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The Ravenous Wolf: The Apostle Paul and Genesis 49.27 in the Early Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

Darrell D. Hannah
Darrell D. Hannah*
Affiliation:
All Saints’ Rectory, London Road, Ascot SL5 8DQ, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Jacob's blessing of his youngest son Benjamin (Gen 49.27) was widely understood in the early Church as a prophecy of that most (in)famous Benjaminite, the apostle Paul. This exegesis enjoyed enduring popularity and can be traced to every corner of the Roman world. It is also early: it was already well established by the time of its earliest surviving witnesses at the end of the second century. But if it predates the late second century, when did it originate? While we can only speculate, this paper offers reasons for supposing that this exegesis may reach back into the first century.

Keywords

Apostle Paulreception historyearly Christian exegesispatristics
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 610 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Cf. e.g. the clear statements of Hippolytus, The Blessing of Jacob 12; Origen, Hom. Ezek. 4.4.1; Princ. 3.5.1; Ephraem, Comm. Gen. 42.1; and Ambrose, De Patr. 2.6.

2 While modern scholarship debates whether Saul/Paul's experience was a call or a conversion, or some combination of the two, the early Christian writers discussed in this essay did not feel the need to decide between the two.

3 The Vaticanus (B), supported by a single minuscule (56*; ad 1096) reads δίδωσι. Other later manuscripts differ in the tense of either διαδίδωμι or δίδωμι (with some reading the present and others the future).

4 There are two differences between the LXX and the MT. First, the former understands the עד of the second line as the preposition ‘as far as, still, while’, whereas it almost certainly was intended as the noun ‘prey, booty’. Second, in the third line, the MT speaks of ‘dividing spoil’ rather than ‘distributing food.’

5 Translation from Evans, E., tr. and ed., Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem (2 vols.; OECT; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) ii.510–11Google Scholar.

6 Phil 3.5; Rom 11.1.

7 Cf. e.g. the similar ‘Pauline’ interpretation of the Benjaminite Saul, first King of Israel, immediately following the above passage from Tertullian, Adv. Haer. 5.1.5; Hilary of Poitiers’ comments on ‘there is Benjamin’ (Ps 68.27 (67.28 LXX)) in his Tractatus Pss. i–xci 67.28; Ambrose’ regular interpretation of Benjamin as a type of Paul in his De Ioseph (e.g. 8.44–5; 9.46–7; 10.52; 11.61–2 etc.); Jerome's recall of Paul when visiting Gibeah, the site of the events recorded in Judg 19–20 in his Ep. 108 and especially the similar ‘Pauline’ application of Deut 33.12 in Hippolytus, Bened. Moses 14; Ambrose, De Patr. 12.57-59; and Epiphanius, Gem. 12.

8 E.g. Gal 1.13; 1 Cor 15.9; Phil 3.6; Acts 9.1–5; 1 Tim 1.13; Ep. Apost. 31, 33; Acts Peter 2; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5.12.5.

9 Acts 17.22–34; Polycarp, Phil. 3.2.

10 E.g. Rom 15.16–19; Gal 1.15–16; Col 1.24–7; Acts 9.15; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 4.24.1.

11 1 Cor 3.1–2; cf. Heb 5.12–14.

12 This passage is also preserved in catena manuscripts, where it is incorrectly attributed to Irenaeus. See Harvey, W. W., ed., Sancti Irenaei: libros quinque Adversus Haereses (2 vols.; Cambridge: Typis Academicis, 1857) ii.487Google Scholar.

13 The translation is S. Thelwall's in ANF, iii.646.

14 The translation is my own from the text of Brière, M., Mariès, L. and Mercier, B.-Ch., eds., Hippolyte de Rome: Sur les bénédictions d'Isaac, de Jacob et de Moïse (PO 27.1–2; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1954) 114 Google Scholar.

15 The translation is taken from Scheck, T. P., tr., Origen: Homilies 1–14 on Ezekiel (ACW 62; New York: Newman, 2010) 71–2Google Scholar.

16 So Quasten, J., Patrology (3 vols.; Utrecht: Spectrum, 1953) ii.275, 282Google Scholar.

17 Scheck, Homilies, 2–3.

18 Valuable summaries of current scholarship can be found in Moreschini, C. and Norelli, E., Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History (2 vols.; tr. O'Connell, M. J.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005)Google Scholar i.232–47 and Heine, R. E., ‘Hippolytus, Ps.-Hippolytus and the early Canons’, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (ed. Young, F., Ayres, L. and Louth, A.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 142–51Google Scholar.

19 So Quasten, Patrology, ii.163–207 and Richard, M., ‘Hippolyte de Rome (saint)’, Dictionnaire de spiritualité vii.1 (1969) 531–71Google Scholar.

20 E.g. Nautin, P., Hippolyte et Josipe: contributions à l'histoire de la littérature chrétienne du troisième siècle (ETHDT 1; Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1947)Google Scholar; id., ‘Hippolytus’, EECh (2 vols.; ed. Berardino, A. Di, tr. Walford, A.; Cambridge: Clarke, 1992)Google Scholar i.383–5; Loi, V. et al. ., eds., Ricerche su Ippolito (SEA 13; Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1977)Google Scholar; Simonetti, M. et al. ., eds., Nuove ricerche su Ippolito (SEA 30; Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1989)Google Scholar; Cerrato, J. A., Hippolytus between East and West: The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus (OTM; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

21 So, above all, Brent, A., Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century (VCSup 31; Leiden: Brill, 1995)Google Scholar.

22 So Quasten, Patrology, ii.170–1 and Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Literature, i.241–2.

23 Jerome, De vir. ill. 61; cf. Eusebius, HE 6.14.10.

24 E.g. Quasten, Patrology, ii.246.

25 Cf. Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Literature, i.333 and R. E. Heine, ‘The Beginnings of Latin Christian Literature’, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, 133.

26 Jerome's accuracy is accepted by Heine, R. E., Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 98–9Google Scholar and Trigg, J. W., Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (London: SCM, 1983) 76 Google Scholar, but questioned by Crouzel, H., Origen: The Life and Thought of the First Great Theologian (tr. Worrall, A. S.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) 14 Google Scholar.

27 See Heine, Origen, 98–100 and Trigg, Origen, 76–80.

28 Tractatus Pss. i–xci 67.28.

29 De Patr. 12.57–59; Exp. Ps. 118 6.17.

30 Bened. Patr. 2.28–9.

31 Hom. 8.

32 De Gem. 12.

33 Quest. Hebr. Gen. on Gen 49.27; Comm. Isa. 4.15 (on 11.6–9); 18.17 (on 65.22–5); cf. also Ep. 38.1; 60.8; 69.6; Comm. Hos. 2.5.8–9; Comm. Isa. 14.26 (on 53.12b).

34 Comm. Eccl. 11.

35 Glaph. Gen. 7.

36 Hom. 278 and 333; En. Pss. 58.14; 78.2.

37 Dittochaeon 48. This example is especially interesting, because in the Dittochaeon Prudentius offers verses to accompany various mosaics and/or frescoes. Prudentius, then, may have known a mosaic or fresco in which a wolf was used as a symbol for the apostle of the Gentiles.

38 Cat. fr. Gen. 49.27.

39 Quest. Octateuch 112.7.

40 Cat. fr. Gen. 49.27.

41 The translation is my own of the text printed in Petit, F., Catenae Graecae in Genesim et in Exodum, vol. ii: Collectio coisliniana in Genesim (Leuven, 1986) no. 308, pp. 287–8Google Scholar.

42 Interestingly, Origen may also on one occasion have applied Gen 49.27 to Judg 19–20. A catena fragment (PG 17.37) on Judg 20.21 attributed to Origen explains the change in fortunes of the Benjaminites recorded in Judg 20.19–48 by the morning/evening dichotomy of Gen 49.27. Unfortunately, as with many of the catena fragments attributed to him, we cannot be certain that this is authentically Origen.

43 In the sixth century it is found in Caesarius of Arles (Hom. 226.3), who has borrowed it from Augustine's Hom. 333, and Arator, Hist. Apost. 1 (on Acts 9.15).

44 E.g. Lindemann, A., Paulus im ältesten Christentum (BHT 58; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1979) 393 Google Scholar; Sider, R. D., ‘Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian’, Paul and the Legacies of Paul (ed. Babcock, W. S.; Dallas: SMU, 1990) 102 Google Scholar; and Bain, A. M., ‘Tertullian: Paul as Teacher of the Gentile Churches’, Paul and the Second Century (ed. Bird, M. F. and Dodson, J. R.; LNTS 412; London: T&T Clark, 2011) 209 Google Scholar, all make brief references to Tertullian's use of Gen 49.27 LXX in Adv. Marc. 5.1.5, but only Sider also mentions Scrop. 13, and none of them note the parallels in Hippolytus or Origen – or the continuing tradition. In other words, none of them are aware that Tertullian was drawing on an existing exegetical tradition. Lüdemann, G., Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity (tr. Boring, M. E.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989)Google Scholar makes no reference to Gen 49.27. A partial exception is Martin Meiser's recent article, ‘Überwindung, Bekehrung oder Berufung - Apg 9; 22; 26 in altkirchlicher Wahrnehmung’, Ancient Perspectives on Paul (ed. Nicklas, T., Merkt, A. and Verheyden, J.; NTOA 102; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) 30–58 Google Scholar, who cites in a footnote, in addition to the two Tertullian passages, Augustine (En. Pss. 58, Hom. 333), Asterius (Hom. 8), Prudentius (Dit. 48), Jerome (Comm. Isa. 18.17) and, incorrectly, Arnobius (Comm. Pss. 67).

45 Didymus' Commentary on Ecclesiastes exists only in a single papyrus manuscript found at Tura. The passage in question is fragmentary, but Didymus connects τὸ πρωῒ ἤσθιεν (‘he ate in the morning’) with ἐπαιδεύετο ἐν τῇ εἰσαγωγῇ τῇ κατὰ τὴν πίστιν … (‘he was taught (or trained) in the introduction (?), which is according to faith …’). So Didymus could be referring to Paul's reception of the faith from the other apostles (cf. Ep. Apost. 31–3), but also possibly to his training under Gamaliel. For the Greek text, see Binder, G. and Liesenborghs, L., eds. and trs., Didymos der Blinde: Kommentar zum Ecclesiastes (Tura-Papyrus), Teil iv (Bonn: Habelt, 1969) 60–1Google Scholar.

46 My translation of the text in de Jonge, M. et al. , eds., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (PVTG; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 178–9Google Scholar. One manuscript, Charles’ c, and the Armenian and New Greek versions omit any reference to Paul. MS c makes this into a prophecy of the Messiah who ‘shall arise … from the seed Judah and Levi’, but even that is omitted by the Armenian. Although Charles, R. H. (The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908) 230–1)Google Scholar preferred the text of c, this reading is manifestly a correction by a later scribe who either was unaware of ‘Pauline’ exegesis of Gen 49.27 or wanted to bring this text into line with other references to the Messiah elsewhere in the Testaments. de Jonge, M. (The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Study of their Text and Composition and Origin (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1975 2) 34)Google Scholar earlier posited that only 11.1–2a came near the original and that 11.2b–5 is a later interpolation. He subsequently changed his mind, arguing that both c and the related New Greek version went ‘back to a text which was broken off by accident’ ( de Jonge, M., ‘The Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Armenian Version’, Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Text and Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 1975) 135 Google Scholar n. 56).

47 Translation from Matthews, E. G. Jr and Amar, J. P., trs., McVey, K., ed., St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works (FOTC 91; Washington: Catholic University of America, 1994) 211 Google Scholar.

48 The translation is my own of the text in Devreesse, R., Les anciens commentateurs grecs de l'Octateuque et des Rois (ST 201; Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1959) 132 Google Scholar.

49 This is true even of T. Benj. Note the διαδίδων τροφὴν of 11.1.

50 Apollinaris seems to know the conversion motif, but only in a muted form: ‘Paul … first thoroughly plundering the Church, but afterwards in truth making war against demons and distributing their goods’. Indeed, Apollinaris' concise statement reads like a combination of this variant with the majority form, which would not be surprising coming from a Gentile Christian who was in conversation with Jewish Christians (see below).

51 Marcus, J., ‘The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Didascalia Apostolorum: A Common Jewish Christian Milieu?’, JTS 61 (2010) 596–626 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 597–8.

52 See esp. Schmidtke, A., Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den Judenchristlichen Evangelien: Ein Beitrag zur Literatur und Geschichte der Judenchristen (TU 37.1; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich, 1911)Google Scholar esp. 63–94. See also Kinzig, W., ‘Jewish and “Judaizing” Eschatologies in Jerome’, Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire (ed. Kalmin, R. and Schwartz, S.; ISACR 3; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 409–29Google Scholar.

53 See Murray, R., Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study of Early Syriac Tradition (rev. edn; London: T&T Clark, 2004) 6–11 Google Scholar and Brock, S., The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (rev. edn; CS 124; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992) 20 Google Scholar.

54 Hidal, S., ‘Evidence for Jewish Believers in the Syriac Fathers’, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (ed. Skarsaune, O. and Hvalvik, R.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007) 568–80Google Scholar.

55 Epiphanius, Pan. 29.7.7; Jerome, De vir ill. 3.

56 See Pritz, R. A., Nazarene Jewish Christianity from the End of the New Testament Period until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2010) 48–51 Google Scholar, 121.

57 The translation is adapted from Pritz, Nazarene, 64.

58 On this commentary, see Pritz, Nazarene, 57–70 and Skarsaune, ‘Fragments of Jewish Christian Literature Quoted in Some Greek and Latin Fathers’, Jewish Believers, 373–8.

59 Note the Ebionite claim that Paul was an apostate: Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 1.26.2; Eusebius, HE 3.27.4; Jerome, Comm. Matt. 2 (on Matt. 12.2) and Theodoret of Cyrus, Comp. Haer. 2.1. Note also the more general statements of Origen, Cels. 5.65 and Hom. Jer. 19.12, and the colourful biographies of the apostle taken from Jewish Christian sources (Epiphanius, Pan. 30.16.8–9 (cf. also 30.25.1) and Ps.-Clem. Rec. 1.27–71).

60 De Jonge, Testaments, 122. It should probably be stated that the three quarters of a page which de Jonge gives to T. Benj. 11.1–2, and its parallels in Tertullian, Hippolytus and Origen, are the fullest discussion of this exegetical tradition known to me. Cf. also the same author's ‘Hippolytus' “Benedictions of Isaac, Jacob and Moses” and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, BTFT 46 (1985) 245–60Google Scholar, esp. 256.

61 And, perhaps, Origen. See n. 42 above.

62 I owe this observation of Prof. John Barclay.

63 The Homilies on Joshua are usually dated to the last years of Origen's life. So Bruce, B. J., tr., Origen: Homilies on Joshua (ed. White, C.; FOTC 105; Washington: Catholic University of America, 2002) 19Google Scholar.

64 De Jonge, Testaments, 121–5.

65 Needless to say, I agree with de Jonge and others who regard the Testaments as a unitary composition of Christian origin. Nonetheless, my argument would not be affected if it were shown that they are in fact a Jewish work interpolated by Christians, for T. Benj. 11.1–5 is clearly Christian. Whether we are concerned with interpolations added in ca. ad 150–225 or with the Testaments as whole composed in the same period is ultimately immaterial.

66 See Hannah, D. D., ‘The Four-Gospel “Canon” in the Epistula Apostolorum ’, JTS 59 (2008) 598–633 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 628–32.

67 I.e. in baptism.

68 The translation is my own.

69 Interestingly, on both occasions modifying ‘wolves’.

70 Cf. also Ezek 22.27, where ὡς λύκοι ἁρπάζοντες άρπάγματα (‘as wolves ravaging prey’) is rendered kama takwlāt mašaṭṭ yemaššeṭu (lit. ‘as ravenous wolves they will ravage’). The Ethiopic scriptural references are cited from Boyd, J. O., ed., The Octateuch in Ethiopic, Part i : Genesis (Leyden: Brill, 1909) 154 Google Scholar; Zuurmond, R., ed., Novum Testamentum Aethiopice, Part iii: The Gospel of Matthew (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001) 82–3Google Scholar; and Knibb, M. A., ed., The Ethiopic Text of the Book of Ezekiel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 114 Google Scholar.

71 So Fitzmyer, J. A., Romans (AB 33; London: Yale University Press, 1993) 229 Google Scholar. Cf. also Cranfield, C. E. B., The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975)Google Scholar i.53.

72 Munck, J., Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (tr. Clarke, F.; London: SCM, 1959) 26 Google Scholar.

73 Munck, Paul, 36–5; quotation on p. 49.

74 Hays, R. B., Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 1 Google Scholar.

75 Cf. also Did. 16.3; Ignatius, Phild. 2.2; 2 Clem. 5.2–4; Ep. Apost. 44; Justin, 1 Apol. 16.13; 58.2; Dial. 35.3; Acts Thom. 25; 67; 79; Acts Pet. 8; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 1.Prol.2; and Rhodon apud Eusebius, HE 5.13.4.

76 Murphy-O'Connor, Quoting J., Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 92 Google Scholar. Murphy-O'Connor here follows Fjörstedt, B., Synoptic Tradition in 1 Corinthians: Themes and Clusters of Theme Words in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9 (Uppsala: Theologiska Institutionen, 1974) 65–77 Google Scholar. Fjörstedt is also discussed (critically) by Allison, D. C., ‘The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels’, NTS 28 (1982) 1–32 Google Scholar. Allison questions some of the other examples of Synoptic Tradition in Paul, but grants that Fjörstedt has made a convincing case for 1 Corinthians 9.

77 I owe this suggestion to Prof. Maarten J. J. Menken.

78 I would like to thank Profs. Larry Hurtado and Francis Watson for reading and commenting on this paper. It has been much improved from their observations and criticisms.