Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity

Richard C. Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317585848
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This book offers an original interpretation of the origin and early reception of the most fundamental claim of Christianity: Jesus' resurrection. Richard Miller contends that the earliest Christians would not have considered the New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection to be literal or historical, but instead would have recognized this narrative as an instance of the trope of divine translation, common within the Hellenistic and Roman mythic traditions. Given this framework, Miller argues, early Christians would have understood the resurrection story as fictitious rather than historical in nature. By drawing connections between the Gospels and ancient Greek and Roman literature, Miller makes the case that the narratives of the resurrection and ascension of Christ applied extensive and unmistakable structural and symbolic language common to Mediterranean "translation fables, " stock story patterns derived particularly from the archetypal myths of Heracles and Romulus. In the course of his argument, the author applies a critical lens to the referential and mimetic nature of the Gospel stories, and suggests that adapting the "translation fable" trope to accounts of Jesus' resurrection functioned to exalt him to the level of the heroes, demigods, and emperors of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Miller's contentions have significant implications for New Testament scholarship and will provoke discussion among scholars of early Christianity and Classical studies.

1
Justin’s Confession

o#ti ta\ o#moia toi=j 4Ellhsi le/gontej mo/noi misou/meqa

Although we say the same things as the Greeks, we alone are hated!

[Justin, 1 Apol. 24.1]

Ca. 150 C.E., in response to a most grievous and escalating persecution of Christians under Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, the earliest surviving written apology (i.e., sustained rhetorical defense) of Christianity confessed:

tw~| de\ kai\ to\n lo/gon, o4 e0sti prw~ton ge/nnhma tou= qeou=, a1neu e0pimici/aj fa&skein h9ma=j gegennh=sqai, 0Ihsou=n Xristo\n to\n dida&skalon h9mw~n, kai\ tou=ton staurwqe/nta kai\ a)poqano/nta kai\ a)nasta&nta a)nelhluqe/nai ei\j to_n ou0rano_n, ou0 para_ tou_j par 0 u9mi=n legome&nouj ui9ou_j tw~| Dii5 kaino&n ti fe/romen. po&souj ga_r ui9ou_j fa&skousi tou= Dio_j oi9 par0 u9mi=n timw&menoi suggrafei=j, e0pi/stasfe: 9Ermh=n me/n, lo&gon to_n e9rmhneutiko_n kai\ pa&ntwn dida&skalon, 0Asklhpio_n de/, kai\ qerapeuth_n geno&menon, keraunwqe/nta a)nelhluqe/nai ei0j ou0rano&n, Dio&nuson de\ diasparaxqe/nta, 9Hrakle/a de\ fugh=| po&nwn e9auto_n puri\ do&nta, tou_j e0k Lh/daj de\ Dioskou&rouj, kai\ to_n Dana&hj Perse/a, kai\ to_n e0c a)nqrw&pwn de\ e0f 0 i3ppou Phga&sou Bellerofo&nthn. ti/ ga_r le/gomen th_n 0Aria&dnhn kai\ tou_j o9moi/wj au0th=| kathsteri/sqai legome/nouj; kai\ ti/ ga\r tou\j a0poqnh&skontaj par 0 u9mi=n au0tokra&toraj, ou4j a0ei\ a0paqanati/zesqai a0ciou=ntej kai\ o0mnu&nta tina_ proa&gete e9wrake/nai e0k th=j pura~j a0nerxo&menon ei0j to_n ou0rano_n to_n katakae/nta Kai/sara;

(Justin, 1 Apol. 21)

When we affirm that the Logos, God’s first-born, begotten without a sexual union, namely, our teacher Jesus Christ, was crucified, died, rose, and ascended to heaven, we are conveying nothing new with respect to those whom you call the sons of Zeus: Hermes, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Asclepius, who, though he was a great healer, was struck by a thunderbolt and so ascended to heaven; and Dionysus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Heracles, once he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and the Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those like her who have been declared to be set among the stars? And what about the emperors who die among you, whom you deem worthy to be forever immortalized and for whom you bring forward someone who swears to have seen Caesar, once having been consumed by fire, ascend into heaven from the funeral pyre.¹

Justin Martyr’s 1 Apology presented the framing contours of the Gospel narrative as having resided within a mythic mode of hero fabulation. Considering the plea’s broader context, one may best summarize the larger argument as follows: “We, O Romans, have produced myths and fables with our Jesus as you have done with your own heroes and emperors; so why are you killing us?” Central to the earliest great apology of the Christian tradition, this grand concession casts a profound light on the nature of early Christian narrative production.²

This synopsis of the text, however, begs further complication and clarification and, as such, shall serve as the heuristic stone pathway for embarking upon the present study. The critic may pause to consider: Could the apology indeed have admitted that the earliest Christians had composed Jesus’ divine birth, dramatically tragic death, resurrection, and ascension within the earliest Christian Gospel tradition as fictive embellishments following the stock structural conventions of Greek and Roman mythology, specifically the narrative traditions of the fabled antique Mediterranean demigod? Would not such an admission have utterly crippled earliest Christian kerygma, at least as historians have typically imagined the so-called orthodox movement’s claim in the first two centuries of the Common Era? The text becomes all the more disturbing when considering that the argument did not even qualify as an “admission” per se but merely arose as a statement in passing, as though commonly acknowledged both within and without Christian society. Indeed, the implied author even included himself, as well as all Christians, as complicit in this mythopoeic enterprise: ou) para\ tou\j par’ u9mi=n legome/nouj tw~| ui(ou\j Dii% kaino/n ti fe/romen.³ Did this earliest defense of Christianity deliver a candid assessment when stating that there was “nothing unique” or sui generis about these dominant framing contours of the Jesus narrative?

The apology’s at times overt rejection of antecedent iconic figures of classical antiquity, however, yet further complicates the matter. In 1 Apology 5, for instance, the apology asserted that the classical pantheon was, in truth, a cast of demons. Notice that the apology did not argue this point; the denigration did not arise out of a reasoned progression of thought. The text simply asserted that the gods were to be understood as wicked and impious. Only out of ignorance did the classical world regard such demons as deities.⁴ So, despite the confession that the early Christians “say the same things as the Greeks” (1 Apol. 24.1), the Greek analogues, according to the defense, arose by the inspiration of “evil demons” through the “myth-making of the poets” (1 Apol. 23.3). By thus discrediting the prior Greek literary renditions of the sons of Zeus as deceptions, the apology distinguished the analogous Christian narratives, regarding Jesus alone as being “true,” though again providing no further evidence or reasoned argumentation.

Marshaling an all the more radical ambivalence than those sentiments previously articulated by the Epicurean Lucretius in his De rerum natura, the apology’s claim appears to be unstable, pendulating between two paradoxical propositions.⁵ On the one hand, the stock themes of the tales of the Greek demigods equal those applied to his Christian demigod, thus indicating conventional adaptation. While on the other hand, all such prior Greek stories were mere deceptions arising out of the corrupt influence of demons upon the classical poets; the Gospel narrative alone warrants credulity. If one mistakenly holds the early Christian apologetic tradition to the generally accepted standards of reasoned argumentation, in this aporetic moment, the apology’s thesis collapses, undercutting itself. The Derrida within may find amusement in watching Justin’s text deconstruct with such alacrity. This observed lack of coherence, however, instead emerged from the apology’s fluid, non-systemic rhetorical style. As Robert Price has observed, “It is to the history of Christian rhetoric rather than of Christian doctrine that Justin and the other Greek Apologists belong.”⁶ As with his Christian movement, Justin’s position was in motion, that is, echoing a shift upon a developmental trajectory of early Christian rhetoric in contestation with the cultural structures of classical civilization. This refraction in the works of Justin of a chronological strategic development becomes the more visible when one notes the several intermediate, hybridic (tertium quid) positions and tactics throughout 1–2 Apology. The works, for instance, as did the Johannine school, sought to appropriate the Greek philosophical conception of universal reason (lo/goj) as metaphysically establishing the underlying wisdom and machinations of the cosmos, thus having seen this principle as fully embodied by and culminating in the Christ. Socrates not only knew this divine reason, but by extension, according to the apology, knew Christ himself (2 Apol. 10.8). 1 Apology, moreover, boldly asserted that all who lived according to universal reason (lo/goj) prior to Christ were in fact Christians, listing such examples as Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greeks (1 Apol. 46.3–4), Gaius Musonius Rufus, the Roman Stoic philosopher (2 Apol. 8.1–3), and Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Elijah, and many others from among the “barbarians” (1 Apol. 46.3–4). As previously understood in Greek philosophical tradition, this supreme reason existed as universally accessible to all peoples throughout time. The apology merely made explicit that which the prologue to John’s Gospel had already implied (Jn 1.1–14). Contrary to Adolf von Harnack’s conception, Justin did not attempt to Hellenize the alleged original Judeo-Christian “kernel” of Christianity (“umlagerte noch den Kern”).⁷ Setting aside the matter of the historical Jesus, one may observe that the New Testament documents previously displayed the inchoate, thoroughly Hellenistic disposition of early Christian proclamation. Justin’s works were not “Hellenizing,” but providing rhetorical exposition of the already well-established Hellenistic hybridity of earliest Christian kerygma. Indeed, the present book succeeds inasmuch as the analysis demonstrates the apology’s claim that the Gospel renditions of Jesus presented “nothing new” with respect to the stock themes of the classical “demigod” tradition of Mediterranean culture. Such a claim, according to this study, was not a Hellenizing or Romanizing innovation in 1 Apology, but merely a moment of explicit concession regarding that which had already been broadly recognized.

With the mimesis of such iconic figures admitted, rather, the apology’s rhetorical innovation came in the endeavor to denigrate such classical archetypes, thus participating in a more pronounced phase of contestation in the second century.⁸ The text continued:

3Ina de\ h1dh kai\ tou=to fanero\n u9mi=n ge/nhtai, o3ti o9po/sa le/gomen maqo/ntej para\ tou= xristou= kai\ tw~n proelqo/ntwn au0tou= profhtw~n mo/na a0lhqh= e0sti kai\ presbu/tera pa/ntwn tw~n gegenhme/nwn suggrafe/wn, kai\ ou0xi\ dia\ to\ tau0ta\ le/gein au0toi=j paradexqh=nai a0ciou=men, a0ll 0 o3ti to\ a0lhqe\j le/gomen.

(Justin, 1 Apol. 23.1)

In order that this also may become plain to you, only the things which we say and which we learned from Christ and the prophets who came before him are true, and they are older than all those who were [the classical] writers. It is not merely because we say the same things as they do that we ask to be accepted by you, but because we say what is true.

Interestingly, the apology did not propose any argument in support of this claim that the two groups of stories were distinguishable by the alleged veracity of the Christian narratives and falsity of the analogous classical Mediterranean narratives; this statement again provided merely an assertion, attempting to assign archaic precedence to Judeo-Christian tradition. The obvious step, were this an attempt at a historical argument, would have been to propose eyewitness testimony attesting to the historicity of such early Christian tales, an argument that may have perhaps appeared compelling considering Justin’s proximity to the region and time period.

As was indicated in the reading of 1 Apology 21, however, the apology confessed that the two groups were identical in kind (ou) . . . kaino/n ti fe/romen), the very point that prompts the investigation at hand. The apology simply proposed what the logician may deem a genetic fallacy, namely, that demons inspired the classical writers to produce lies or fictions that proleptically mimicked the Christian Gospel narratives, thus seeking to preempt and undermine their veracity and legitimacy by apparent generic association. Dai/monej, according to Justin’s works, had inspired the classical literary authors to produce classical culture’s principal figures.

The repositioning reflects an underlying shift in the proposed modality of the Gospel narratives, moving along the continuum from fictive mythography toward historical fact. Such a shift corresponds with rising second-century demands being placed upon the Gospels. Whereas, at first, such stories succeeded inasmuch as they were capable of appropriating, riffing on, and engaging the conventions and themes of the classical literary tradition, by the middle of the second century, early Christians had their sights on a higher prize: a comprehensive cultural revolution of the Hellenistic Roman world.⁹ This claim to a new order required a foundation of distinct superiority, which placed new, unprecedented weight upon the etiological myths of the movement, that is, the Gospels. The founder must be better than, truer than, more virtuous than, of a more archaic tradition than, and more prophetically legitimated than the established classical cultural forms. No longer was it enough that Jesus should join the classical array of demigods as an exciting Near Eastern installment or instance; he must obtain a sui generis stature, while condemning all prior Mediterranean iconic figures. The new pressure placed upon the Gospel narratives in the second and third centuries called for creative reinterpretation and rhetorical prowess readdressing those points about the founding narrative(s) that seemed most strained or problematic to the shift. This fundamental purpose served as the implicit metanarrative functioning throughout both of Justin’s apologies and driving the particular passage here under consideration, namely, 1 Apology 21.

1.1 Evil Demons

1 Apology 21 has set forth with clarity, with geographic, chronological, and social proximity to th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Justin’s Confession
• 2 Translation Fables in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity
• 3 Critical Method and the Gospels
• 4 Translation Fables and the Gospels
• Index