The death of Jesus of Nazareth by crucifixion was the source of numerous difficulties for early proponents of Christianity. Paul's statement to the Corinthians, “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a cause of offense and to the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor 1:23), was not hyperbolic rhetoric, but a sober assessment of the difficulty of proclaiming a condemned criminal to be the “Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). The fundamental problem is obvious: a crucified Lord struck most ancients as an oxymoron.Early Christian authors were keenly aware of the negative associations of the cross; see Justin, 1 Apol. 13.4; Origen, Cels. 6.10; Lactantius, Inst. 4.26 and Epit. 50–51. The gospels did little to overcome the problem from a pagan perspective; in some cases they even exacerbated it. For example, Celsus, the learned and perceptive second-century critic of Christianity, found that the manner in which the evangelists described Jesus as he faced death undermined Christian claims for him. He wrote: “Why does he howl, lament, and pray to escape the fear of destruction, expressing himself in a manner like this: ‘Oh Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass’?”Origen, Cels. 6.10. Origen countered by pointing out that Celsus had doctored the texts by adding “lament” and omitting the all-important qualifying clause that demonstrates Jesus' voluntary obedience to the Father, “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”Origen, Cels. 2.24. All translations are my own. I have used the edition of Paul B. Koetschau, Origenes Werke 1 (GCS; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899). However, he found it difficult to offer much more of a rebuttal and was forced to conclude: “But these matters, which require extended discussion by the wisdom of God, and which may reasonably be considered by those whom Paul calls ‘perfect’ …we, for the present, pass by …”Ibid.

John of Patmos describes his opponents in both Smyrna and Philadelphia as “those who say that they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9; 3:9). But when the historian of early Christianity tries to give some historical dimension to these opponents, there unravels one of the signature conundrums of ancient labelling: are the opponents Jews? Non-Jews? Which interpretation is simplest, according to the criterion of Ockham's Razor? And what could these terms have meant for John? Most critically, what terms can we ourselves use to designate these parties without resorting to anachronistic definitions of “Jew” or “Christian”?

Could the Montanists have included any of the Nag Hammadi writings among the “infinite number” of writings that Hippolytus of Rome reports they considered authoritative?Hippolytus, Haer. 8.19 (ed. Marcovich, 338). Heresiological sources give us little information regarding what might have been included within a Montanist canon. We know from the Church Fathers that the New Prophecy possessed its own inspired writings.Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.20.3 (SC 41:120); Didymus, Trin. 3.41 (PG 39:84); and later, Jerome, Ep. 41(“Ad Marcellam”); Pacian of Barcelona, Ep. 1 ad Symp. 2. Indeed, in the fourth century Eusebius charges them with having created “new scriptures”Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.20.3 (SC 41:120); see also 5.18.5 in which Apollonius reports that the Montanist Themiso composed a new “catholic” epistle. In 5.16.17 Eusebius's anonymous source refers to “a work according to Asterius Urbanus” to introduce an oracle.—presumably the collections of oracular statements that Hippolytus claims circulated under the names of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and about which the bishop of Rome complains that “they allege that they have learned more from these than from the law, and the prophets and the Gospels.”Hippolytus, Haer. 8.19; see also Epiphanius, Pan. 48.7 on the Montanists' mistaken theological interpretations of the scriptures. On the other hand, Eusebius's late contemporary, Epiphanius, makes it clear that members of the New Prophecy did not reject more traditional scriptures.See Epiphanius, Pan. 48.7 and Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.17.3 on the Montanist use of the Hebrew Scriptures, including Gen 2:21, Num 12:7, Isa 1:2 and 6:1, and Ezek 4:8–12—all passages that justify ecstatic prophecy. The Christian canon was not yet fixed before the fourth century, making the categories of “canonical” versus “non-canonical” unhelpful here. Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 132, suggests that the Montanists most likely knew and used the popular Shepherd of Hermas—part of many early canons although rejected as too recent a composition by the Muratorian Canon—as well as the non-canonical Apocalypse of Peter. For their barbs against their theological opponents, they adopted Matthew's castigation of “prophet-slayers”;Compare, for instance, Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.16.12 with Matt 23:34. The Anonymous also quotes Matt 7:15; Apollonius quotes Matt 10:9–10 and 12:33. they also certainly favored Paul, upon whom they appeared to have drawn to justify their stance on prophecy, and—certainly by the fourth century—the Gospel of John, for their notion that Montanus himself was the Paraclete or “Spirit of God.”An overview of the subject can be found in F. E. Vokes, “The Use of Scripture in the Montanist Controversy,” in Studia Evangelica: Papers Presented to the International Congress of the Four Gospels in 1957 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959) 317–20. For a refutation of the widely-held assumption that the Montanists drew upon the Gospel of John to assert that Montanus was the Paraclete, see Ronald E. Heine, “The Role of the Gospel of John in the Montanist Controversy,” SecCent 6 (1987) 1–19. See also Trevett, Montanism, 129–31, who remains uncommitted as to whether or not the Montanists used the Fourth Gospel, but who emphasizes the importance of Paul. Their use of the Book of Revelation has been widely debated, but seems likely.Trevett, Montanism, 130ff. The argument for the primacy of Revelation in Montanist circles was first made by Hans von Campenhausen in Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power (trans. J. A. Baker; Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1969) 47–48; see also W. M. Calder, “Philadelphia and Montanism,” BJRL 7 (1923) 309–54. But could the Montanists have read—and considered authoritative—any of the writings now preserved in the Nag Hammadi Library?

The view that early Christians neither defined themselves nor were perceived in terms of race or ethnicity finds support in a broad spectrum of scholarly and popular thought.This article is revised from a lecture delivered in the New Testament and Early Christian Studies Lecture Series at the Harvard Divinity School on November 7, 2000. A fellowship in the Bunting Fellowship Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study this year has enabled me to write the book to which this article pertains. Caroline Johnson Hodge, Cathy Silber, Francesca Sawaya, Augusta Rohrbach, Lisa Herschbach, and especially Karen King offered valuable suggestions in the preparation of the piece. In addition, Bernadette Brooten, François Bovon, Ellen Aitken, Larry Wills, Yuko Taniguchi, and Adam Marlowe provided useful feedback on the lecture. I want to suggest, however, that ethnicity and race have in fact been central to formulations of early Christian self-definition—in two quite different ways, one historical and the other historiographic. First, ancient ideas about race and ethnicity were valuable for early Christians in their varying attempts to define Christianness; many early Christians defined themselves using ethnic reasoning, that is, by using language that their contemporaries would have understood as racial or ethnic. Second, modern ideas about race and ethnicity, as well as about religion, have also shaped understandings of early Christian self-definition but have led to the opposite conclusion—namely, that Christians, from the very beginning, viewed race as a form of human difference to be transcended or made irrelevant.

[squf ] Hebrew Names of Biblical Books in the Margins of Matenadaran, Ms 1500

The question whether medieval Armenian scholars knew Hebrew has been raised a number of times in the past.See F. Macler, “Les traducteurs arméniens, ont-ils utilisé l’hébreu,” Handes Amsorya 41 (1927) 606–16; see also M. E. Stone, “The Armenian Apocryphal Literature: Translation and Creation,” in Il Caucaso: Cerniera fra culture dal Mediterraneo alla Persia (Secoli IV–XI) (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto Medioevo, 1996) 614 n. 9. A more detailed discussion is to be found in idem, “The Reception of Jewish and Biblical Traditions among the Armenians,” in From Ararat to Jerusalem: Montpellier Conference Volume (ed. C. Iancu and G. Dédéyan, forthcoming). There are certainly odds and ends of Hebrew, transliterated into Armenian, in different sources.One such is the Armenian version of Epiphanius's De mensuris et ponderibus: see M. E. Stone and R. R. Ervine, The Armenian Fragments of Epiphanius De Mensuris et Ponderibus (Subsidia of CSCO; Leuven: Peeters, 2000). See also M. E. Stone, “Concerning the Seventy-Two Translators: Armenian Fragments of Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures,” HTR 73 (1980) 331–36. In the Matenadaran manuscript M1500, the famous Miscellany of Mexit‘ar of Ayrivank‘ dated 1271-1285, we observed Hebrew names of the biblical books written in the margins. Unfortunately, these have not been published in full, but the following examples were recorded many years ago in the course of an autopsy examination of the manuscript. It is not certain that at that time we copied all the names, but this list is significant since it can be set into relationship with the Hebrew names in the translation of Jerome given below. We decided, therefore, to list even this partial evidence here. The names are clearly corrupted at a number of points, but some of the transliterations resemble those of the Armenian translation of Jerome, cited next. Note, for example, the shared corruption sost‘im for Judges in both lists, derived from *sop‘t‘im or the like, reflecting Hebrew. Other examples can easily be listed. This means that there was a literary relationship between the two lists, but it cannot be determined in which direction it flowed.

[squf ] Elizabeth Ann Graham Brock [Ph.D. 2000]

Authority, Politics, and Gender in Early Christianity: Mary, Peter, and the Portrayal of Leadership

This dissertation examines the ways in which early Christian authors chose individual figures from the group of Jesus' companions and claimed apostolic authority for their message. It indicates ways in which the usage of the name of a particular apostle operated as a useful tool of persuasion in the polemics, apologetics, and self-descriptions in early Christian texts. An especially intriguing element concerning apostolic authority occurs in early Christian texts as they display contradictions even within the canon as to which figures received a resurrection appearance from Jesus. This conflict concerning representation is a critical one, especially with respect to Mary Magdalene and Peter, because a resurrection appearance often functioned in the attribution of apostolic status and authority. On the basis of a resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene, for instance, as well as Jesus' commissioning her in the Garden, other women could and did claim the authority to preach and proclaim the good news. Therefore, the choice of the primary figures in a text, especially in the resurrection narratives, and their substitutions in translations reveals more than arbitrary character choices but clues to the politics of the text. One example is the Acts of Philip which in the Coptic version omits Mary Magdalene from the original Greek version and replaces her character with Peter. Evidence from non-canonical works, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and Pistis Sophia pushes the findings of this research past the limitations of many previous investigations of Mary Magdalene and Peter that have too often remained within canonical boundaries. This research contends that the status and gender of the central characters in various texts reveal a pattern that—whenever Peter figures prominently as a primary authority, female leadership figures are significantly diminished, often nonexistent. An historical study of such tensions within the early Christian circles continues to have relevance in current Christian discourse because the questions of authority, apostolic status, and women's ordination remain divisive issues even among church bodies today.