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The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Richard Bauckham
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In the development of Christology in the primitive church, the emergence of the worship of Jesus is a significant phenomenon. In the exclusive monotheism of the Jewish religious tradition, as distinct from some other kinds of monotheism, it was worship which was the real test of monotheistic faith in religious practice. In the world-views of the early centuries A.D. the gap between God and man might be peopled by all kinds of intermediary beings – angels, divine men, hypostatized divine attributes, the Logos – and the early church's attempt to understand the mediatorial role of Jesus naturally made use of these possibilities. In the last resort, however, Jewish monotheism could not tolerate a mere spectrum between God and man; somewhere a firm line had to be drawn between God and creatures, and in religious practice it was worship which signalled the distinction between God and every creature, however exalted. God must be worshipped; no creature may be worshipped. For Jewish monotheism, this insistence on the one God's exclusive right to religious worship was far more important than metaphysical notions of the unity of the divine nature. Since the early church remained – or at least professed to remain – faithful to Jewish monotheism, the acknowledgement of Jesus as worthy of worship is a remarkable development. Either it should have been rejected as idolatry – and a halt called to the upward trend of christological development – or else its acceptance may be seen with hindsight to have set the church already on the road to Nicene theology.

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New Testament Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , April 1981 , pp. 322 - 341
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

NOTES

[1] Cf., A. F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven. Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 25) (Leiden, 1977).Google Scholar

[2] For the purposes of this article it is not necessary to enter the discussion on the date of these works, or on the question of the unity of the Ascension of Isaiah, since our concern is only with the vision in chaps, vi-xi. These chaps, (with or without the section xi. 2–22, which is only in the Ethiopic version) have frequently been dated within the first century: in the 60s (with the rest of the work) by Laurence, R., Ascensio Isaiae Vatis (Oxford, 1819), pp. 171–7,Google Scholar and again recently by Robinson, J. A. T., Redating the New Testament (London, 1976), p. 240 n. 98;Google Scholar in the 80s (with the rest of the work) by Daniélou, J., The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London, 1964), pp. 12 f.;Google Scholar at the end of the first century, by Charles, R. H., The Ascension of Isaiah (London, 1900), pp. xliv f.,Google Scholar and by Box, G. H., in Charles, R. H. and Box, G. H., The Ascension of Isaiah (London, 1917), pp. x f.Google Scholar But they have also been plausibly placed in the second century: within the first three or four decades (with the rest of the work), by Burkitt, F. C., Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Schweich Lectures 1913) (London, 1914), p. 46;Google Scholar in the first half of the century, by Tisserant, E., Ascension d'Isaie (Paris, 1909), p. 60;Google Scholar cf. also Hennecke, E. and Schneemelcher, W. (trans. Wilson, R. McL.) New Testament Apocrypha, ii (London, 1965), p. 643.Google Scholar

[3] For the relationship between apocalyptic and Merkabah mysticism, see various comments in Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (London, 1955), chap. 2;Google Scholaridem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1965), chap. 3; and especiallyGoogle Scholar (including discussion of Rev. iv) Rowland, C. C., The influence of the first chapter of Ezekiel on Jewish and early Christian literature (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1975). In using the term ‘Merkabah mysticism’ with reference to the first and second centuries A.D., I do not of course intend to imply that all features of the medieval Merkabah texts can be read back into that period. I use the term to identify the continuity which can be demonstrated between descriptions of ascent to the throne of God in ealier texts (among which the Ascension of Isaiah is prominent) and the literature of medieval Merkabah mysticism.Google Scholar The similarities between the Ascension of Isaiah and Gnostic literature, pointed out by Helmbold, A. K., ‘Gnostic Elements in the “Ascension of Isaiah”’, N.T.S. 18 (1971–1972), 222–7, do not show the Ascension of Isaiah to be Gnostic, since these features are also to be found in Jewish apocalyptic; they show rather that Gnosticism was indebted to the kind of Jewish and Jewish Christian apocalypticism that the Ascension of Isaiah represents. There are no distinctively Gnostic features in the Ascension of Isaiah.Google Scholar On the Ascension of Isaiah as a woik of Jewish Christian apocalyptic, see Daniélou, , op. cit., pp. 12, 173–6; on its relationship to Merkabah mysticism, see below, section III.Google Scholar

[4] This translation by D. Hill, in Hennecke, and Schneemelcher, , op. cit., ii, p. 654.Google Scholar The last sentence follows the Ethiopic version; the Latin (to which the Slavonic is similar) has: ‘Similarly worship him who is above all angels, thrones, and above the garments and crowns which you will see afterwards’ (see Tisserant, , op. cit., p. 156).Google Scholar

[5] For this translation, see Charles, R. H., op. cit., pp. 54 f., with note; the original Greek of the angel's reply is preserved in the Greek Legend ii. 11: ούк έγώ Кύροσ, άλλά σύνδουλός σου elui.Google Scholar

[6] There are few signs that Ascension of Isaiah is dependent on any New Testament writings. The passage xi. 2–17 (Ethiopic version only) seems dependent on Matt, i f.

[7] Translation in Odeberg, H., 3 Enoch, or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge, 1928). Other examples: IV Mace. iv. 10 f.; Rev. i. 17; Hekhalot Rabbati xxiv. 2 f. Fainting is probably the sense in Dan. viii. 18; x. 8 f. In some accounts of angelophanies only fear is mentioned: Test. Abr. xiii (Rec. B); II Enoch xx. 1; cf. Mark xvi. 5, 8; Luke xxiv. 37.Google Scholar

[8] Other examples: Num. xxii. 31; Josh. v. 14; Dan. viii. 17.

[9] E.g. Exod. xx. 5; xxiii. 24; Deut. v. 9; Apoc. Moses xxvii. 5; xxxiii. 5; Matt., iv. 9 f.Google Scholar

[10] Gen. xvii. 3;Ezek. i. 28; iii. 23; xliii. 3; xliv. 4; I Enoch lxxi. 11; II Enoch xxii. 4; Vita Adae xxvi. 1; xxviii. 1; cf. I Enoch xiv. 24. I Enoch lx. 3; lxxi. 2 seem to be generalised reactions to the vision of the throne of God and its surrounding angels.

[11] E.g. Gen. xviii. 2; xix. 1; xxiii. 7,12; xxxiii. 2; I Sam. xxviii. 14; I Kings ii. 19; II Kings ii. 15; Isa. xlv. 14; Rev. iii. 9. In III Enoch iv. 9; xiv. 5, the angels prostrate themselves before Metatron; and in III Enoch xviii there is elaborate description of how each rank of angels shows respect for its superiors: ‘they remove the crown of glory from their head and fall on their faces’ (cf. also Hek. Rab. xxiii. 3). On προσкύνησς and worship, see Greeven, H. in T.D.N.T. 6, pp. 758–66;Google ScholarMoule, C. F. D., The Origin of Christology (London, 1977), pp. 175 f.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMastin, B. A., ‘Daniel 246 and the Hellenistic World’, Z.A.W. 85 (1973), 80–93.Google Scholar When Greeks objected to προσкύνηυς to a living man, it was not because it was blasphemous, but because it was servile: see Charlesworth, M. P., ‘Some Observations on Ruler-Cult, Especially in Rome’, H.T.R. 28 (1935), 5–44, especially 16–20.Google Scholar

[12] I Enoch lx. 3; lxv. 4; Apoc. Abr. x; Matt. xvii. 6.

[13] Dan. v. 6; vii. 15, 28; viii. 27; I Enoch xiv. 9, 13 f.; II Esdras x. 30.

[14] The earliest Jewish instance of a refusal to prostrate oneself is Esther iii. 2, which is interpreted as a monotheistic objection to προσкύνησς in the LXX Additions to Est. xiii. 12–14 (‘I will not bow down before before any but thee, my Lord’) and the Second Targum to Est. iii. 3 (‘I will not bow dwon, except to the living and true God’): see the discussion (with these and other texts cited) in Paton, L. B., A critical and exegetical commentary on the Book of Esther (I. C. C.) (Ediburgh, 1908), pp. 195–7.Google Scholar The question be came acute in relation to those Roman Emperors who demanded explicit divine honours: cf, Philo, leg. Gai. 116. For the monotheistic rejection of προσкύνησς, see also Acts x. 25 f.; for Cornelius, his action is the reverence due to a human messenger of God, but Peter regards it as inappropriately given to a mere man.Google Scholar

[15] If it is true that Jewish apocalyptic and its angelology are indebted to Zoroastrianism, it is relevant to note that in Zoroastrianism both the Bounteous Immortals and the yazads were worshipped. Jewish angels certainly also had an older relationship to the gods of the Canaanite pantheon.

[16] On the relationship of apocalyptic to non-Jewish culture, see my article, ‘The Rise of Apocalyptic’, Themelios iii. 2 (1978), 10–23.Google Scholar

[17] Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy (Oxford, 1923), chap. 4.Google Scholar

[18] Williams, A. L., ‘The Cult of Angels at Colossae’, J.T.S. 10 (1909), 413–38;Google ScholarSimon, M., ‘Remarques sur l'angélolâtrie juive au début de l'ère chrétienne’, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Comptes rendus des séances de l'année 1971, 120–32, discuss the main evidence for Jewish angelolatry and rightly conclude that there was no officially sanctioned cult of angels in mainstream Judaism, though prayer to angels seems to have been at least an occasional feature of popular piety, and invocation of angels was a Jewish contribution to Hellenistic magic. Neither discusses the texts examined in this section.Google Scholar

[19] RSV, translating the text in Vaticanus. The text in Sinaiticus gives a similar sense.

[20] I accept as probable the identification of the Akhmimic, ‘Anonymous Apocalypse’ (from which this passage comes) with the Apocalypse of ‘Sophonias’ (Zephaniah), extant in a Sahidic fragment (texts of both in Steindorff, G., Die Apokalypse des Elias, eine unbekannte Apokalypse und Bruchstücke der Sophonias-Apokalypse (T.U. 17. 3a) (Leipzig, 1899)):Google Scholar see James, M. R., The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (London, 1920), p. 73;Google ScholarCharlesworth, J. H., The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research (Missoula, Montana, 1976), pp. 220–2. If it is also the Apocalypse of Zephaniah which Clement of Alexandria quotes (Str. V. xi. 77), then it belongs to the same type of apocalypse as the Ascension of Isaiah.Google Scholar

[21] Translation by Houghton, H. P., ‘The Coptic Apocalypse’, Aegyptus 36 (1959), 81 f.Google Scholar

[22] Frey, J. B., D.B.S. 1, col. 457, thinks the work wholly Jewish, but at least minor Christian editing seems probable.Google Scholar

[23] Face shining like the sun: Test. Abr. ii, vii, xii (Rec. A); II Enoch i. 5; xix. 1; III Enoch xlviii C. 6; Apoc. Paul xii. Girded with golden girdle: Dan. x. 5; Apoc. Paul xii. Feet like brass in the fire: Ezek. i. 4, 7; Dan. x. 6.

[24] Translation in Budge, E. A. W., Miscellaneous Coptic texts in the dialect of Upper Egypt (London, 1915), p. 1078.Google Scholar

[25] Translation in Walker, A., Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations (A.N.C.L. xvi) (Edinburgh, 1873), p. 21;Google Scholar Latin text in Tischendorf, C., ed., Evangelia apocrypha (Leipzig, 1876, 2nd ed.), p. 59.Google Scholar

[26] Chapter i describes the face of God: ‘the middle face was higher than all, which I saw made of fire, to the shoulder and the arm, very terribly’; cf. the description of the face of God in II Enoch xxii. 1 (A); xxxix. 3.

[27] Translation in James, , op. cit., p. 98.Google Scholar

[28] Translation in Odeberg, op. cit.

[29] This text is discussed in Segal, op. cit., chap. 3; Alexander, P. S., ‘The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch’, J.J.S. 28 (1977), 177 f.Google Scholar

[30] Odeberg, , op. cit., intro. pp. 85 f., believes the chapter to emanate ‘from early opponents to the Metatron-speculations of the mystics’; but by comparison with the version in b Hag. 15a its demotion of Metatron is moderate. It is therefore better to see it as an attempt at self-correction from within the Metatron tradition.Google Scholar

[31] Fragments of the Cairo Genizah Hekhalot published by Gruenwald, I., Tarbiz 38 (1969), 354–73; xxxix (1970), 216 f.: this passage on pp. 362 f. The translation I give is by P. S. Alexander, from his edition of III Enoch in the forthcoming Doubleday edition of the Pseudepigrapha; I am grateful to him for drawing my attention to this passage.Google Scholar

[32] For some of the parallels, see Murtonen, A., ‘The Figure of MeṬaṬrôn’, V.T. 3 (1953), 409–11,Google Scholar though his view that the figure of Metatron has been influenced by the Christian view of Jesus is improbable. Even less tenable is the view that ‘Metatron is a rough draft of which Jesus is the marvellous finished product’: Couchoud, P. L., The Book of Revelation: A key to Christian origins (London, 1932), p. 65.Google Scholar

[33] Were there Merkabah mystics who did worship Metatron? Presumably the warnings against the danger of this presuppose that the danger was sometimes realised, though perhaps those who did ‘worship’ Metatron would not have regarded it as worship. In b Sanh. 38b (discussed in Urbach, E. E., The Sages (Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 138 f.;Google ScholarSegal, , op. cit., pp. 68–71;Google ScholarAlexander, , art. cit., 177)Google Scholar R. Idi disputes with a min who argues from Ex. xxiv. 1 that there is a second divine figure who should be woishipped. Since it is R. Idi who calls this figure Metatron we cannot be quite sure that the min is an adherent of the Metatron-Merkabah traditions. Urbach thinks it ‘most likely that the reference is actually to a Christian sectarian’ (p. 139), while Segal supposes that Metatron was the rabbinic name for a variety of mediating beings in heresies, and finds no convincing evidence that Merkabah mystics were ever called heretical (p. 200). On the other hand, the warnings against the worship of Metatron make it quite possible that some Merkabah mystics strayed into ‘two powers’ heresy.

[34] So, for example, Bousset, W., Die Offenbarung Johannis (Göttingen, 1906), p. 493,CrossRefGoogle ScholarSwete, H. B., The Apocalypse of St John (London, 1907, 2nd ed.), pp. 249, 304;Google ScholarKiddle, M., The Revelation of St John, Moffatt NT Commentary (London, 1940), pp. 382, 449Google ScholarPeake, A. S., The Revelation of John (London, n.d., ?1919), p. 355 n. 1;Google ScholarMorris, L., The Revelation of St John, Tyndale NT Commentaries (London, 1969), p. 228;Google ScholarPreston, R. H. and Hanson, A. T., The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, Torch Commentaries (London, 1949), pp. 120, 143 f.;Google ScholarSweet, J., Revelation, SCM Pelican Commentaries (London, 1979), p. 280.Google Scholar

[35] So Caird, G. B., The Revelation of St John the Divine, Black's NT Commentaries (London, 1966), p. 237.Google Scholar Nicolaitanism, distinguished by its lack of moral strictness (ii. 14, 20), seems to have been a form of gnosticising libertinism (see Fiorenza, E. S., ‘Apocalyptic and Gnosis in the Book of Revelation and Paul’, J.B.L. 92 (1973), 565–81), and therefore more like the antinomian heretics in Jude, who slandered angels (Jude 8), than the ascetic legalists at Colossae, who worshipped them (Col. ii. 18). But this classification may be too schematic. It is quite possible that the Nicolaitan prophets enjoyed visions in which angelic beings loomed large.Google Scholar

[36] The structure of these passages and its theological significance is studied in detail by Giblin, C. H., ‘Structural and Thematic Correlations in the Theology of Revelation 16–22’, Biblica 55 (1974), 487–504. The following two paragraphs are much indebted to his analysis.Google Scholar

[37] On the significance of the phrase έν πνεύμαρι see my article, ‘The Role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse’, Evangelical Quarterly 111(1980), 66–72.

[38] For the subjective genitive in μαρρνρία ‘ιησού, cf. i. 2; xxii. 20. In a subordinate sense both John (i. 2) and the angel (xxii. 16) bear witness to Jesus’ witness.

[39] Cf., in more detail, Giblin, art. cit., 496–8.

[40] Cf., Caird, op. cit., p. 283: the repetition of the incident ‘further serves to enhance the divine majesty of Christ, to whom worship is paid without any sense of detraction from what is due to God alone’.Google Scholar

[41] Jörns, K.-P., Das hymnische Evangelium (Gütersloh, 1971), pp. 45 f.,Google Scholar following Müller, H. P., ‘Die himmlische Ratsversammlung. Motivgeschichtliches zu Apk.5, l–5’, Z.N.H. 54 (1963), 254–67.Google Scholar

[42] There are traces of an angel-Christology in the terminology of the Apocalypse (i. 13–16, where most of the terms are paralleled in descriptions of angels, cf. especially Dan. x. 5 f.; Apoc. Abr. xi; Apoc. Zephaniah, Akhmimic ix. 14–19, quoted above; and Rev. xiv. 14 f., which seems to imply that Christ can be called an angel), but it has been reduced to relative insignificance by the sharp theological distinction between Christ and angels.

[43] Cf., Kiddle, op. cit., p. 105 (on v. 11 f.): ‘Nowhere else in the New Testament is Christ adored on such absolutely equal terms with the Godhead’Google ScholarSwete, , op. cit., p. 127 (on chap, v): ‘This chapter is the most powerful statement of the divinity of Christ in the New Testament, and it receives its power from the praise of God the Creator which precedes it.’Google Scholar

[44] For the hymns sung in heaven, see Apoc. Abr. xvii; I Enoch xxxix. 12 f.; 4QShiiShab; II Enoch xxi. 1; III Enoch i. 12; xix. 7; xx. 2; xxxix. 2; xl. 1 f.; xlviii B. 2. Also Odeberg, , op. cit., intro. pp. 183–7;Google ScholarScholem, , Jewish Gnosticism, chap. 4.Google Scholar

[45] The three hymns using the formula άεδς…λαβείν (iv. 11; v. 9, 12) have commonly been called ‘acclamations’. It is not, however, likely that the formula derives, as Peterson argued, from Greek secular acclamations: see the most recent discussions in Jörns, , op. cit., pp. 56–73;Google Scholarvan Unnik, W. C., ‘“Worthy is the Lamb.” The Background of Apoc. 5’, Mélanges bibliques (Festschrift for B. Rigaux), ed. Descamps, A. and de Halleux, A. (Gembloux, 1970), pp. 445–61. Jörns prefers to see the three ‘Axios-Strophes’ as antiphonal responses.Google Scholar This is not to deny, however, that in view of John's polemic against Emperor-worship, a parallel and contrast with the acclamations of the Emperor are probably intended. It is interesting to compare Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Shirta 1, where doxological hymns to God are very explicitly compared with acclamations of human kings: see Goldin, J., The Song at the Sea (New Haven/London, 1971), pp. 80 f.Google Scholar

[46] Cf., e.g. Hek. Rab. xxviii. 1; also the hymns in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Shirta 1, with the attempt at reconstruction in Goldin, , op. cit., p. 81.Google Scholar

[47] Perhaps the closest parallels are III Enoch xxii. 1: ‘Above them (the Hayyot) there is one prince, noble, wonderful, strong, and praised with all kinds of praise. His name is Kerubiel…’; Hek. Rab. xxiii. 2: ‘Anaphiel-YHVH, Lord of Israel - a revered, awesome, terrifying, noble, glorified, powerful, mighty, and valiant prince whose name is mentioned before the Throne of Glory three times a day, in the heavens, from the day the world was created until now, in praise, because the signet ring of the heavens and of the earth is given into his power’ (translation in Blumenthal, D. R., Understanding Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1978), p. 76). The prostration of angels before superior angels is described in III Enoch iv. 9; xiv. 5; xviii; Hek. Rab. xxiii. 3. There is certainly also a tendency in the Hekhalot texts to dwell on the glory of the angels, in terms which almost become doxological (Hek. Rab. xxiii. 2, 4; III Enoch xvii. 1; xix. 1; xx. 1; xxvi. 1; xxviii. 1) - precisely the tendency against which the texts in section I are aimed. But notice: (a) such passages are no doubt intended to enhance the glory of God by describing the glory of the creatures whose purpose is to glorify God; and (b) even this tendency does not lead to doxologies addressed jointly to God and the angels, like the doxology of God and Christ in Rev. v. 13. The Parables of Enoch mention several times the ‘worship’ of the Son of Man or Elect One (most clearly: I Enoch xlviii. 5; lxii. 6, 9), but always as the eschatological subjection of men to God's vicegerent, never as worship by angels in heaven (unless lxi. 7 refers to this).Google Scholar

[48] Beskow, P., Rex Gloriae. The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church (Stockholm, 1962), pp. 140 f.: but he exaggerates the subordination of Christ in the Apocalypse by ignoring v. 9–12.Google Scholar

[49] xx. 6 is hardly in the same category, since αύтού rather obviously refers to Christ (cf. xx. 4).

[50] Beasley-Murray, G. R., The Book of Revelation, New Century Bible (London, 1974), p. 332 (on xxii. 3); cf. p. 189 (on xi. 15);Google ScholarSwete, , op. cit., p. 142 (on xi. 15);Google ScholarMounce, R. H., The Book of Revelation, New International Commentary on the NT (Grand Rapids, 1977), p. 231 (on xi. 15);Google ScholarHoltz, T., Die Christologie der Apokalypse des Johannes, T.U. lxxxv (Berlin, 1962), pp. 202 f. God and Christ take a singular verb in 1 Thes. iii. 11.Google Scholar

[51] Probably in vi. 17 the reading αύθοū should be preferred, since it is easier to understand correction of αύтού to αύтών than vice versa (so Scott, C. A., Revelation, Century Bible (Edinburgh, n.d.), p. 187):Google Scholar this passage then presents a phenomenon rather similar to xi. 15; xxii. 3. At v. 14 (where the reading §ώνтл είς тούς αιώνας Тών αлώνων might conform to this usage, but is much too poorly attested to be original) John probably deliberately avoided specifying the object of worship, since v. 13 would require it to be plural (elsewhere when he uses the same terms, in iv. 10; vii. 11; xi. 16; xix. 4, the object of worship is specified as God; cf. v. 8, of the Lamb). Holtz, , op. cit., p. 202 (following Lohmeyer), suggests that the repeated αύТού in i. 1 is another example of a singular pronoun for both God and Christ.Google Scholar

[52] Holtz, , op. cit., pp. 202 f.Google Scholar

[53] Piper, O. A., ‘The Apocalypse of John and the Liturgy of the Ancient Church’, Church History 20 (1951), 10–22;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMowry, L., ‘Revelation 4–5 and Early Christian Liturgical Usage’, J.B.L. 71 (1952), 75–84;Google ScholarShepherd, M. H., The Paschal Liturgy and the Apocalypse (London, 1960).Google ScholarO'Rourke, J. J., ‘The Hymns of the Apocalypse’, C.B.Q. 30 (1968), 399–409, finds only fragments of pre-existing hymns (and none in chap. v).Google Scholar

[54] Jorns, , op. cit., pp. 178–84.Google Scholar

[55] Fiorenza, E. S., art. cit., 577–9;Google Scholaridem, ‘Cultic Language in Qumran and the New Testament’, C.B.Q. xxxviii (1976), 175.Google Scholar

[56] Swete, , op. cit., p. 84.Google Scholar

[57] Fioienza, E. S., ‘Redemption as liberation: Apoc. l:5f. and 5:9f.’, C.B.Q. 36 (1974), 223–7, thinks John has turned a traditional confessional formula into a hymn of praise by adding the doxology.Google Scholar

[58] Doxologies addressed to Christ also appear in II Tim. iv. 18; II Pet. iii. 18; perhaps I Pet. iv. 11;Heb. xiii. 21; I Clem. xx. 12; 1. 7.Cf. also Pliny's report that Christians ‘carmen Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem’ (Ep. x. 96).

[59] The seven heavens in Asc. Isa. resemble the seven halls of the later Hekhalot texts rather than the seven heavens of Test. Levi ii f.; II Enoch; or even Visions of Ezekiel. Cf. also Apoc. Zephaniah as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Str. V. xi. 77.

[60] Cf. III Enoch xviii. 3; Hek. Rab. xvii; xix; xx. 5-xxi. 3; xxii. 2; xxiii. According to the Ethiopic version of Asc. Isa., Christ ‘gave the password’ at each gate; but the Latin has ‘ostendebat characterem’ (x. 25) and ‘dedit signa’ (x. 29) (Slavonic, in Bonwetsch's Latin translation, has ‘ostendebat signa’ and ‘dedit signum’). Evidently the Greek had ξαραкТήρ, meaning the impress on a seal, corresponding to Hek. Rab. xix, where at each gate seals imprinted with the names of angels had to be shown. This motif is not otherwise known from the older apocalypses.

[61] Cf. III Enoch ii. 2–4; iv. 7–9; vi. 2 f.

[62] Cf. II Enoch xxii. 10; III Enoch xv. 1; xlviii. C. 6.

[63] Cf. I Enoch xxxix. 9 f.; lxxi. 11; Apoc. Abr. xvii; III Enoch i. 11 f.; Hek. Rab. xxv.

[64] In the Hekhalot texts the angels cannot behold God but the mystic can: Hek. Rab. xxiv. 5; Lesser Hekhalot, as quoted by Scholem, , Major Trends, p. 63 (‘God who is beyond the sight of his creatures and hidden to the angels who serve him, but who has revealed himself to Rabbi Akiba in the vision of the Merkabah’). Cf. I Enoch xiv. 21; and, for the idea of ‘power’, I Enoch lxxi. 11; III Enoch i. 11. The versions of Asc. Isa. are confused as to whether Isaiah himself was able to see God (ix. 37, 39; x. 2; xi. 32): it seems that in the original he could only bear the sight momentarily. The confusion in the versions may be due to a doctrinal difference, since the two recensions of II Enoch xxii also differ as to whether or not Enoch was able to see God.Google Scholar

[65] Cf. also Scholem, , Jewish Gnosticism, pp. 30, 129.Google Scholar

[66] Such abbreviation is apparent from the comparison of the versions, and the Greek Legend, and also from the quotation of ix. 35 f. preserved in Epiphanius, Haer. 67. 3Google Scholar (Charles, , op. cit., p. 67). The Greek Legend seems to show traces of a richer angelology: cf. the lists in ii. 40: γγελοл, άρξάγγελοι, θσόνοι, кυρώтηТες, άρξαι, έσονσιυ, кαι πάσαι тων σύρανων αι δυνάμεις (the corresponding verse, Asc. Isa. x. 15, has shorter lists in Latin and Slavonic), and ii. 22, quoted below. But the resemblance to Col. i. 16 is probably against the originality of these lists. More suggestive is the mention of ύποθρόνια 7sect;ωα in Greek Legend ii. 20.Google Scholar

[67] Michael is named at iii. 16 (‘the chief of the holy angels’), and, in Slavonic and Latin but not Ethiopic, at ix. 23, 29, 42.

[68] Apart from Michael and ‘the angel of the church’ (iii. 15), only Isaiah's guide (vii. 2 etc.), the angel who presides over the worship in the sixth heaven (ix. 4), and the angel of ix. 21 (identified as Michael by Slavonic and Latin at ix. 23).

[69] Hek. Rab. xvi. 4 f.; xvii; cf. Scholem, , Major Trends, pp. 50 f.;Google ScholarAlexander, , art. cit., p. 178. No doubt this is why the technique of passing the gatekeepers is mentioned in Christ's descent (x. 24, 25,27,29), not in Isaiah's ascent: presumably Isaiah's guiding angel deals with this for him.Google Scholar

[70] Perhaps there is also some polemic against the Enoch traditions, though a moderate polemic, in view of ix. 9. The author does not deny Enoch's translation, though he equates it with the postmortem ascensions of the other righteous men of the Old Testament (ix. 7–9); he does seem to deny Enoch's visit to heaven before his translation.

[71] This suggests that Asc. Isa. should be given more attention than it has had in the discussion of Col.ii. 18.

[72] In Asc. Isa. the incident occurs in the second heaven, while in the sixth heaven occurs the exchange in which the angel refuses to be called ‘Lord’. The Greek Legend has moved the latter back to the firmament below the first heaven (ii. 10 f.) and replaced it in the sixth heaven by the prohibition of angel-worship. It is perhaps possible that the original included two versions of the seer's attempt to worship angels and its prohibition, one in the second and one in the sixth heaven.

[73] Greek text in Charles, , op. cit., p. 144. (The Greek Legend is a much abbreviated and rewritten version of Asc. Isa., but it frequently preserves the original Greek of the latter.)Google Scholar

[74] Dan. viii. 17 f.; x. 10, 18; Apoc. Abr. x; III Enoch i. 7–9; Hek. Rab, . xxiv. 2 f.Google Scholar

[75] The need for a specific command to ‘Worship God’ was perhaps redundant here, though it is not clear why Isaiah is not stated to have joined in the worship of God.

[76] Cf. also Irenaeus, Demonstratio x.

[77] The positions in ix. 35 f. are clearer in the version in Epiphanius, Haer. lxvii. 3; see Charles, , op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar

[78] So Daniélou, , op. cit., pp. 127–9Google Scholar, followed by Stead, C., ‘The Origins of the Doctrine of the Trinity, 1’, Theology 77 (1974), 514.Google Scholar

[79] So Werner, M., The formation of Christian dogma (London, 1957), p. 132;Google Scholarcf., G. Kretschmar, Studien zur frühchristlichen Trinitdtätheologie (Tübingen, 1956), pp. 73, 78.Google Scholar On Origen's identification, see Daniélou, , op. cit., pp. 134–6;Google ScholarKretschmar, , op. cit., pp. 64–8; a similar identification in Irenaeus,Google ScholarDaniélou, , op. cit., p. 138.Google Scholar

[80] For the probability that xi. 2–22, though only in the Ethiopic version, belongs to the original text, see Charles, , op. cit., pp. xxii–xxiv;Google ScholarVaillant, A., ‘Un apocryphe pseudo-bogomile: la Vision d'Isaïe’, Revue des études slaves 42 (1963), 111 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[81] Talbert, C. H., ‘The Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity’, N.T.S. 22 (1975-1976), 422–6.Google Scholar

[82] See above n. 42.

[83] This is probably the sense of ‘glories’ (Lat. gloriarum) here: cf. Jude 8; 1QH x. 8; II Enoch xxii. 7,10.

[84] Jungmann, J., The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer (London/Dublin, 1965, 2nd ed.).Google Scholar It is important to notice that the liturgies are more conservative, in the area of prayer to and worship of Jesus, than the evidence of the New Testament suggests was true of Christian worship towards the end of the first century: cf. the doxologies addressed to Christ cited in n. 58 above. The extent to which prayer is addressed to Jesus in the New Testament has been frequently underestimated (see Delay, E., ‘A qui s'addresse la priàre chrétienne?’, Revue de thiologie et de philosophic 37 (1949), 189–201); note especially John xiv. 14, which lays down a general principle.Google Scholar

[85] See Rawlinson, A. E. J., The New Testament Doctrine of the Christ (Bampton Lectures 1926) (London, 1926), pp. 135 f.;Google ScholarMartin, R. P., Worship in the Early Church (London, 1964), p. 31; Jungmann, op. cit., chap. 10.Google Scholar

[86] E.g. Segal, , op. cit., p. 215.Google Scholar

[87] I Apol. 6. 2; the translation follows that of Barnard, L. W., Justin Martyr: his life and thought (Cambridge, 1967), p. 105, who rules out attempts to read the passage differently.Google Scholar

[88] In the preparation of this article I have been helped by valuable comments on my argument from Prof. C. F. D. Moule, Dr P. S. Alexander, and Dr J. P. Kane.