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Astrology in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2008

NICOLE KELLEY
NICOLE KELLEY
Affiliation:
Department of Religion, Florida State University, MO5 Dodd Hall, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1520, USA; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Pseudo-Clementines contain a lengthy debate about astrology that stands in some literary relationship to Bardaisan's writings. Connections with earlier works are important, but the Recognitions' fourth-century Syrian context – much neglected by earlier scholarship – reveals why it devotes such a large amount of narrative space to a dialogue about astrology, fate and free will. This article argues that such material is more than just a remnant of the past carelessly appropriated by the Pseudo-Clementines. Astrology plays a crucial role in the Recognitions' polemical agenda, which reflects a complex rivalry between several groups in fourth-century Syria.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 607 - 629
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

1 The first half of this paragraph is indebted to Christine C. Shepardson, ‘In the service of orthodoxy: anti-Jewish language and intra-Christian conflict in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian’, unpubl. PhD diss. Duke 2003, 51–3. For a recent discussion of the definitional problem of ‘Jewish Christianity’ see, for example, Annette Yoshiko Reed, ‘“Jewish Christianity” after the “parting of the ways”: approaches to historiography and self-definition in the Pseudo-Clementines’, in Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (eds), The ways that never parted: Jews and Christians in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Tübingen 2003, 189–231.

2 See, for example, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic evidence for Jewish-Christian sects, Leiden 1973, where the polemics of heresiologists such as Epiphanius are presented rather straightforwardly as evidence for earlier Jewish-Christian groups.

3 The Pseudo-Clementines, which remain relatively obscure due in large part to their complicated textual and redactional histories, are best known for preserving Jewish Christian traditions. See, for example, Georg Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen, 2nd rev. edn, Berlin 1981, and H. J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums, Tübingen 1949.

4 Shepardson, ‘In the service of orthodoxy’, passim.

5 Ibid. 56.

6 There are exceptions. See, for example, Charles Bigg, ‘The Clementine homilies’, in Studia biblica et ecclesiastica, ii, Oxford 1890, 157–93, and Schwartz, E., ‘Unzeitgemässe Beobachtungen zu den Clementinen’, Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft xxxi (1932), 151–99Google Scholar.

7 Edwards, M. J., ‘The Clementina: a Christian response to the pagan novel’, Classical Quarterly xlii (1992), 461Google Scholar. See also Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte, 38–41, and Strecker, Judenchristentum, 256, 259.

8 Reed, ‘“Jewish Christianity”’, 189–231; Albert Baumgarten, ‘Literary evidence for Jewish Christianity in the Galilee’, in L. Levine (ed.), The Galilee in late antiquity, New York 1992, 39–50.

9 On this see Baumgarten, ‘Literary evidence’, 41–7.

10 Hegedus, Tim, ‘Necessity and free will in the thought of Bardaisan of Edessa’, Laval théologique et philosophique lix (2003), 333CrossRefGoogle Scholar; H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, Assen 1966, 217. The character Bardaisan refers to ‘the new people of us Christians’ (BLC 607). All references to the Book of the laws of countries use the column numbering of F. Nau, Patrologia syriaca, i/2, Paris 1907, 490–658; English translations are from H. J. W. Drijvers, The book of the laws of countries: dialogue on fate of Bardaisan of Edessa, Assen 1964.

11 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 217–18; Hegedus, ‘Necessity and free will’, 333.

12 An in-depth survey and analysis of these traditions is offered in Drijvers, Bardaisan, 96–212.

13 The following paragraphs rely on Drijvers's far more detailed and nuanced account, Ibid. 218–27.

14 S Ephraim's prose refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan, ed. and trans. C. W. Mitchell, London, 1912–21, i. 56; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 134.

15 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 98–110, discusses the reports of Moses bar Kepha, Theodore bar Khonai and others on these points.

16 BLC 560; Drijvers, Book of the laws of countries, 23–5.

17 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 220.

18 The character Bardaisan speaks of a body, soul and spirit in BLC 555; Drijvers, Book of the laws of countries, 19.

19 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 133, 219.

20 BLC 572; Drijvers, Book of the laws of countries, 33. For discussion of this point see Drijvers, Bardaisan, 86, 133–5, 219.

21 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 219; Hegedus, ‘Necessity and free will’, 333–44. Tim Hegedus, Early Christianity and ancient astrology, New York 2007, 320, rightly points out that ‘this role of nature is not explicitly evident in the Pseudo-Clementine narrative’.

22 Ephrem, Hymns li.2, 3, 4 and liii.4, as discussed in Drijvers, Bardaisan, 132–3, 152.

23 Prose refutations, ii. 77; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 154–5, 219.

24 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 197, 220.

25 Hippolytus, Philosophoumena vi.35; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 168.

26 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 220–1.

27 Nöldeke, T., ‘Zum “Buch der Gesetze der Länder”’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft lxiv (1910), 555–60Google Scholar; Schaeder, H. H., ‘Bardesanes von Edessa in der Überlieferung der griechischen und syrischen Kirche’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte li (1932), 21–74Google Scholar; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 66; cf. Rehm, B., ‘Bardesanes in den Pseudoclementinen’, Philologus xciii (1938), 227Google Scholar, and A. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker, Leipzig 1864, 78.

28 Drijvers, Book of the laws of countries, 1.

29 della Vida, G. Levi, ‘Bardesane e il Dialogo delle leggi dei paesi’, Rivista di studi filosofici e religiosi i (1920), 399–430Google Scholar. For a similar view see Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, 78.

30 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 76.

31 For a more detailed discussion of these and other closely related issues see Drijvers, Bardaisan, 60–76, and Jones, F. Stanley, ‘The Pseudo-Clementines: a history of research part i’, Second Century ii (1982), 20–4Google Scholar.

32 Schaeder, ‘Bardesanes von Edessa’, 41; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 68–9.

33 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 72. This is also the view of William Cureton, Spicilegium syriacum: containing remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose and Mara bar Serapion, London 1855, pp. i–iii.

34 W. Heintze, Der Klemensroman und seine griechischen Quellen, TU 40.2, Leipzig 1914, 42–51, 101–5; H. J. Schoeps, ‘Astrologisches im pseudoklementinischen Roman’, Vigiliae Christianae v (1951), 88–100; C. Schmidt, Studien zu den Pseudo-Clementinen, Leipzig 1929, 155–7; O. Cullmann, Le Problème littéraire et historique du roman pseudo-clémentin: étude sur le rapport entre le Gnosticisme et le Judéo-Christianisme, Paris 1930, 35; Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, 74–8, 148; Waitz, H., ‘Die Pseudoklementinen und ihre Quellenschriften’, Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft xxviii (1929), 269Google Scholar (this represents a modification of his earlier views). Heintze, followed by Schoeps, Schmidt and Cullmann, argues that the Book of the laws drew upon another dialogue of Philippus, which in turn was dependent on the Grundschrift; the Grundschrift was itself based upon a Jewish book of disputations. Waitz believes that a Jewish apologetic work was a common source for the Grundschrift and Bardaisan's Dialogue on fate. Hilgenfeld, on the other hand, argues that the Book of the laws depends on the Pseudo-Clementines; the Recognitions and Bardaisan's Dialogue on fate both depend on an earlier anti-astrological text. Other scholars have explored the similarities between the material in the Book of the laws and the Recognitions and various Jewish and pagan texts. For example, Wendland compares the Book of the laws to Philo's De providentia, and Boll traces its νόμιμα βαρβαρικά argument back to Carneades: P. Wendland, Philos Schrift über die Vorsehung: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nacharistotelischen Philosophie, Berlin 1892, 27–33; Boll, F., ‘Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Astrologie’, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie xxi, supplementary vol. (1894), 181Google Scholar.

35 Schoeps, ‘Astrologisches’, 88–90.

36 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity, 2nd edn, trans. Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins, Philadelphia 1971, 1–43; Drijvers, Bardaisan, 73. Drijvers has also argued that there is no external evidence for an apologetic work or book of disputations of this sort, and that it is unnecessary to posit the existence of such a work to explain the relationship between the extant texts.

37 A. Merx, Bardesanes von Edessa, nebst einer Untersuchung über das Verhältnis der clementinischen Recognitionen zu dem Buche der Gesetze der Länder, Halle 1863, 112–13; F. J. A. Hort, ‘Bardaisan’, in W. Smith and H. Wace (eds), A dictionary of Christian biography, literature, sects and doctrines, i, London 1877, 258; A. Schliemann, Die Clementinen nebst den verwandten Schriften und der Ebionitismus, Hamburg 1844, 269 n. 10; J. Langen, Die Klemensromane: ihre Entstehung und ihre Tendenzen aufs neue untersucht, Gotha 1890, 147–50; G. Uhlhorn, Die Homilien und Recognitionen des Clemens Romanus nach ihrem Ursprung und Inhalt dargestellt, Göttingen 1854, 368–9; Harris, R., ‘Notes on the Clementine romances’, Journal of Biblical Literature xl (1921), 132–3Google Scholar; Rehm, ‘Bardesanes’, 233–5; Strecker, Judenchristentum, 256.There is some variation here: while Schliemann and Uhlhorn believe that the Recognitions used Bardaisan's Dialogue on fate, Hort and Harris think that the Recognitions depends on a Greek version of the Book of the laws. Merx's view concurs with that expressed by Hort and Harris, though Merx believes that material from the Book of the laws in the Recognitions was added by a later interpolator and was not original to the Recognitions. Rehm and Strecker argue that the Grundschrift and the Book of the laws borrowed from Bardaisan's Dialogue on fate, though the borrowing in the Book of the laws was indirect: its immediate source was another dialogue by Philippus.

38 Merx, Bardesanes, 88–114.

39 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 73.

40 This idea resembles views expressed by other ancient Christians, and gives at least a limited role to the power of fate: Jones, F. Stanley, ‘Eros and astrology in the Periodoi Petrou: the sense of the Pseudo-Clementine novel’, Apocrypha xii (2001), 76–7Google Scholar. See, for example, Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodoto 78.1: ‘Until baptism, they say, Fate is real, but after it the astrologers are no longer right’: Robert Pierce Casey, The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria, Cambridge, Ma 1934, 88–9.

41 Jones, ‘Eros and astrology’, 63.

42 All translations of the Pseudo-Clementines are my own unless otherwise noted. Translations have been made in consultation with Thomas Smith's dated and somewhat unreliable English version of the Pseudo-Clementines in A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (eds), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, viii, Grand Rapids, Mi 1975.

43 On these arguments see Hegedus, Early Christianity, 29–124, 125–38, 319–28.

44 Compare also the parallel passage preserved in Eusebius, Preparatio evangelica 6.10.35–6.

45 BLC 18–19; F. Stanley Jones, ‘The astrological trajectory in ancient Syriac-speaking Christianity (Elchasai, Bardaisan, and Mani)’, in Luigi Cirillo and Aloïs van Tongerloo (eds), Atti del terzo congresso internazionale di studi ‘Manicheismo e oriente cristiano antico’, Louvain–Naples 1997, 190.

46 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 19.

47 On this see Boll, ‘Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus’, 181–2. See also David Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque, Amsterdam 1973, 55–60.

48 Drijvers, H. J. W., ‘Marcionism in Syria: principles, problems, polemics’, Second Century vi (1987–8), 154–5Google Scholar.

49 Ibid. 154.

50 Idem, Book of the laws of countries, 4–5. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 4.30, confirms the view that the Dialogue on fate/Book of the laws was directed against Marcionites.

51 See, for example, H. J. W. Drijvers, ‘Adam and the true prophet in the Pseudo-Clementines’, in Loyalitatskonflikte in der Religionsgeschichte: Festschrift für Carsten Colpe, Würzburg 1990, 314–23. The anti-Marcionite character of the Homilies, which reproduces much of the Grundschrift's polemic, also seems obvious given the extended debates between Peter and Simon Magus over such problems as God and creation.

52 See also Recognitions 2.38.3.

53 Drijvers, ‘Marcionism in Syria’, 156.

54 Ibid. 155.

55 On the Grundschrift and the Homilies see Uhlhorn, Homilien und Recognitionen, 381–429. On the Recognitions see Strecker, Judenchristentum, 255ff; Langen, Klemensromane, 146; and Waitz, Pseudoklementinen, 372.

56 As is well known, the Recognitions (and indeed the Pseudo-Clementines generally) place a tremendous amount of emphasis on the authority of the Apostle Peter. The western Syrian interest in Petrine authority (for example in the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Peter and the so-called Kerygmata Petrou) is examined by Helmut Koester in his influential essay ‘GNOMAI DIAPHOROI: the origin and nature of diversification in the history of early Christianity’, Harvard Theological Review lviii (1965), 284–90.

57 H. J. W. Drijvers speaks repeatedly of a ‘continuous exchange of ideas’ between Antioch and Edessa. See, for example, ‘East of Antioch: forces and structures in the development of early Syriac theology’, in his East of Antioch: studies in early Syriac Christianity, London 1984, i. 3–4, 13–14, 17; cf. Bauer, Orthodoxy and heresy, 19–20, and Koester, ‘GNOMAI DIAPHOROI’, 299.

58 Bauer, Orthodoxy and heresy, 1–43, esp. pp. 28ff.

59 Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa: politics and culture on the eastern fringes of the Roman empire, 114–242 CE, London–New York 2001, 127. The Chronicon Edessenum mentions Marcion, Bardaisan and Mani in its list of important religious developments in Edessa: Drijvers, ‘East of Antioch’, i.1–27 at p. 4.

60 H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and beliefs at Edessa, Leiden 1980 194; Ross, Roman Edessa, 118. For biographical information about Ephrem see E. Beck, ‘Ephrem le syrien (saint)’, in Marcel Viller, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, Paris 1937–95, iv, cols 788–90; Sidney H. Griffith, ‘Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the empire’, in Thomas Halton and Joseph P. Williman (eds), Diakonia: studies in honor of Robert T. Meyer, Washington, DC 1986, 22–52, esp. pp. 24–9; and Shepardson, ‘In the service of orthodoxy’, 5–16.

61 Ross goes on to note (correctly) that Ephrem's need to assert his own group's primacy ‘makes clear for us that “orthodox” Christians, if not in the minority, were still only a shaky majority at that time in Edessa’: Roman Edessa, 123–4.

62 Ephrem writes a number of hymns directed against Marcion, Mani and Bardaisan. See Mansour, Tanios Bou, ‘La Défense éphrémienne de la liberté contre les doctrines marcionite, bardesanite et manichéenne’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica l (1984), 331–46Google Scholar. In particular, Ephrem seems to know of a community of fourth-century Bardesanites: Beck, E., ‘Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephram’, Le Muséon xci (1978), 271–333Google Scholar.

63 On Arianism in Antioch see Rowan Williams, Arius: heresy and tradition, rev. edn, Grand Rapids, Mi 2001, 158–66. Terminological problems associated with ‘Arianism’, which tends to ascribe all subordinationist Christologies indiscriminately to Arius, are addressed in Lienhard, Joseph T., ‘The “Arian” controversy: some categories reconsidered’, Theological Studies xlviii (1987), 415–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Rebecca Lyman, ‘A topography of heresy: mapping the rhetorical creation of Arianism’, in Michael R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (eds), Arianism after Arius, Edinburgh 1993, 45–62. Ephrem's views on Arius and his followers are addressed in Griffith, ‘Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa’, 37–47.

64 On the existence of Jewish Christians in the fourth century, as well as the definitional problems associated with the term Jewish Christianity, see Reed, ‘“Jewish Christianity”’, passim.

65 Drijvers gives a more complete picture of the indigenous religions of Edessa in his Cults and beliefs at Edessa, passim; cf. Kevin Butcher, Roman Syria and the near East, London 2003, 335–98.

66 Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: rhetoric and reality in the late 4th century, Berkeley 1983; Wayne A. Meeks and Robert L. Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch in the first four centuries of the common era, Missoula, Mt 1978.

67 This translation is from Ancient Syriac documents: relative to the earliest establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the neighbouring countries, from the year after our Lord's ascension to the beginning of the fourth century, ed. and trans. William Cureton, London 1864, repr. Piscataway, NJ 2005, 15, lines 7–13.

68 See, for example, Hippolytus, Philosophoumena 6.35; the Vita of Aberkios; Adamantius, De recta fide in deum; Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum 2.14; Epiphanius, Panarion 56; and Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 3.16. On these and others see Drijvers, Cults and beliefs at Edessa, 167–209.

69 Drijvers, Bardaisan, 227; Bedjan, Acta martyrum et sanctorum, iv, Paris 1890–7, 431–2.

70 Cologne Mani Codex 94.10–12. See also Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the later Roman empire and medieval China: a historical survey, Manchester 1985, 28–37. Katarchic astrology ‘deals with determining whether a particular moment … is appropriate for commencing an action’: Jones, ‘Astrological trajectory’, 186. This paragraph depends upon Jones's treatment of Mani, Ibid. 194–9.

71 Lieu, Manichaeism, 141.

72 Ibid. 141–2.

73 See, for example, John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum, PG 58.975–1058, and Prose refutations. On Manichaeism in Syria generally see Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman east, Leiden 1994, 38–53.

74 As Drijvers notes, evidence for these beliefs and practices is less than ideal: ‘The persistence of pagan cults and practices in Christian Syria’, in his East of Antioch, xvi.35.

75 Translation from Cureton, Ancient Syriac documents, 14, lines 11–15.

76 Drijvers, Cults and beliefs at Edessa, 195. See, for example, Ephrem, Hymnen contra haereses 5.14, 19; 8; 9.8.

77 Strecker, for example, maintained that the very early Kerygmata Petrou contained a polemic against Paul alone, but that other textual layers have included additional polemics against opponents like Simon and Marcion: Judenchristentum, 154 n. 1, 187ff. M. J. Edwards likewise notes that ‘[T]he novels are intended to annihilate many foes with a single weapon’: ‘Clementina’, 462 n. 8.

78 Not every apparent redactional difficulty in the Pseudo-Clementines can be explained on these grounds. I agree with previous scholars who have identified any number of literary seams and temporal difficulties created by the author's rather careless editorial practices. I suggest only that some larger narrative purpose may have been served by the text's awkward juxtaposition of such sources.

79 In addition to the Recognitions' use of the Book of the laws/Dialogue on fate, there are several other examples of readily-identifiable source material: Jones, ‘Pseudo-Clementines’, 14–33.

80 Drijvers, Cults and beliefs at Edessa, 195; cf. Shepardson, ‘In the service of orthodoxy’, 163–210 and passim.

81 Much like Ephrem his contemporary, Aphrahat condemns Marcion, Valentinus and Mani in his On fasting 9 (written c. 336–7).

82 An important treatment of the Pseudo-Clementine portrait of Peter and Simon in the light of second- and third-century ideas about magic and philosophy is to be found in Dominique Côté, Le Thème de l'opposition entre Pierre et Simon dans les Pseudo-Clémentines, Paris 2001, 95–134.

83 Drijvers, ‘Marcionism in Syria’, 172.

84 Translations of the preface are from Smith's version in Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, viii. 95.

85 Ferrari, L. C., ‘Augustine and astrology’, Laval théologique et philosophique xxxiii (1977), 241–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Astronomy and Augustine's break with the Manichees’, Revue des études augustiniennes xix (1973), 263–76. There is evidence that Marcionites continued to exist during the period in question, but most of this material comes from writers such as Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ephrem Syrus and Epiphanius of Salamis.

86 Rufinus tells Gaudentius that he has ‘chosen to reserve for others, rather than to produce in an imperfect state’, that is, he has not included in his translation ‘some dissertations concerning the unbegotten God and the begotten, and on some other subjects, which, to say nothing more, are beyond our comprehension’. Stanley Jones notes that Rufinus has modified Recognitions 1.69.6–7, which appears to be a Eunomian interpolation: An ancient Jewish Christian source on the history of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71, Atlanta 1995, 48–49. On Rufinus' preface see Ernst Bammel, ‘Rufins Einleitung zu den Klemens zugeschriebenen Wiedererkennungen’, in Storia ed esegesi in Rufino di Concordia, Udine 1992, 151–63. On Rufinus' translation practices generally see E. C. Brooks, ‘The translation techniques of Rufinus of Aquileia’, in Studia patristica, XVII: Elizabeth A. Livingstone (ed.), Papers presented at the eighth international conference on patristic studies, Oxford, Sept. 3–8, 1979, Elmsford, NY 1982, i. 357–64.