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The “Divine Hero” Christology in the New Testament*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Wilfred L. Knox
Wilfred L. Knox
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge, England
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Extract

[I am deeply indebted to Professor A. D. Nock for his kindness in reading this paper in its first draft and for his invaluable criticisms and suggestions.]

In the Christology of the New Testament we are faced with two distinct methods of expressing the belief of the Church as to the person of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Of the belief that He was merely a great human teacher we find no trace; the Church would never have come into being, if it had not believed that He had risen from the dead. As we all know, the Christology that prevailed was that which saw in Him the Incarnation of the divine Word or Wisdom, which was at once the divine and living pattern of the cosmos, the agent by which the cosmos was created, and the divine mind immanent in the cosmos and more particularly in the mind of man. It was inevitable that this cosmogony should triumph in the end, since it was the only one which could, with whatever difficulty, be formally reconciled with Jewish monotheism; moreover it transferred the Lord from the realm of eschatology, which meant nothing to the Greek convert, into the sphere of cosmogony which was one of the central problems of the semi-Gnostic philosophy and theology of the hellenistic age, as we meet it in the Corpus Hermeticum.

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Research Article
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , October 1948 , pp. 229 - 249
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1948

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References

1 Even if we suppose that the Ebionites represent a very primitive type of Jewish Christianity, their belief is not that Jesus was a mere man, but that He was a man on whom Christ descended at His baptism, agreeing with Cerinthus (Irenaeus, 1 21f., Harvey); cf. Epiph. Panar. 1.30.3 and the Gospel of the Hebrews quoted by Jerome on Is. 11.2 (James Apocr. N.T. 5). To others He is Adam or the aeon manifested in Adam reappearing in person in Jesus; for this view cf. Clem. Hom. 3.20, Clem. Rec. 1.45. Schmidt, Studien zu den Ps. Klem. dates this element of the pseudo-Clementines to about 200 A.D., but with a long history behind it, agreeing with Harnack. Cf., however, Rehm in Z.N.W. 37 (1938) 77ff. who holds that Epiphanius' Ebionite doctrines are drawn from the Clementines; in any case his introduction of the legendary founder Ebion, who held that Christ was a mere man, cannot be pressed, since there is no reason to believe that such a founder ever existed.

2 Yet in the much shorter Galatians σταυρός and its derivatives occur seven times, to which should be added the κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου of 3.13. On the other hand ἀποθνήσκω is used eight times of Christ in Ro. as against once in Gal.

3 It is not an “adoptionist” Christology, as Lietzmann rightly points out, (Hdb. z. N.T. ad loc), for He was the son of God before he was born in the flesh, just as He was “in the form of God” in Phil. 2.6, and “rich” before He became “poor” in 2 Cor. 8.9. Str.-B. ad loc. regard the disappearance of “son of God” as a description of the Messiah from rabbinical literature as due to polemical motives. Moore (Judaism 2.344) rightly remarks that the “pre-existence” of the Messiah has been given an exaggerated importance; but the imaginative language of apocalyptic writers on this point would acquire an entirely new significance when the historical Jesus was recognized as the Messiah by the Church. The use of the title “son of God” in 4 Esdras seems well-established; in 1 Enoch 105.2 we probably have a Christian interpolation; Dalman's suspicion is confirmed by its absence from the Greek (cf. Campbell Bonner, The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek 4). The difficulty was the “pre-existence” not of the Messiah but of Jesus, cf. Justin, Dial. 48 (267 b).

4 Theodoret's view, quoted by Lietzmann ad loc., is undoubtedly right, but is causal rather than temporal; for ὸρισθέντος = “constituted” cf. Meleager of Gadara, Anth. Pal. 12.158 σὲ ϒὰρ θεὸν ὣρισε δαἱμων.

5 The best doctrinal statement on deities of this class and their relation to the Olympians, as understood by hellenistic philosophy, is perhaps Philo, Leg. ad Gaium 78–114 (from a pagan source, cf. Hellenistic Elements 48). Cf. Chrysippus, ap. Aet. Plac. 1.6, Plutarch, Pelopidas 16 (286) with the same distinction between the immortals and those who attained to divinity by service (Heracles and Dionysus). Cf. also Celsus quoted by Orig., c. Cels. 3.22 and 42 and 7.53. The care with which Origen rubs in the sins of such figures is perhaps worth noting.

6 For the earlier development of this conception cf. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Euripides, Heracles 1.334f. For the later cf. preceding note and Epictetus, Diss. 2.16.44, 3.24.13 (for which cf. n. 53 below) and 36.32 Zeno, ap. Tatian adv. Gr. 14 (Schwartz, 3.27), Lucian, Deor. Dial. 13, Bis Acc. 20, Cyn. 13. (For Heracles as patron of Cynics cf. Lucian, Conv. 16, Fug. 23f., Peregr. 24 and 33.) Cf. further Dio Chrys., Or 2 (Dind. 1.38.13), 5 (1.94.15), and 30 (1.338.13) Aristides, Or. 40 (Keil 2.325f.); for a comic protest cf. Athenaeus, Deipn. 12.6 (512e). As the type of the σπονδαῖος he appears in the collection of commonplaces which Philo has preserved in order to incorporate into it his account of the Essenes, Q.O.P.L. 98f.; for the tract cf. Schürer, G.J.V. 3.675f. Cf. Nock, in J.R.S. XXXVII (1947) 106Google Scholar: — “(Heracles) had a hagiography if not a Gospel.”

7 For the view cf. Pfister, , A.R.W. XXXIV (1937) 42ffGoogle Scholar. I have nothing to add to Rose's refutation in H.T.R. XXXI (1938) 2.113ffGoogle Scholar.

8 Since Heracles was venerated as the ἀρχηϒός of Tarsus, it might be urged that Paul was influenced by this “theology”; at least he would be more likely to have heard of him than of Mithras as has sometimes been suggested. But he would merely have regarded him as a dead man, deified at the suggestion of demons, and regarded as their patron by some schools of philosophers; he might have known enough of his adventures to refute the idea. But it is highly doubtful whether he had ever spent any considerable part of his life at Tarsus (cf. Hellenistic Elements 30). It was belief that Jesus had risen from the dead to become the Lord of the Church, that made it necessary to regard him as of divine origin, not the need to make him a rival of Heracles. (For Heracles = Sandon at Tarsus cf. P.W.K. Ia. 2265 s.v. If St. Paul had heard of him it would have been in his hellenized form.)

9 For the resemblances (and differences) between Christian and pagan ideas cf. Nock, Conversion c. 13; cf. also Wendland in Z.N.W. 1904.350 for the σωτήρ concept as one of the forms which made Jesus intelligible to the pagan world.

10 For the whole subject cf. Wendland, Die hell-röm. Kultur, 75ff., and Norden, Agnostos Theos 125ff. with an undue emphasis on the oriental element except insofar as this is purely Jewish. For Rom. 1.18ff. as a deliberate parody of a synagogue tirade with a Cynic demolition of it cf. Hellenistic Elements 31ff. For a striking parallel cf. 1 Cor. 9.1 and Epict. Diss. 3.22.48. For Philo's connections with Stoicism and Cynicism cf. Bréhier, Les Idées Phil. et Rel. de Philon d'Alexandrie 261ff.

11 Cf. n. 5 above for Philo; for his general attitude to pagan mythology cf. De Gig. 58, De Post. Cain, 52, De Sacr. Ab. et Cain, 76 De Op. Mund. 1f.

12 Diodorus Siculus, 1.9.1ff. gives an account of the divine origin and infancylegend of Heracles, drawn apparently from the encomium of Matris of Thebes (for Diodorus' sources for Heracles cf. Schwartz in P.W.K. 5.673ff.; for the encomium of Matris, cf. Hobein, ib. 14.2296; it may have been a panegyric delivered at a feast of Heracles). The stories of the birth of Alexander are given by Plutarch, Alex. 2. The Nectanebos legend (Ps. Callisth. ed. Kroll 5) made him the son of the last Pharaoh and therefore of Amon-Re, cf. Tarn, Alexander the Great 2.354. Alexander's own attitude is perhaps best expressed by the Jewish interpolator of Ps. Callisth (on whom cf. Pfister in Sitzb. d. Heid. Akad. (1914) xi, 32) to the effect that ὀυκ ἢθελε Nεκτανεβῶ παῖς λοϒίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ φιλίππου μὲν, ἐκ θεῶν δέ; the passage is of interest as showing a Jewish understanding of the Hellenistic point of view which we should hardly expect. Suetonius' chapters dealing with the birth of Julius Caesar are missing, and there seems no evidence for an infancy-legend; he was of course of divine origin through his descent from Venus; for a more exalted view cf. the inscription of Ephesus (Syll. 347 = 760.7) τὸν ἀπὸ Ἂρεως καὶ 'Aφροδίτης θεὸν ἐπιφανῆ καὶ κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου σωτῆρα. For Augustus cf. Suet., Augustus 94; among other points he is the child of Apollo (from Asclepius of Mende).

For the whole theme cf. Weber, Der Prophet u. sein Gott 95ff. He traces the belief in a deliverer of divine origin who is nonetheless human to the primitive belief in a quasi-divine ancestor, revived by later generations out of the longing for a deliverer who will inaugurate a new world-age. (Ib. 119ff. with material for Zoroaster, Buddha, Alexander, Augustus, etc). But Heracles' miraculous origin and infancy-legends appear to be part of the original myth, and can hardly be related to this scheme. On the other hand the child who is to introduce the new age in Virgil, Ecl. 4.49 is cara deum suboles, magnum Iovis incrementum, but there is no suggestion of a miraculous birth.

13 For the identification of Jesus with the Wisdom-Logos, cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 113ff.

14 For the two Heracles cf. Herodotus 2.44 where Egyptian and Tyrian deities are equated with Heracles and used to prove that the god and the hero were different. For Cleanthes cf. v. Arnim, Stoic. vett. Frr. 1.514, p. 115 from Cornutus' Epidrome 31. Cf. for this Hellenistic Elements 39; see also p. 49, n. 1. Macrobius, Sat. 1.20.6 has the same distinction: Hercules is the sun, the son of Alcmena was one of several heroes who were honored by being allowed to bear the name. But Macrobius belongs to a sophisticated age.

15 Thus the well-informed account of Stoic allegorization in Clem., Hom. 6.16 makes him the symbol of the ϒνήσιος καὶ φιλόσοφος νοῦς which goes about the world taming the hearts of men. For Nοῦς here cf. Corp. Herm. 1.6 and 22, where it is both a creative power and the divine element in man which raises him from the material to the spiritual order. (Cf. Festugierère's notes ad loc.) So in Philo, Leg. Alleg. 3.80ff. Melchisedech is at once the kingly as against the tyrannical mind and the cosmic Logos.

For Seneca Heracles is normally the hero-deliverer cf. De Benef. 1.13, where he is contrasted with Alexander from the hostile point of view of the Stoic republican tradition (cf. Tarn. op. cit. 2.69). In Dial. 2.2.1. he is regarded as one of the sapientes. But in De Benef. 4.8.1 Jupiter is stator because all things stand through him; he is also Liber as parent of all things and Hercules because he is invincible and returns to pure fire at the end of each world-age; he is Mercury because with him is reason, number, order and knowledge. Cf. also Plut., De Is. et Os. 40 (367c).

16 Antt. Rom. 1.40.

17 Cf. the hymn described in Virgil, Aen. 8.287. Salve vera Iovis proles decus addite divis and Lucian, Deor. Conc. 6, in addition to the references in n. 12 above.

18 For the career of Heracles cf. Diod. Sic., 4.8.1 (from Matris), 4.38.5 (from a mythographical handbook), 4.53.7 (from the Argonaut-romance of Dionysius of Scytobrachium). For Alexander cf. Tarn, op. cit. 1.2 and 124; for the element of truth in the stories of Alexander's imitation of Heracles, ib. 2.51, and for the legend 2.56. For the hellenistic ideal of kingship cf. Kärst, Gesch. d. Hellenismus 1.500; cf. Dio Chrys., Or. 1 (Dind. 1.18.30) where Trajan is told that Heracles is a savior because he overthrew tyrants as he still does; but he is βοηθός σοι καὶ φύλαξ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἕως ἂν τυϒΧάνῃς βασιλεύων; cf. also Plut., De Fort, vel Virt. Alex. 2.11 (341e), with an interesting parallel to Lk. 2.46.

For a comic attack on the view of Heracles as a conquering monarch cf. Athenaeus quoted in n. 6 above. As a parallel to Alexander in his relation to Heracles cf. Diod. Sic., 4.19.2; Alesia was built by Heracles as a colony for his troops and remained impregnable until taken by Julius Caesar. It seems that it needs a god to capture a city built by a god.

19 Jno. 1.13; or does this refer to their new birth in baptism? The copyist responsible for the v.l δς ἐϒεννήθη clearly did not understand it in this sense and tried to avoid the difficulty, which the first-century Christian, used to pagan ideas, would not feel. Cf. 1 Jno. 3.1, where “we are called” and “are” the sons of God, for which we have parallels in Epict., Diss. 2.16.44; since Heracles cared more for the will of God than for anything else he was believed to be and was the son of Zeus; cf. Dio Chrys., 4 (Dind. 1.68.28ff) and Plutarch, De Reg. et Imp. Apophth. (Alex. 7. 180a) for an “adoptionist” explanation.

20 Cf. Scaevola (apparently quoted from Varro) ap. Aug. De Civ. Dei 4.27; one of the dangers of philosophical theology is that it teaches the public that Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux and Hercules cannot be gods, since they were men; ib. 3.4 for Varro's view of the utility of such a belief and the account of his views by the interpolator of Servius on Virg., Aen. 8.275. For the meaning (or lack of meaning) in the deifications of the Diadochi cf. Ferguson in C.A.H. VII 14ff.

21 For the meaning of ἁρπαϒμός cf. Jaeger, in Hermes 50 (1915) 537ffGoogle Scholar.

22 Cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 83f.

23 De Prof. in Virt. 10 (Mor. 81c).

24 De Fort. vel Virt. Alex. 1.8 (330d).

25 Cf. ib. 11 (341a) where Alexander is represented as imitating Heracles, and 6(329a) where Alexander is praised for realizing in practice the ideal of Zeno of uniting all mankind in one state with one βίος and one κόσμος. Clearly we cannot suppose a direct connection; but it is hard to resist the conclusion that St. Paul and Plutarch are both drawing on a commonplace of popular philosophic rhetoric, which originally may well have referred to Heracles.

26 Diod. Sic., 4.38.5.

27 Pap. Ox. XI 1381.198ff. For the view that Phil. 2.10 is to be explained from the religious background of the magical papyri cf. Reitzenstein, Hell. Myst. Rel. (3) 357ff.

28 Heitmüller, Im Namen Jesu 65ff. seems to me entirely right in insisting that the “name” is Jesus not κύριος (so Lietzmann in Hdb. z.n.T. ad loc). In the first place κύριος is not really a name at all unless we take it in its LXX sense as the equivalent of the tetragrammaton. But it seems most unlikely that St. Paul would simply have equated Jesus with the God of the O.T., who remains for him the Father. On the other hand the illogicality of supposing that Jesus received His name at His exaltation, when He had in fact held it all along, would not trouble a hellenistic writer, least of all one who held St. Paul's doctrine of predestination. Grammatically it seems quite impossible to suppose that the name which is above every name is different from the name at which every knee must bow, or that the latter name is not Jesus.

29 Cf. Philo, De Mut. Nom. 60ff. and Hellenistic Elements 35.

30 Philo, De Conf. Ling. 62 and 146.

31 For a quite overwhelming argument against the view that the Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of the sacred books of some mystery-sect with close affinities with hellenistic Judaism cf. Festugière, La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste 1.81ff. As against the view that Philo has anything to do with a Jewish “mystery-religion” cf. Wolfson, Philo 1.44ff.

32 A specimen of this relation is the address to “the first-born God” (the sun) in P.M.G. 1.197ff, which reappears with slight variations and a remarkable enlargement at 4.1169ff. The latter papyrus is the older; (“Diocletian at latest” as against 4/5th century according to Preisendanz). In 4 the god is not first-born; he created the world and sustains it, and he possesses a holy name that is magnified by the angels; he is the creator of angels and decans who stand by him and lift up the heaven καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐπεμαρτύρησέ σου τῆ σοφίᾳ, ὃ ἐστιν 'Aιών … καὶ εἶπέν σεσθένειν ὃσον καὶ αủτὸς σθένει. The papyrus goes on to invoke the name of 100 letters τὸ διῆκον ἀπὸ τοῦ στερεώματος μέχρις τοῦ βάθους τῆς ϒῆς; the 100 that follow have no obvious Jewish character except perhaps Abraoth. We then have, in Pap. 4 only, ὲπικαλοῦμαἱ αε τὸν ν τῷ χρυσῷ πετάλῳ, ῳ ὁ ἄσβεστος λύχνος διηνεκῶς παρακάεται ὁμέϒας θεός, ὁ φανεὶς ἐν ὃλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ κατὰ Ἰερονσαλὼμ μαρμαίρων. Here follows another list of 100 letters, consisting of the vowels only and ending in Iao. In the main part there has been little that is specifically Jewish, except perhaps for the hanging of the element of fire from the waters (cf. below n. 41), Wisdom might be Jewish, but presumably we are dealing with Osiris, Isis and Horus; for Isis as Wisdom, cf. Hellenistic Elements 54, as the aeon Plut., De Is. et Os. 9.354c. The concluding section has been added, presumably before the fall of Jerusalem; the writer knows of the cosmic significance of the tetragrammaton on the High Priest's mitre (Philo, Vit. Moys. 2(3).132) and of the candlestick (Q.R.D.H., 221ff.), but he confuses the latter, which was put out and relighted daily with the perpetual fire on the altar. (De Spec. Leg. 1.285). This suggests not a Jew but a Gentile drawing on Jewish liturgical language or memories of synagogue sermons. This section is clearly an addiiton; was it removed from Pap. 1 because the compiler knew that Iao was no longer interested in Jerusalem, or has Pap. 1 preserved an older version? Cf. Dieterich, Kl. Schr. 29 for a Jewish supplement to an Orphic invocation in P.M.G., 4.1455ff. It should be noted that there is no suggestion that the name of 100 letters is conferred at the time of the invocation.

33 Diod. Sic., 4.10.1, following Matris.

34 Cf. Nicolas of Damascus (F.G.H., 90. F. 130.55), where Octavian, when greeted by the army as Caesar ὲπ᾽ ἐνφήμῳ κλήδονι δέχεται τοὔνομά τε καὶ τὴνὑιοθεσίαν ἢ καὶ ἀντῷ καὶ πᾶσιν ὰνθρώποις ἀρχὴ ἀϒαθῶν ἦν. Cf. Appian, B.C. 38.

35 For Phil. 2.11 as essentially an “acclamation” cf. Peterson ΕΙΣ ϴΕΟΣ 171ff. But he seems to underrate the significance of acclamations as only “tending to apotheosis” in Jewish-Christian circles. The courtiers of Herod in Acts 12.22 and Antt. 19.345 may have included Jews as he holds against Juster; if so, they were very lax Jews; St. Luke and Josephus regard his death as a punishment for accepting the apotheosis implied. Acclamations were familiar to Jews no less than to pagans, but the Pauline κύριος here implies an apotheosis only possible because Jesus was already “lord” of the Church. Peterson's additional note p. 317 that κύριος does not imply divinity, though ὲν μορφῆ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων does, ignores the whole setting; naturally a king or emperor could be addressed as κύριος in acclamations, since the word need not imply divinity, except where it was given that specific connotation as in Mart. Polyc. 8.2 (Cf. Förster in T.W.z.N.T. s. voc. for the absence of any specific sense of divinity in the title as applied to the Emperor in the 1st century A.D.

36 For the cosmic collapse which will usher in the new world-age cf. Virgil, Ecl. 4.50ff. and the account of Hercules and Cacus Aen. 8.241ff., for which cf. Kroll, Gott u. Hölle 389.

37 Hercules Oetaeus 1106ff. on which see Kroll, op. cit., 400ff.

38 The best treatment seems to me that of Rose, The Eclogues of Vergil (The Sather Lectures, 1942) 162ff.

39 As against Kroll's interpretation of Ro. 10.7 cf. my note in St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 102; to the references add Philo Q.O.P.L. 6, where Deut. 30.14 is dragged in to suppport the commonplace which goes back at least as far as Aristotle (Fr. 52, Rose, 62.7). Ro. 14.9 simply means that Christ is Lord of those who die now; 1 Cor. 15.55 is an adaptation of Is. 25.8 and Hosea 13.14; if the harrowing of hell is implied in the personification of death, the borrowing goes back to Jewish religion of the period of the prophecies. For Eph. 4.8 (if Pauline) cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 194. Early Christian thought is essentially fluid; in Lk. 23.43 Jesus at His death goes to Paradise, the abode of the righteous dead. Mt. 27.52 does imply a descent, but is not at home with the theme; the bodies are released at the moment of the death on the Cross, but cannot rise and appear to many till they are reunited to their souls on the third day. 1 Pet. 3.18 and 4.6 seems to be dragging the idea in for its own sake; it has no relevance to the main argument.

40 Cf. Corp. Herm. 16.5 (of the sun) and Nock's note ad loc. in Festugière's edition; Plutarch describes the difficulty of maintaining the doctrine when men were ceasing to believe in a subterranean Hades (De Is. et Os. 78, 382e). For the Jewish confusion of the sea and Sheol cf. Ro. 10.6f. We meet the sacral formula as applied to the sea in the dedication to Augustus at Philae (Kaibel, 978), Καίσαριποντομέδοντι καὶ ἀπείρων κρατέοντι, Ζανὶ τῷ ἐκ Ζανὸς πάτρος ἐλευθερίῳ … δεσπότᾳ Εὺρώπας τε καὶ ᾿Ασίας ἂστρῳ ἁπάσης (cf. Norden, Die Geb. des Kindes 161, n. 3), but Virgil, Georg. 1.24 leaves it open to doubt whether Octavius will choose earth, sea or heaven as the sphere of his divinity, hoping piously that he will resist any temptation to choose the infernal regions. But the sacral formula has no doubt passed into the sphere of rhetoric, cf. Sasse in T.W.z.n.T.s.v. καταχθόνιος.

41 Cf. the Jewish-Christian prayers in 1 Clem. 59.3ff. (for their Jewish character see Lietzmann, Gesch. d. alt. Kirche 209 and Harnack, Sitzb. d. Berl. Acad. 1926.220f., but he fails to see how much is hellenistic Jewish) ; a comparison of 1 Clem. 60.1 and Ps. Arist. de Mundo 6.2ff. is instructive. Still more marked is the influence of popular philosophy in the Jewish-Christian liturgy of Const. Apost. 7.34.1ff. (see Bousset in Gött. Gel. Nachr. (1935) 435ff.). It is instructive to trace the infiltration of the thought of God as all-seeing from Homer, Il. 3.277, where the sun is the arch scandal-monger δς πάντ᾽ ἐφορᾷ καὶ πάντ᾽ ἐπακούει. As late as Zach. 4.10 the Hebrew O.T. is still writing of the eyes of the Lord as “running through the whole earth.” But in the Greek books God regularly sees all things (2 and 3 Macc., Greek Esther 15.5 (Swete)) ; in Job 34.23 the Lord ἐφορᾷ πάντα but there is nothing about this in the Hebrew. (Zach. 9.1 is a mistranslation). The prayer for vengeance (Jewish) from Athens (before 88 B.C.) appeals to God as παντεπόπτης (Deissmann, L.v.O 311ff., where further parallels are given). Epict., Diss. 2.8.14 alludes to the Homeric phrase; in Philo, De Jos. 265 Joseph quotes it without acknowledgement in comforting his brethren; cf. Or. Sib. Fr. 1.4 and 8 (Theoph., ad Autol. 2.36). For pagan usage cf. the Mandulis inscription (Nock, H.T.R.XXVII. 1.63), Vettius Valens, 1.4 and 331.20. (Kroll), Audollent, Defix. Tabellae 271.36, where a heathen imitating the LXX describes the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by the title.

For a similar conflation cf. P.M.G. 4.1172, where the sun as creator has “hung” the element of fire from water; for this cf. Corp. Herm. 1.5 where “air” follows “fire” or “spirit” to the firmament and “seems to be suspended” from it. The papyrus substitutes water for ether under Jewish influence; but “hanging” does not seem to come from the Jewish tradition; it appears in Job 26.7, but here the point is that God has hung the world on nothing. (For the whole cf. Festugière, ad loc. and Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks 123 and 222.)

For philosophy in the magical papyri cf. the scrap of pure Stoicism in P.M.G. 7.530 and “truth” and “faith” in 4.1014; for these passages cf. Kroll, De Oraculis Chaldaeis 27 and 69.

For the sun as the supreme God cf. Peterson, ЕΙΣ ϴΕΟΣ 80, who points out that the pun on Deus Sol as Deus Solus is as old as Cicero; see also Nock, in J.R.S. XXXVII (1947) 114ffGoogle Scholar.

42 Cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 108 and 220.

43 Herc. Oet. 65ff., cf. Kroll, op. cit, 404. See also Aristides, Or. 40 (Keil 2.325ff.) for Heracles as ruler under Zeus of all things below the moon, (2): so in 8 οὐδὲ τῶν κάτω ϒῆς ἠμέλησεν ὀνδὲ τῶν μἑχρι ὀυρανοῦ (cf. n. 39 above) and 15 where his adventure with Atlas is a symbol of him as κύριος ὢν καὶ τὸν ὀυρανὸν εἰς συμμε-τρίαν ἂϒειν. For Heracles as a solar deity, see Note at end.

44 Cf. n. 40 above and Lucan, Phars. 1.45ff.

45 We may compare the sceleris vestigia nostri of Virgil, Ecl. 4.13, cf. 31. Here we have only traces, for the prophet foresees in Pollio's consulate the beginning of a change for the better. (Cf. Rose, op. cit. 211.)

46 Cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, 162.

46a For world-peace as the mark of the new age (the ideal goes back ultimately to Alexander), cf. Tarn, op. cit. 2.434ff., Virgil, Ecl. 4.17 and the remarkable picture of the new age in Philo, Leg. ad G. 8ff. (This section like much of the rest of the tract is from a pagan source, note the references to altars in every city (12) and the age of Cronos (13).) For Augustus as the inaugurator of the Messianic age of peace cf. the inscription of Ephesus referred to in n. 40 above. For Seneca cf. Kroll, loc. cit., n. 37 above. The emphatic ὑμᾶς of Col. 1.21 (addressed to Gentile readers) suggests that St. Paul goes back in the last resort to the ideals of Alexander, Jews and Gentiles being substituted for Greeks and barbarians. The fear of death, release from which is a mark of the Messianic age in Heb. 2.15, does not appear in the pagan literature as a mark of the new age; immortality is implied in the Zoroastrian theology as recorded in Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 467,370b, but normally any hope of immortality is drawn from a quite different philosophical tradition from that of the new age; deliverance from the fear of death is achieved by arguments which show that there is no reason to fear it.

47 It is immaterial for our present purposes how we translate the very difficult ending of 5.7 for which cf. Windisch, ad loc. My own feeling is that the only satisfactory sense is to take the clause εἰσακουσθεὶς ἀπὸ τῆς εὐλαβείας as covering the whole of 8 and meaning that having been heard as a result of His dutiful observance of God's will He must first learn obedience by suffering and having been made perfect in this way become the means of the salvation of others and obtain the title of a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. It must be remembered that the writer's purpose is to explain what the title means and that he is a highly discursive writer; but I must admit that I doubt whether it is really possible Greek.

48 For the ἒμαθεν … ἒπαθεν assonance cf. the commentaries ad loc.

49 4 Macc. 7.15, where Eleazar is made perfect by the faithful seal of death.

50 Cf. Hellenistic Elements 11.

51 Q.O.P.L. 98ff. (Heracles, Anaxarchus, Zeno of Elea and cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 2.52; note that Calanus appears here; he occurs in Q.O.P.L. 93.) At 118 we are told of the heroism of the people of Xanthus who committed suicide rather than surrender to Brutus “imitating the constancy of Heracles.” As a specimen of Philo's methods we may note that Eur. Fr. 687 is quoted as showing the good man's freedom at Q.O.P.L. 25; it is repeated at 99 as from “Heracles in Euripides.” It may be noted that while quotations from Euripides and allusions to him are not uncommon in Philo, it is only in the latter part of Q.O.P.L. (92ff.) that his name is mentioned; Sophocles is mentioned at 19. But all this tract except the account of the Essenes appears to come from pagan sources (cf. above n. 8).

52 Lucian, Hermot. 7.(747). Lucian is of course attacking the Stoic-Cynic attitude of life, but there is no necessity to suppose that he is misrepresenting them in making them use the argument. Cf. Aristides, Or. 40 (Keil, 2.325ff.) 11 ἐπειδὴ ϒὰρἀπῆλθεν (῾Ηρακλῆς) ἐξ ἀνθρώπων καθαρθὲις δν λέϒεται πρόπον.

53 Col. 2.15, cf. St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles 169.

54 Leg. Alleg. 3.45. When Aaron dies, that is when he is made perfect, he goes up to Hur, that is to light. In De Migr. Abr. 214 perfection is attained in this life by complete emancipation from the material, cf. De Mut. Nom. 85; but for perfection as only attainable at the point of death cf. De Migr. Abr. 139.

55 De Gig. 54; when Moses has pitched his tent outside the camp and the whole host of bodily things, he can enter the darkness and stay there to be fully initiated; when he is fully initiated he can become a hierophant for others. Here the mystery-language is, as always in Philo, a mere borrowing of philosophical common-place language, cf. De Somn. 1.164. The best instances in popular philosophy are C.H. 1.26 and 7.2 (in C.H. 13 I suspect Christian influences, cf. Hellenistic Elements 91).

56 Cf. the parallels quoted by Windisch on 5.7.

57 Cf. Windisch, ad loc.

58 Diod. Sic., 3.61.6. άνθʼ ὧν μετὰ τὴν ἐξ άνθρώπων μετανάστασιν ὀνομασθῆναι μὲν Ζῆνα διὰ τὸ δοκῖν τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν αἲτιον Υένεσθαι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, καθιδρυθῆναι δʼ ἐν τῷ κοσμῳ τῆ τῶν εὖ παθόντων τιμῆ, πάντών προθύμως ἀναΥορευόντων θεὸν καὶ κύριον εἰς ἀιῶνα τοῦ σύμπαντος κόσμου. When allowance is made for the complete difference of outlook, the similarity is striking. Generally προσαγορεύω refers to the giving of a title by an inferior to a superior, as in the consalutatio as imperator (Plut., Pompey 8.6) or the proclaiming of a king by the people (Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus 8). But Philo, Mund. Op. 148 says that it is right for a ruler to name his subjects (cf. Adam naming the beasts); here he is using the word in the sense of “naming” rather than of proclaiming by a title; but we must not expect too much accuracy of N.T. writers in regard to such usages.

59 For a remarkable parallel to Jno. 14.18 in the Stoic view of Heracles cf. Hellenistic Elements 79, adding Lucian, Peregr. 5(330) οἰχήσεται ὀρφάνους ἡμᾶςκαταλιπὸν τὸ ἂγαλμα.

60 Apol. 1.54(89b), Dial. 69(249d) (omitting Perseus). Cf. Theophilus, ad Autol. 1.13 for Heracles and Dionysus as having risen from the dead. It is to be noted that Justin in Apol. 1.21 (67b) quotes from the stock attack on paganism ῾Ηρακλέα φυγῆ πόνων ἑαυτὸν πυρὶ δόντα but in Apol. 2.11(49b) quotes Xenophon's account of the choice of Heracles.

61 Orig., c. Cels. 3.42(1.238). Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 1.30 and 33 is peculiarly vitriolic in his attacks on the character of the legendary Heracles.

62 Hippolytus, El. 5.27f.