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Gentile Judaizers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

J. C. Hurd Jr  and
Stephen G. Wilson
Stephen G. Wilson
Affiliation:
(Department of Religion, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1S 5B6)
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Extract

In recent years a number of scholars have focused on the phenomenon of Gentiles who, in varying degrees, adopted the lifestyle of the Jews. For John Gager they are important evidence for his generally persuasive argument that in the Graeco-Roman world Judaism, far from being universally mistrusted and vilified, was in both its beliefs and its practices often attractive to non-Jews. Gager, like L. Gaston and others before him, brought this observation to bear on the more specific issue of Jewish-Christian relations in the early centuries. For, so they have argued, Christian Gentiles were among those attracted to Judaism and the reaction of ecclesiastical leaders to this situation was a major cause of anti-Jewish sentiment in the early Church. Thus judaizing was not, as had often been assumed, restricted to the first generation of Christians (approx. pre-70 CE), but remained an urgent and troublesome issue.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 605 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Gager, J. G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism (Oxford: Oxford University, 1986).Google Scholar

2 Gaston, L., ‘Judaism of the Uncircumcised in Ignatius and Related Writers’, in Wilson, S. G., ed., Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier, 1986) 2.33–44Google Scholar. Gaston draws his evidence from Ignatius and Revelation. When he discusses Cerinthus or the ‘heretics’ who lie behind the Pastorals he is more intent to show that they were not Jewish Christians than that they were Gentile judaizers.

3 Of which the classic account is now Wilken, R., John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1983).Google Scholar

4 The view of Barth, M., Ephesians 1–3 (New York: Doubleday, 1974) 242–52Google Scholar, for which, on the face of it, the writing itself offers little evidence.

5 Gager, Anti-Semitism, 117–18; Simon, M., Verus Israel (Oxford: Oxford University, 1986; trans, of French original Paris: de Boccard, 1964) 306–7Google Scholar, speaks of judaizers in the chapter heading but of Jewish Christians in the text.

6 Gaston, ‘Judaism’, 35–6. He notes that Jos. B.J. 2.454 and Esther 8.17 LXX speak of forced conversion to Judaism, while Jos. B.J. 2.463, Plutarch Cic. 7.6, Acts of Pilate 2.1, and Magn. 10.3 speak only of the adoption of certain Jewish customs. Gal 2.14 implies an element of compulsion, but it is at any rate the Gentiles and not the Jews who judaize.

7 H. Paulsen's revision of Bauer, W., Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiocha und der Poly-karpbrief (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1985) 64–5.Google Scholar

8 One of the first to emphasize the significance of Ignatius' firsthand knowledge of Philadelphia was Barrett, C. K., ‘Jews and Judaizers in the Epistles of Ignatius’, in R., Hamerton-Kelly and Scroggs, R., ed., Jews, Greeks and Christians: Essays in Honor of William David Davies (Leiden: Brill, 1976) 220–44Google Scholar, here 232–3. This point has recently been taken up by J. Speigl, ‘Ignatius in Philadelphia. Ereignisse und Anliegen in den Ignatiusbriefen’, VC 41 (1987) 360–76, here 360–1, who offers a number of additional and persuasive arguments. For the purposes of my argument the location of the Judaizers in Antioch or Asia Minor is of no significance, except when the evidence is called on to support a similar interpretation of Rev 2.9, 3.9.

9 Though he had, of course, met with the bishop and other leaders (Magn. 2.1).

10 So Gaston, ‘Judaism’, 37 (and 38 n.30 for a list of those supporting this view); Gager, Anti-Semitism, 127–9; Speigl, ‘Ignatius’, 370.

11 Barrett, ‘Judaizers’, 234; Bauer, W., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 88Google Scholar; Corwin, V., St Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale University, 1960) 58Google Scholar; Donahue, P. J., ‘Jewish Christianity in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch’, VC 32 (1978) 81–93Google Scholar; Hall, R. G., ‘Epispasm and the Dating of Ancient Jewish Writings’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2 (1988) 71–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 80. While circumcision of proselytes was occasionally debated it is clear that male Jews were, almost without exception, circumcised. Moreover, it is Gentiles, not Jews, who ‘judaize’ (Magn. 10.3). The contrast in Phld. 6.1 between the circumcised and the uncircumcised points most obviously to Jews and Gentiles. Hoffmann, R. J., Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity (Chico: Scholars, 1984) 57–63Google Scholar, makes the eccentric proposal that those who expounded Judaism were Marcionites – a view which can be sustained only by ignoring (among other things) what Ignatius says elsewhere about judaizers.

12 Schoedel, W. R., Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 202–3Google Scholar. His discussion of this passage is, unusually, obscure.

13 This is the opposite of Barrett's suggestion, ‘Judaizers’, 234: Ignatius wanted to say, ‘It is better to hear Christianity from a circumcised man’, got trapped in his own rhetoric and had to invent a contrasting clause – about the uncircumcised expounding Judaism.

14 Donahue, ‘Jewish Christianity’, 89, recognizes this but seems oblivious to the way in which it undercuts his thesis that Ignatius' opponents were Jewish Christians.

15 This touches on the vexed question whether Ignatius was addressing one or two groups of opponents. Were there judaizers and docetists/gnostics or only judaizers who were also docetists/gnostics? Gaston, ‘Judaism’, 36–8 inclines to the latter view, along with many others. Molland, E., ‘The Heretics Combatted by Ignatius of Antioch’, JEH 5 (1954) 1–6Google Scholar, is the classic statement of this view, and Speigl, ‘Ignatius’, 364–9 has reinforced it with some detailed observations. Donahue, ‘Jewish Christians’, 82–7, is the fullest argument for two groups. I am inclined to think of a single group, though Schoedel's supposition that the docetism of the judaizers existed only in the mind of Ignatius needs to be considered (Ignatius, 202). We are at any rate dealing with the more tangible group, for the judaizers are mentioned specifically whereas the docetists/gnostics are merely alluded to. Trevett, Recently C., ‘Prophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity. A Third Error Combatted by Ignatius?’, JEH 34 (1983) 1–18Google Scholar, has tried to isolate yet another group – charismatic rebels who challenged Ignatius' claim to prophetic authority and his imposition of episcopal rule.

16 Justin does not state specifically that the defectors of 47.4 were Gentile Christians, but the context favours this view and, if he had Jewish Christians in mind, we might have expected him to say that they ‘returned to’ rather than ‘switched over to’ (μεταβαίνω) the Jewish community.

17 Gunther, J. J., ‘The Epistle of Barnabas and the Final Rebuilding of the Temple’, JSJ 7 (1976) 143–51Google Scholar; Kraft, R. A., The Apostolic Fathers 3: Barnabas and the Didache (New York: Nelson, 1965) 42ff.Google Scholar; Prigent, P., L'Épître de Barnabé I-XVI et ses sources (Paris: Gabalda, 1961) 71–83.Google Scholar

18 The most extensive argument is found in Schäfer, P., Der Bar-Kokhba Aufstand (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1981) 29–34Google Scholar. He argues for the omission of the second καί in the phrase νν κα α το κα ο τν χθρν ύπηρέται νοικοδομήσουσιν αὐτόν. With the second καί the reference is perhaps most naturally to Jews (αὐτοί) and Romans (ύπηρέται), presumably building a Jewish temple, although we could translate it as follows: ‘Now they themselves (= Romans) and the servants of the enemy (= the servants of the Romans) are rebuilding it.’

19 Richardson, P. and Shukster, M. B., ‘Barnabas, Nerva and the Yavnean Rabbis’, JTS n.s.34 (1983) 32–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; eidem, ‘Temple and and Beth Ha-Midrash in the Epistle of Barnabas’, in S. G. Wilson (see note 2), 17–32Google Scholar. They note that they were anticipated by Lowy, S., ‘The Confutation of Judaism in the Epistle of Barnabas’, JTS 11 (1960) 1–33Google Scholar, who has a similar sense of the circumstances in which the epistle arose but declines to specify a date. Richardson and Shukster build their case on four main observations: that the ύπηρέται were Jews who collaborated with the Romans in the plan to rebuild the temple, which does not fit the situation of Bar Cochba or any known circumstances in the reign of Trajan; that the reference to Ten Kings in 4.4–5 most naturally fits with the reign of Nerva; that Nerva's revision of the Jewish tax was partly aimed at mollifying the Jews; and that certain obscure rabbinic traditions, about Trajan Day and the rabbinic Embassy to Rome, make most sense when associated with a change of policy towards the Jews under Nerva. For my purposes, any date between 90 and 135 CE and a reference to a Roman or a Jewish temple makes little difference.

20 Contra Windisch, H., Der Barnabasbrief (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1920) 21Google Scholar, who argued that there was no immediate threat from Judaism and that the anti-Jewish strain was merely the result of using anti-Jewish testimony collections. Richardson and Shukster, ‘Temple’, 24, tend to see 4.6 as an allusion to those who had been affected by the change of Roman policy towards the temple, i.e. they are part of the temple issue. However, the repeated and emphatic references in chs. 4–6, 13–14, suggest a more significant problem.

21 Richardson and Shukster, ‘Temple’, 31, n. 36, note that there was some discussion among the tannaitic rabbis about the place of Gentiles in the covenant, though they (p. 24) take those who made the claim in 4.6 to be members of the Christian community.

22 Richardson and Shukster, ‘Nerva’, 38–9, think they were Jewish Christians.

23 Lowy, ‘Confutation’, 11, notes that one purpose of the epistle is ‘to win back Gentiles from Judaism and to protect them from it’.

24 See Jervell, J., ‘Ein Interpolator interpretiert. Zu der christlichen Bearbeitung der Testamente der Zwölf Patriarchen’, in Eltester, W., ed., Studien zu den Zwölf Patriarchen (Berlin: Topelmann, 1969) 30–61Google Scholar; de Jonge, M., ‘The Future of Israel in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, JSJ 17 (1986) 196–211.Google Scholar

25 S. G. Wilson, ‘Marcion and the Jews’, in S. G. Wilson (see note 2), 45–58, here 56–7.

26 The most extensive recent argument for this view is made by Collins, A. Y., ‘Insiders and Outsiders in the Book of Revelation and Its Social Context’, in Neusner, J. and Frerichs, E. S., ed., ‘To See Ourselves As Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (Chico: Scholars, 1985) 187–218Google Scholar, here 204–10; idem, ‘Vilification and Self-Definition in the Book of Revelation’, in G. W. E. Nickelsburg and G. W. MacRae, ed., Christians Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 308–20Google Scholar, here 310–14. Page 310, n. 5 lists some of the many scholars who have taken this view.

27 Kraft, H., Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1974) 60–1.Google Scholar

28 Collins, ‘Insiders’, 206–7.

29 Gaston, ‘Judaism’, 42–3; Gager, Anti-Semitism, 132. A few scholars had anticipated them in part: Shepherd, M. H. Jr, ‘The Gospel of John’, in Laymon, C. M., ed., The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (New York: Abingdon, 1971) 708Google Scholar, thought they were a Christian judaizing movement but one which was open to Jews and Gentiles alike. H. Kraft, Offenbarung, 60–1, agrees that they were Christians but thinks they were Jewish Christians.

30 Dio Cassius Hist.Rom. 66.1.4; cf. 37.17.1. Mentioned by Cohen, S. D., ‘Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew’, HTR 82 (1989) 13–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 20–1. See further Kramer, R. S., ‘On the Meaning of the Term “Jew” in Greco-Roman Inscriptions’, HTR 82 (1989) 35–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 51. Kramer contends that the inscriptional evidence suggests that Ἰουδαîος was applied especially to Gentiles who adopted Jewish ways, i.e. it could have an ethnic (‘Jew’), geographic (‘Judean’), or affiliate sense (‘Gentile sympathizer’) – the latter as a self-designation, or even a proper name for a child, where the Jewishness of the individual, though not immediately apparent, was being publicized.

31 Collins' arguments (‘Vilification’, 311–12) against the use of Ignatius' evidence merely repeat the standard reservations. See above n.8.

32 Kraft, Offenbarung, 62, gives this as the motive for the (Jewish) Christians associating with the synagogue.

33 As noted in another context by M. Simon, Israel, 106–7. He points to the defection of Domnus during a local persecution in the early third century (Eus. H.E. 6.12.1), the solicitations of the Jews during the Decian persecution (Passio Pionii 13), and he suggests that Tertullian may have had something similar in mind when he attempts to refute the view that Christianity sheltered under the shadow of the more famous and licit religion (Apol. 21.1). We should not, of course, assume that the offer of shelter by the Jews was an opportunistic attempt to best the church; it may have been motivated by empathy and compassion.