It is now a truism that the publication in 1977 of E. P. Sanders's, Paul and Palestinian Judaism marked a watershed in Pauline interpretation.E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SCM, 1977). For the critique of the traditional interpretation, see esp. 33–59. Sanders outlawed once and forever from Christian scholarship the old legalistic caricature of Judaism that generations of Christians had derived from Paul.See also Sanders's more specific study, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). For subsequent critiques along the same lines see F. Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles (SNTSMS 56; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986)1–22. Note, however, that Watson has modified his view more recently. See also S. K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) 1–5, 13–16, 258–60. That caricature stemmed largely from Martin Luther's identification of the battle in which he saw himself engaged in the sixteenth century with what he believed to be Paul's struggle in the mid-first century: namely, that both were confronting a religion of works-righteousness, exemplified in the one case by certain tendencies of late-medieval Catholicism and in the other by Judaism.

The goal of this investigation may be stated simply. We present here some preliminary reflections on the dynamic between two setsI use the word “sets” here advisedly. Much of my own work has argued that the Hebrew Bible presents us with two purity systems: the “ritual” one, which is concerned with natural and unavoidable defilements, and the “moral” one, which is concerned with the defiling force of sexual transgression, idolatry, and murder. See Kawans, “The Impurity of Immorality in Ancient Judaism,” JJS 48 (1997) 1–16, and Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). The plural, “systems,” also may well apply to sacrifices: some sacrifices are performed inside the sanctuary (e.g., burnt offerings), and some sacrifices are performed outside (e.g., the Passover offering [Exod 12]). Moreover, some offerings are performed daily, and some are performed seasonally; some are obligatory and some are optional. It ought not to be assumed that any theory or explanation could account for all of these types of sacrifices and offerings, not all of which even involve blood or altars. Hence, we will speak here provisionally of sacrificial systems, while particular attention will be paid to certain types of animal sacrifice. of biblical ritual structures that are intricately interrelated: defilement and sacrifice.The bibliography on sacrifice in ancient Israel is too vast to be surveyed briefly, to say nothing of the literature concerned with sacrifice in other religious traditions. We note here some works with a particularly useful, important, or distinctive approach. On sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible in general, see Gary A. Anderson, “Sacrifice and Sacrificial Offerings (OT),” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (ed. David Noel Freedman; 6 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 5:870–86, and H. H. Rowley, “The Meaning of Sacrifice in the Old Testament,” in From Moses to Qumran (New York: Association Press, 1963) 67–107. A more detailed survey of biblical sacrificial rituals can be found in Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 415–56 and Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1964). The classic theories of E. B. Tyler, J. G. Frazer, and W. Robertson Smith are discussed in the works by Anderson and de Vaux cited above. Perhaps the most enduring of the older works on sacrifice is Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). For surveys of recent works on sacrifice in general, see Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (ed. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); Richard D. Hecht, “Studies on Sacrifice, 1970–1980,” Religious Studies Review 8 (1982) 253–59; and Ivan Strenski, “Between Theory and Speciality: Sacrifice in the 90's,” Religious Studies Review 22 (1996) 10–20. A convenient discussion of many biblical sacrificial rituals within the context of their physical and social setting can be found in Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1985). For a sensitive treatment of priestly rituals building largely on the work of Victor Turner, see Frank H. Gorman, Jr., The Ideology of Ritual: Space, Time and Status in the Priestly Theology (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990). Important discussions of the terminology of sacrificial rituals and texts can be found in Gary A. Anderson, Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel: Studies in their Social and Political Importance (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) and Baruch A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord: A Study of Cult and Some Cultic Terms in Ancient Israel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974). For an analysis of ancient Israelite sacrifice through the lens of gender studies, see Nancy Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). But compare the critique in Strenski, “Sacrifice in the 90's,” 13–14. Useful discussions of sacrifice can also be found in some recent commentaries on Leviticus, including, in particular, Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1992) and Gordon J. Wanham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1979). The bibliography that informs my understanding of purity in ancient Israel can be found in my articles devoted to that subject, including “The Impurity of Immorality,” and my book, Impurity and Sin.

Among the most distinctive discoveries from the excavations of the Roman synagogue at Sardis were many inscriptions in Greek on stone and in mosaic pavements. These proved to record gifts of portions of the rich interior decorations of the building: sections of tesselated mosaic pavement, panels with colorful, ornate cut marble mosaic wall decoration (opus sectile or skoutlosis), and various furnishings and elements of the architecture. The builders and patrons who transformed this elongated space, which had originally performed some other function in the immense Roman civic complex of the bath-gymnasium, into the house of worship for the Jewish community of Sardis, worked for generations cooperatively (and probably in some cases competitively as well) to adorn the interior and provide its rich furnishings in a manner appropriate for conducting worship in the most splendid and dignified setting possible.

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.

Since its discovery and excavation in the 1960s, the Synagogue at Sardis has taken its place as the most significant monument of diaspora Judaism in Roman Asia Minor.For their assistance and involvement with this study, I especially wish to thank Marianne Bonz, Katherine Kiefer, David Mitten, Andrew Seager, Jane Scott, Thomas Kraabel, and L. Michael White, and Walter Ameling. Notable for its size, richness, basilical form, and prominent location within the city, the Synagogue is exceptional also for the more than eighty inscriptions recovered from its interior. With the exception of six fragments in Hebrew,To be published by Frank M. Cross in the final Synagogue volume. The Hebrew texts, all inscribed on fragments of marble wall revetment, give the words, “Peace (Shalom)” (Hanfmann 1972, fig. 86; Seager and Kraabel 1983, 171, fig. 269) and “vow” (twice each), and two proper names, Yohanan and Severus (formerly read as “Verus” [Hanfmann 1967, 25, n. 25; Seager and Kraabel 1983, 171, 179, n. 9]). the inscriptions are in Greek and for the most part commemorate members of the congregation who contributed the many elements of interior decoration: the mosaics on the floor, the marbling of the walls, and a number of architectural and ritual furnishings.

Most Christian and Jewish scholars have been heavily invested in asserting the radical difference and total separation of Christianity from Judaism at a very early period. Thus we find the following view expressed by one of the leading historians of dogma in our time, Basil Studer: From the socio-political point of view Christianity fairly soon broke away from Judaism. Already by about 130 the final break had been effected. This certainly contributed to an even greater openness towards religious and cultural influences from the Greco-Roman environment. Not without reason, then, it is exactly at that time that the rise of antijudaistic and hellenophile gnostic trends is alleged. Christian theology began gradually to draw away from Judaic tendencies. … In the course of separation from the Synagogue and of rapprochement with the pagan world, theology itself became more open towards the thinking of antiquity with its scientific methods. This is particularly evident in the exegesis of Holy Scripture in which the chasm separating it from rabbinic methods broadened and deepened, whereas the ancient art of interpretation as it was exercised especially in Alexandria gained the upper hand.Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church (ed. Andrew Louth; trans. Matthias Westerhoff; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993) 14.

The existence of a cult of Kore at Samaria-Sebaste in the Roman period is attested by inscriptions, a statue of the goddess, depictions of her on the city's coins, and the remains of a third century temple building. A Ptolemaic period dedicatory inscription to Sarapis and Isis found in the vicinity of the Kore temple's foundations suggests that a Hellenistic shrine or temple to these Egyptian deities once stood in this area. In this paper, I reexamine the archaeological, numismatic, and epigraphic evidence for these cults at Samaria-Sebaste in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I conclude that the cult of Isis and Sarapis was established at Samaria in the Hellenistic period.I am grateful to Kenneth G. Holum, Peter Richardson, and Hanan Eshel for their advice and comments on portions of this paper. I assume sole responsibility for its contents. I would like to thank the Palestine Exploration Fund for their permission to reproduce the illustrations in Figures 1–3. It was centered around a shrine or temple located on a terrace north of the acropolis. This structure may have been rebuilt in the Gabinian period (mid-first century B.C.E.). After 30 B.C.E., Herod the Great erected a new temple on this spot, which he dedicated to the goddess Kore, the Greco-Roman equivalent of Isis. The architectural elements associated with the Hellenistic shrine of Isis and Herod's temple of Kore were incorporated in the foundations of a third century C.E. temple of Kore, which was the last in the series of cultic buildings constructed on this spot.

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”?

Since the early eighteenth century it has been established that Celsus was not an Epicurean despite the arguments in Origen's Contra Celsum. Rather, Celsus has been recognized as a Middle Platonist. Against the long scholarly tradition based on Origen's writings,Johann Lorenz von Mosheim mentions: Caesar Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, tom. 2 (Rome: Congregations Oratorij apud S. Mariam in Vallicella, 1594), ad A.D. 132, § XVI–XIX, 89; Gulielmus Spencerus, Annotationes ad Origenis octo libros contra Celsum (Cambridge: J. Hayes/G. Morden, 1677) 2–3; Henric Dodwell, Dissertationes in Irenaeum: Accedit fragmentum Philippi Sidetae hactenus ineditum de Catechistarum Alexandrinorum successione cum notis (Oxford: E. Theatro Scheldoniano, 1689) 499–501; Joannes Jonsius; De scriptoribus Historiae Philososophicae lib. IV (Frankfurt: Th. M. Götzius, 1659) 332; Samuel Basnagius, Annales Politico-Ecclesiastici, tom. II (Rotterdam: R. Leers, 1706), ad A.D. 137, 80; Henricus Valesius, Annotationes in Historiam Ecclesiasticam Eusebii Caesariensis, attached to Historiae Ecclesiasticae scriptores Graecae (Amsterdam: H. Wetstenius, 1695) 115; Jo. Albertus Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graecae (Hamburg: Chr. Liebezeit/Th. Chr. Felginer, 1718), lib. III, cap. 33, 809 (Celsus appears in his Catalogus Epicureorum); Jo. Franciscus Buddeus, Isagoge Historico-Theologica ad Theologiam Universam (Leipzig: B. Thom. Fritschius, 1730), with further references. which identified Celsus as an Epicurean, Johann Lorenz von Mosheim stands out as an exception.Earlier than von Mosheim a similar argument is found in detail in Petrus Wesseling, Probabilium: Liber singularis in quo praeter alia insunt vindiciae verborum Joannis et deus erat verbum (Franecker: W. Bleck, 1735) cap. 23, 187–95. Identified as a Stoic, Celsus is mentioned by Georg Horn, Historiae philosophicae libri septem: De origine, successione, sectis & vita Philosophorum ab orbe condita ad nostram aetatem agitur (Leiden: J. Elsevires, 1655) 271.

The Dominican friar Bernard Gui (or Bernardus Guidonis, ca. 1261–1331) was papal inquisitor in Toulouse from 1307 to 1323. At the close of his inquisitorial career he wrote Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, “A Handbook for the Inquisition of Heretical Depravity.”I cite Bernard's Practica from the edition by C. Douais (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1886) and from the edition of part 5 by G. Mollat with the assistance of G. Drioux, Bernard Gui, Manuel de l'inquisiteur (2 vols.; Paris: Honoré Champion, 1927). The following works, which are cited frequently, are cited by author's name and brief title: Antoine Dondaine, “Le manuel de l'inquisiteur (1230–1330),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 17 (1947) 85–194; Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, Vol. 2: 1254–1314 (ed. Kenneth Stow; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1988); Shlomo Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews: Documents 492–1404 (Studies and Texts 94; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988) and The Apostolic See and the Jews: History (Studies and Texts 109; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991); Walter Wakefield and Austin Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969; repr., 1991); Yosef H. Yerushalmi, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bernard Gui,” HTR 63 (1970) 317–76. On Bernard Gui, see Wakefield and Evans, Heresies 373–75; Yerushalmi, “Inquisition”; A. Vernet, “Guidonis, Bernardo,” Lexikon des Mittelalters 1 (1980) 1976–78; Bernard Gui et son monde (Cahiers de Fanjeaux 16; Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1981); Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982) 89–96. In this work Bernard sets out in great detail everything one needs to know in order to be an effective inquisitor: the proper legal forms for drawing up accusations, summoning witnesses, and remanding suspects into custody; the proper questions to use in cross-examining suspects; the assessment of evidence for guilt versus innocence; the hallmarks of true confession, contrition, and repentance; the appropriate punishments for the condemned; the legal authority for the Inquisition; and, in part 5, the concluding and perhaps most interesting part of the entire work, a detailed description of the errors and sects that threaten the church and require the vigilance of the Inquisition: the Manichees (Cathari), Waldensians (Poor of Lyon), Pseudo-Apostles (Apostles of Christ), Beguins (Poor Brethren), Jews, and sorcerers. The four chapters on the Jews focus on two themes: first, Jews draw Christians away from Christianity; second, Jews in their prayers and in their books blaspheme Christ and the Church. The first theme is introduced in the first chapter and developed in the second, which describes the rite by which the Jews “rejudaize” Jews who had become Christians. The second theme is the subject of the fourth and concluding chapter, which is entitled “On the Intolerable Blasphemy of the Jews against Christ, Christianity, and Christians,” and describes in some detail how the Jews curse Christ in their prayers and pray for the downfall of the Catholic Church. Both themes appear in the third chapter, which contains an interrogation script entitled “A List of Questions Specifically for Jews and Those Who Have Been Rejudaized.”De perfidia Judeorum, Practica 5.5.1–4 (Douais 288–92; Mollat-Drioux 2.6–19). For a translation of part 5, see Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, 375–445. All translations in this essay are mine except as noted.

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?

In his sixth demonstration, Aphrahat, the fourth-century Persian Christian sage, describes the behavior of the bnay qyama, the “members of the covenant,” through the image of the “yoke of the holy-ones.” These men, often called, ihidaye, “single-ones,” or “single-minded-ones,” are a celibate elite. The ihidaye's sexual status separates them psychologically and physically from the rest of the Christian community.While some scholars, including Jean Parisot (Patrologia Syriaca 1.240) have translated ihidaya as “monk,” Parisot goes so far as to render the title of the sixth demonstration, “Concerning the ihidaya,” as “De Monachis.” John Gwyn (NPNF, Sec. ser., 13.362) follows suit with “Of Monks.” This translation is anachronistic at best as Arthur Vööbus has pointed out (The History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient 1 [Louvain: CSCO 184, 1958] 106, 220). Even if in later generations the single ones became associated with the monastic movement, these early celibates were not monastic. They continued to live and function within their communities. Yet the sexual behavior of these men is more than a lifestyle choice; it is a religious vocation of sexual continence embodied in the name they bear, “single-ones,” as well as the “holy-yoke” they wear.

The writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein have inspired countless philosophical reflections in the brief half-century since they first began circulating in English and German. In the past several decades theologians have added their own contributions, applying Wittgenstein's observations about language and human behavior to talking about God and other religious concepts. Recent writers such as Fergus Kerr and D. Z. Phillips have drawn on Wittgenstein's cryptic statements to emphasize the intrinsic role of language in religious life.See especially Fergus Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), and D. Z. Phillips, Wittgenstein and Religion (London: St. Martin's Press, 1993). My brief summary however, in giving only a general sense of their priorities, hardly does justice to the complexity of their thought. These writers critique, though with different aims, the notion that religious language refers primarily to some metaphysical realm which is either difficult or impossible to access, whether this is the private inner self, barred from investigation, or the distant God dwelling in heaven far above us. The above-mentioned theologians take their cue from Wittgenstein's emphasis on seeing clearly the multitude of different, embodied forms of life in which language arises and takes on meaning. In the context of religious language, they stress that words about God and other religious concepts, even when they seem to refer to invisible entities, deal primarily with our current embodied reality. They insist that religious language cannot be dismissed as unverifiable metaphysics, and they critique those who use it as a means of fantasizing about hidden realms.

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.

The “hermeneutics of suspicion,” which has emerged in recent times as a lens for examining historical texts, is a hermeneutic which involves a fundamental philosophical reorientation.See Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969); Paul Ricœur, The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (ed. Don Ihde; Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974); Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (translation edited by Garrett Barden and John Cumming; New York: Seabury Press, 1975). Consciousness, which was once considered to be perceptually transparent in a Cartesian manner and linguistically transparent in a Wittgensteinian way, is now considered to consist primarily of the relationship between the hidden and the shown, between what is concealed and what is revealed.Rowan Williams, “The Suspicion of Suspicion: Wittgenstein and Bonhoeffer,” The Grammar of the Heart (ed. Richard H. Bell; San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988) 36–53. Consciousness therefore needs decoding, and so also the texts which embody it. This understanding of consciousness is the fundamental assumption underlying the “hermeneutics of suspicion” as it was espoused by Paul Ricoeur, who referred repeatedly to the three “masters of suspicion”: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud.Paul Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay in Interpretation (trans. Denis Savage; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970) 32. While these three might appear “seemingly mutually exclusive,”Ibid. for all three “the fundamental category of consciousness is the relation of hidden-shown or, if you prefer, simulated-manifested.”Ibid., 33–34. I leave it to the reader to decide whether Michel Foucault and Edward Said should now be incuded in this list. The case for René Descartes is less clear. See Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought (trans. Jane Marie Todd; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998) 79–81. The basic hermeneutical implication of their thought points in the same direction—a text may not be taken at its face value, indeed the face of a text may be no more than a mask which conceals underlying socio-economic, political, and psychological realities in such a way as to obscure them, or render them more palatable, if not more acceptable.

[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.