 122 In this too, the influence of Eusebius is perhaps not irrelevant, inasmuch as his efforts contributed to the elevation of a select group of early Christian authors and philosophers (including, perhaps most strikingly, the much embattled Origen) to the status of “Church Fathers.” 123 E.g., D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Judaism and Christianity (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999) 29–30; idem, Border Lines: The Partition of Judeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) 43. 38 Annette Yoshiko Reed of the backdrop for his assertion that “Judaism” and “Christianity” were largely products of hegemonic discourse.124 As a result, he disembodies second-hand statements about “Jewish Christian” groups, like the Ebionites, from any connection to social reality.125 Accepting that the religious landscape of Roman Palestine had long been devoid of any actual “Jewish Christians,” he reads these figures as a discursive embodiment of the fear of hybridity, produced – as if by thought experiment – by elite efforts to articulate a pure Christianity.126 In light of the influence of Eusebius and the Ecclesiastical History, it may indeed be tempting to dismiss the Homilies as merely a remnant of the variety of lived forms of Christianity disenfranchised by elite discourses of self-definition. Yet, as we have seen, the authors/redactors of the Homilies are themselves engaged with the problem of how to construct “orthodoxy.” They are hardly passive subjects of this discourse. Rather, they seek to engage as participants. Moreover, the reception-history of the Homilies belies any effort to assert the isolation or marginality of their contribution. The Homilies was translated into Syriac soon after its composition.127 In the East, it circulated in its original Greek as well as in multiple epitomes, which were translated into Arabic and other languages.128 Quotations from the Homilies are also found in the writings of Byzantine chronographers.129 In addition, the Homilies shaped views of the apostolic age in the West, ————— 124 Boyarin, Border Lines, passim. 125 I do not mean to suggest, of course, that we should take Patristic comments about “Ebionites” simply at face value. More plausibly, Eusebius and others apply the traditional heresiological rubric of “Ebionism” to a range of different groups in their own time, who combined elements of Jewish and Christian identity in ways that jarred with their own understandings of “Christianity”; see A.F.J. Klijn and G.J. Reinink, Patristic Evidences for Jewish-Christian Sects (Supp.NovT 36; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 43. Accordingly, the relationship between the Pseudo-Clementines and Ebionites is likely indirect. 126 Boyarin, Border Lines, 207–9. For a similar critique of Boyarin’s reading of our evidence for “Jewish Christianity,” see C. Fonrobert, “Jewish Christians, Judaizers, and Anti-Judaism,” in A People’s History of Christianity, vol. 2, Late Ancient Christianity, ed. V. Burrus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) 253–54. 127 A Syriac translation of portions of the Homilies (≈ 10–14) survives, together with portions of the Recognitions (1–4), in a manuscript from 411 CE (British Museum add. 12150). For the text, see W. Frankenberg, Die syrischen Clementinen mit griechishem Paralleltext: Eine Vorarbeit zu dem literargeschichtlichen Problem der Sammlung (TU 48.3; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1937). 128 For editions, etc., see references in Jones, “Pseudo-Clementines,” 6–7, 80–84. 129 As noted throughout Rehm, Homilien; e.g. 70, 72–73, 77, 85, 133, 277. See also W.A. Adler, “Abraham’s Refutation of Astrology: An Excerpt for Pseudo-Clement in the Chronicon of George the Monk,” in Things Revealed: Studies in Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone, ed. E.G. Chazon, D. Satran, and R.A. Clements (SuppJSJ 89; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 227–42. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 39 in an indirect fashion, due to the reworking of the Pseudo-Clementine novel in the Recognitions and its Latin translation by Rufinus – the same translator responsible for redacting and translating Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History.130 From the meta-narratives of modern scholarship, we might expect the reception-histories of the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History to have followed different paths. What is surprising, however, is how comparably little – at least in the early period – they seem to differ. Both texts found early audiences among Syrian Christians; both were used by chronographers in the Greek East; and both circulated in the Latin West in redacted forms, mediated by Rufinus. It is not yet possible to reconcile all these pieces of evidence. Further analysis of the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History is needed to determine the precise meaning of the contrasts and connections noted above, and more work will need to be done if we wish to uncover the social realities that may have shaped the late antique creation and reception of these divergent perspectives on the apostolic past. I suggest, however, that we might best begin by examining the most direct evidence for social practice found in these sources, namely, the evidence for the practice of writing. As noted above, the Homilies and Ecclesiastical History are significantly shaped by the practices of selecting, collecting, redacting, and reworking earlier sources. More specifically, the Ecclesiastical History is a “parade example” of counterhistory – the process by which another group’s history and sources are appropriated and reworked in the service of contrasting aims.131 To tell the story of Judaism’s demise, Eusebius quotes heavily from Josephus and Philo. Likewise, to tell the tale of the decline of “Jewish Christianity,” he draws heavily on Hegesippus, whose own account of the apostolic age appears to have lionized James and the Jerusalem church; the possibility that Hegesippus himself may have been a “Jewish Christian” makes Eusebius’ appropriation of his writings all the more striking.132 Moreover, Eusebius seems to know of some sources in the Pseudo-Clementine tradition and perhaps even makes use of them.133 ————— 130 Rufinus’ Latin translation of the Recognitions is dated to 406/7 CE and survives in over a hundred manuscripts; see B. Rehm, Die Pseudoklementinen, vol. 2, Rekognitionen in Rufinus Übersetzung (GCS 51; Berlin: Akademie, 1969). On his translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, see F. Thelamon, Païens et Chrétiens au IVe siècle: L’apport de l’Histoire ecclésiastique de Rufin d’Aquilée (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1981). 131 I use this category in the sense outlined in Funkenstein, Perceptions, 36–49; S. Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1998) esp. 14–16. 132 For a recent discussion of Hegesippus’ identity see F.S. Jones, “Hegesippus as a Source for the History of Jewish Christianity,” in Le Judéo-Christianisme dans tous ses 40 Annette Yoshiko Reed Intriguing, in my view, is the possibility that the Homilies was compiled, at least in part, to counter this counter-history.134 No less than Eusebius, the authors/redactors of the Homilies engage in the fourthcentury discourse about “orthodoxy,” using the apostolic past to promote models of authenticity and authority in the present. Here too, the practices of collection, redaction, and reinterpretation are central, and they serve a means of enshrining certain memories while negating others. In the service of their own vision of an authentically apostolic Christianity in radical continuity with Judaism, they invoke the sayings of Jesus, and they evoke the image, not only of the apostle Peter, but also of the Gentile bishop Clement. They allude to Paul in order to exclude him. Much like the Ecclesiastical History, the Homilies opens a window onto one picture of the late antique church, constructed by means of the preservation and reinterpretation of a carefully selected slice of its literary heritage and history. But, whereas Eusebius self-consciously pens a history cobbled from written documents derived from archives, the authors/redactors of the Homilies marshal their sources towards a different aim: they claim to preserve Clement’s own first-hand account of his life and his eye-witness testimony to the mission and teachings of the apostle Peter. If I am correct to interpret the contrasts between the two accounts in terms of active competition, we might further ask: is it possible to situate this discursive contestation in its social context? At present, of course, we can only speculate. It may be significant, however, that so many elements of Eusebius’ understanding of Christianity are maligned as “heretically” Hellenistic by the Homilies. Eusebius, as a self-styled heir to Origen and Pamphilus, embraces allegorical interpretation and philosophical learning.135 The Homilies, however, denounces all Greek paideia as “pagan” error, and its authors/redactors dismiss allegory and philosophy as merely a smoke-screen for the polytheism and impiety to which “pagans” and “heretics” are demonically addicted (e.g., 2.22, 25; 4.12– ————— états, ed. S.C. Mimouni with F.S. Jones (Paris: Cerf, 2001) 201–12. For our present purposes, the question of whether Hegisippus was a Jewish convert to Christianity proves less significant than the fact that Eusebius perceives and presents him as such because of his knowledge of Hebrew or Aramaic and because of his familiarity with “other matters as if taken from the Jewish unwritten tradition (eks Ioudaikês agraphou paradoseôs)” (Hist. eccl. IV 22.9). 133 See discussion above. 134 I.e., whereas the early third-century source preserved in Rec. 1.27–71 may counter Luke-Acts (see above), the redacted form of the Homilies may counter late antique accounts that develop Luke-Acts. If so, then it proves particularly fitting that both Pseudo-Clementine novels so readily served – many centuries later – as a basis for F.C. Baur’s modern counter-history of apostolic times. 135 Barnes, Constantine, 81–105. “Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory? 41 20; 6.17–23).136 Whereas Eusebius expands apostolic succession to include Alexandrian Christian philosophers and depicts the Egyptian city as an ancient center of Christian philosophical wisdom,137 the Homilies presents Alexandria as a nexus of all things pernicious – including philosophy and allegory as well as sorcery, polytheism, astrology, “heresy,” and anti-Judaism (Hom. 1.8–14; 2.22; 4–6 esp. 4.4).138 Such contrasts may point us to the possibility that the discursive contestation over the apostolic past in these two texts may speak to another struggle, coming in the wake of the importation of Alexandrian forms of Christianity into Syro-Palestine due to the influence of Origen, Pamphilus, and Eusebius in Caesaria. It is possible, for instance, that the literary activity that shaped the Homilies may represent the response of other forms of Christianity, perhaps native to the area.139 If some Syrian and Palestinian Christians were claiming continuity with the Jerusalem church, it might help us to understand why Eusebius might make such efforts to disenfranchise “Jewish Christianity” in the first place. In turn, if there were some Christians in the area who viewed themselves as heirs to the Jerusalem church of James and Peter, they might well be alarmed at the growing dominance of strikingly different views of Judaism, Hellenism, and Christianity. Of course, further research is needed to determine the precise sociohistorical setting and literary aims of the Homilies. Nevertheless, it is my hope that the above inquiry has helped to expose the significance of this text for our understanding of the place of “Jewish Christianity” in late antique Christian history and modern historiography. When we consider the Homilies and our other evidence for “Jewish Christianity” on their own terms – without trying to fit them into the historical narratives outlined by Eusebius and others – what emerges is a richer picture of on-going debates about Judaism, often waged on the stage of the apostolic past. In many of our late antique sources, the age of the apostles is depicted as a pivot between Judaism and Christianity: it is ————— 136 Note esp. Clement’s assertion in Hom. 4.12.1: “Therefore I say that the entire paideia of the Greeks is a most dreadful fabrication of a wicked demon (autika goun egô tên pasan Hellênôn paideian kakou daimonos chalepôtatên hupothesin einai legô).” On the critique of paideia in the Homilies, see Adler, “Apion’s enconomium”; Reed, “From Hellenism and Judaism.” On the polemic against allegory, see Shuve, “Doctrine of the False Pericopes.” 137 Grant, Eusebius, 46–47, 72–76. 138 See also Hom. 6.23; 9.6; 10.16–18 on Egyptian religion as paradigmatic of false worship. 139 I here build on Pierluigi Piovanelli’s suggestion about the social and cultural context that shaped the anti-Pauline traditions in the Ethiopian Book of the Cock; see “The Book of the Cock and the Rediscovery of Ancient Jewish-Christian traditions in Fifth-Century Palestine,” in Changing Face, 308–22. 42 Annette Yoshiko Reed presented as the era in which the truth of the church’s supersession of Judaism was actualized, as Christians multiplied and spread while Jews fell victim to war and destruction. This supersessionist narrative, however, was clearly not the only option. A very different version of events seems to have remained vital and viable, in the fourth century and beyond. If Boyarin and others are correct to see the fourth century as a critical era for the setting of the boundaries between “Judaism” and “Christianity” in the Roman Empire,140 then the Homilies also provides us with neglected evidence for the resistance that these efforts faced. Such resistance surely resonated in rich ways with the Syrian cultural context of the Pseudo-Clementine tradition.141 The wide reception of the PseudoClementine literature, however, cautions us against dismissing its message as relevant only for a certain locale. The example of the Homilies might also serve to remind us – as modern historians – of the dangers of depending too heavily on retrospectively “orthodox” accounts. Eusebius makes efforts to extricate Judaism from Christian history, but his own use of sources hints at the enduring place of both Judaism and “Jewish Christianity” in that history. Moreover, even in his own time, Eusebius’ vision of the apostolic past appears to have been contested. In the Homilies, we may hear the answers of voices now forgotten, who resisted the efforts of those who sought to inscribe, in apostolic history, the decline of the Jews, the irrelevance of “Jewish Christianity,” and the parting of the church from its connections to a living Judaism. ————— 140 E.g. Boyarin, Dying, 18; G. Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the Fourth Century, trans. R. Tuschling (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000) 1– 2. 141 E.g. R. Kimelman, “Identifying Jews and Christians in Roman Syria-Palestine,” in Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures, ed. E.M. Meyers (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 301–333; R.M. Grant, “Jewish Christianity at Antioch in the Second Century,” in Judéo-Christianisme: Recherches historiques et théologiques offertes en homage au Cardinal Jean Daniélou (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972) 93–108; A.F.J. Klijn, “The Study of Jewish Christianity,” NTS 20 (1973–74) 428–31; Strecker, Judenchristentum, esp. 260; idem, “Problem,” 244–71; C. Fonrobert, “The Didascalia Apostolorum: A Mishnah for the Disciples of Jesus,” JECS 9 (2001) 483–509; Wilken, John Chrysostom; H.J.W. Drijvers, “Edessa und das jüdische Christentum,” VigChr 24 (1970) 3–33; idem, “Syrian Christianity and Judaism,” in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London: Routledge, 1992) 124–46, esp. 142–43 on the fourth century; Kelley, Knowledge, 197–200.