The Life and Miracles of Thekla: A Literary Study

  Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald. 2006. The Life and Miracles of Thekla: A Literary Study. Hellenic Studies Series 13. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Johnson.The_Life_and_Miracles_of_Thekla.2006.


Chapter 2. Biblical Rewriting and the Metaphrastic Habit: The Life of Thekla within the History of Ancient Paraphrase

Prologue: Erasmus and the Conflict over his Paraphrases on the New Testament

For a paraphrase is a plain setting foorth of a texte or sentence more at large, with such circumstance of mo [i.e. more] and other wordes as maie make the sentence open, clere, plain, and familiar whiche otherwise should perchaunce seme bare, unfruitefull, hard, straunge, rough, obscure, and derke to be understanded of any that were either unlearned or but menely entreed [i.e. entered=instructed]. And what is this, but a kinde of exposicion, yea and that of the most pithie and effectuall sorte?


This quotation is taken from Nicholas Udall’s introduction to the English version of Erasmus’ voluminous Paraphrases on the New Testament (1548 and 1551–1552), for the first volume of which Udall (“poet, playwright, and sometime headmaster of Eton college”) was the general editor. [1] For Udall, the biblical paraphrase was a helpful guide to the hard places of Scripture; this manner of exposition, as he says, could provide a real sense of the meaning of the Bible—which it apparently lacked on the surface—for those with only a basic level of education. Erasmus’ Paraphrases were not well received in France; the original Latin edition was condemned in 1527, shortly after its first printing. [2] By contrast, the Paraphrases were very well received in England and had a discernable impact on early Anglican exegesis and preaching; they have {67|68} also been found, perhaps more tellingly, in the library records of hundreds of English parish churches. [3] Therefore, Udall’s English edition would appear to have achieved its aims, and, at least in light of its reception, his general assertions about the usefulness of biblical paraphrase were well founded with regard to his contemporary Anglican audience.

As a recent volume edited by Hilmar Pabel and Mark Vessey amply demonstrates, Erasmus’ Paraphrases were intimately connected with the development of biblical criticism and printing in the early sixteenth century (Pabel and Vessey 2002). The reception of the paraphrases in Reformation Europe, they argue, should be understood from the point of view of the complex intertextuality of the paraphrases and their translations, in which Erasmus’ theological commitments and his affected literary rhetoric interweave in a striking fashion. From their initial conception, the Paraphrases were Erasmus’ attempt to offer, within the biblical text itself, some conclusions of Renaissance exegesis—eventually in octavo (i.e. pocketbook) format—so that (even casual) readers could glean the benefits of advanced biblical criticism. But as Pabel and Vessey point out, the dissemination of the Paraphrases was not without interesting twists and turns. As already mentioned, Erasmus from the start met with criticism in France for changing the ipsissima verba of the New Testament and introducing foreign (if enlightened) comments into God’s Word. [4] Whereas Erasmus claims to have intended that the Paraphrases assist believers and congregations in understanding what the Bible really said, as Udall asserted in his translation, several scholars at the time of their publication contended that biblical paraphrase only confuses the reader and, what is more, it adulterates Scripture by introducing ideas that are merely human and thus not divinely inspired.

Erasmus’ method of paraphrase would be striking in itself, even if its reception history were less controversial. For each New Testament book he paraphrased, he tried to be conscious of the persona of the author: of each author’s style and syntax, of course, but also of the character that tradition had assigned to him. The most interesting example of this method comes from his paraphrase of the Gospel of Luke, to which he prefaced a dedication to Henry VIII. [5] Erasmus presents Luke’s Gospel as a drug or medicine that, when {68|69} taken (i.e. read), heals the effects of sin and death in the patient. He links this metaphor directly to the tradition of Luke as a physician-historian and emphasizes that the efficacy of the Gospel is based on its historical veracity, as vouchsafed by this educated companion of Paul. Erasmus thus speaks, in his words, sub evangelistae persona, taking for himself the traditional characteristics of Luke, the style of his narrative, and his medical authority. Moreover, the two prologues to Theophilus in Luke-Acts provided for Erasmus an exegetical “space” in which to create an audience, not just Henry but all his readers. As Vessey points out:


In this way a personified “Luke-voice,” Erasmus’ biblical ego, offers the paraphrast an opportunity to discuss the very nature of Scripture: how it works, what it lacks, and what it means; paraphrase becomes Scripture explaining itself, defending itself, and claiming itself. [
7] Thus, despite sixteenth-century Catholics in France who resisted Erasmus’ free play with the text, the theoretical force of Erasmus’ Paraphrases is monumental both in their reception among reformed Anglicans as well as, on a more general level, in what they say about the perceived ontology—the malleability—of the Bible.

This debate was also, of course, about the freedom of readers and, consequently, about the degree to which textual criticism should have a say in how the Bible is read. These latter are primarily Reformation issues, which we have inherited, but I would venture to suggest that the battle over Erasmus’ Paraphrases can be seen, in its essentials, as a battle for cognition as much as for canonicity, since the central question at stake is what, precisely, is necessary for a reader’s understanding when he apprehends received texts like the Gospel of Luke? Theories of scriptural cognition are common to all generations of Bible readers, and in this way the key issues in the production and reception of Erasmus’ Paraphrases can potentially be detected in every paraphrase ever written. {69|70}

Towards a Modern Theory of Paraphrase: Goody, Alter, and McKenzie on the Mutability of Texts

I do this in order to contextualize the close reading of the Life of Thekla which I presented in the last chapter. As a late antique paraphrase in Greek, the Life appropriates the paraphrase tradition as it had been practiced for centuries before and was also currently employed in both Jewish and Christian circles. This tradition clearly flourished at least as much in the eastern Mediterranean as it did in the West, and the eastern side of the tradition {70|71} was spurred on in late antiquity by the strong influence of Hebrew exegesis. However, most of the important issues raised by the contributors to Pabel and Vessey 2002 have never been addressed in a late antique setting, even though late antiquity was precisely when the eastern Christian tradition of biblical paraphrase was coming into its own. Therefore, in the following sections of the present chapter I attempt to present a brief and selective history of this tradition, beginning with the evidence from the Hebrew Bible and ending with the fifth century AD, when the majority of our earliest (extant) Greek Christian paraphrases were written. I shall also make a brief comparison between this first flowering and the apex of Byzantine paraphrase in the tenth century.

In particular, models of “literary” elaboration in oral cultures can, I suggest, provide some help in attempting to analyze the evidence of ancient paraphrase and rewriting. At the head of recent research on literature in oral societies is anthropologist Jack Goody, whose conclusions have become standard fare for anthropologists, as well as for those working on Renaissance book culture, the transition to print, and modern information networks. [12] Goody’s numerous publications focus mainly on tribes in West Africa among whom versions of the Lo Dagaa myth of the Bagre were still being recited. [13] Some {71|72} of these tribes had set down written versions of the myth, thus providing a testing ground for explaining the oral-to-written transition. Goody argues (persuasively, for many) that, while the writing-down of myths seems to limit their elaboration, variations among oral versions of myths are actively encouraged. These variations are seen as parts of an ancient whole: the individual teller of oral myth, even if patently inventing a new tale, often sees himself as recovering the lost knowledge of his ancestors. “The Speakers, even at the moment of creation, think of themselves as recovering the irrecoverable.” [14] By contrast, when myth is put into text (and only then) variations from it are consistently seen as heterodox. For Goody, cultural memory is thus essentially oral: a vast storehouse of social awareness passed down and elaborated upon by each successive generation. Oral variation is a sign of vitality, whereas the printed versions tend towards stagnation:


Goody’s concept of the decadent “archive” is set in explicit opposition to Jacques Derrida’s program of textualizing the spoken word. [
16] And Goody insists on the autonomy of the oral in the face of the post-structuralist project to see “inscription” as pervasive, even in illiterate or semi-literate societies. For Goody this is “an irresponsible attitude towards words” and cannot account for the variation found in oral “texts.” [17]

The picture that emerges from Goody’s writings is of a vibrant, unencumbered “textual” culture, that is constantly revising its own “textual” history, encouraging the extension and “rewriting” of the oral myths in every generation. However, he rarely moves beyond the (mainly) oral evidence of the Bagre that he so painstakingly accumulated. By way of extending and problematizing Goody’s seminal analysis somewhat, could it not be asked if there is any case where writing does in fact encourage the vibrant literary creativity that Goody has isolated in oral societies?

The commingling of biblical myth and Homeric epic is characteristic of fifth-century AD Greek paraphrase, as I shall demonstrate below, but it is appropriate to point out here that the attitude of classical writers to Homer and myth in general adds weight to Alter’s insights and further enriches Goody’s oral model. In her recent study of Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Teresa Morgan has gathered an impressive amount of papyrological evidence pointing to the manipulation of Homeric texts in a school context. “Texts oscillated between two statuses: that of the particular canonical version of the story, and that of a tool which could be used and altered.” [24] Homeric canon could be, therefore, a stimulant to literary activity on a very literal level: Morgan’s evidence consists of rewritings of individual words and phrases as well as the wholesale recasting of epic into both prose and verse. [25] On a wider view, the Homeric myths formed an imaginative world for ancient writers, a “site” on which they could play with an ancient, received literary history. Both the incidental details of the myths and the narrative holes left unfilled by the poet became opportunities for expansion. Indeed, as Froma Zeitlin has recently argued at length, ancient patterns of “traffic in Homer” were widespread and varied, often taking the form of imaginative (even visual) reconstructions of the myths and even the persona of the poet {74|75} himself. [26] In other words, nothing was out of bounds, and almost any aspect of received tradition could become the object of paraphrase. Yet the fact remains that the reception of Greek myth in the Hellenistic period by poet-scholars like Apollonius and Callimachus set an enduring pattern for Roman and late antique elaboration, and there is ample evidence that major Greek poets and paraphrasts of the fifth-century AD, such as Nonnus, were taking direct inspiration from their Hellenistic predecessors. [27] The example of Marianus of Eleutheropolis, an official at the court of the emperor Anastasius (491–518), offers a view from the crest of this trend: according to the Byzantine Suda encyclopedia, he wrote iambic paraphrases of the hexameter works of all the important Hellenistic poets—Theocritus, Apollonius, Callimachus, Aratus, Nicander, “and many others.” [28]

What, then, is the ancient theory of μετάφρασις? How is a retelling to be understood that is not merely translation or re-presentation? On the basis of theoretical models from anthropology and literary criticism, I have suggested that paraphrase as can be seen as a method of imaginative elaboration. The elaboration is dependent on a canonical or received text, from which it takes inspiration and/or narrative material. The fixity of received texts used for rewriting and paraphrase is less important on a doctrinal or ideological level than on a cognitive one. {75|76}

The fifth-century AD Life and Miracles of Thekla, the object of the present study, can provide a textual “place” in which to examine these issues. When this text had been previously studied by scholars, the complex issues of paraphrase and textual elaboration have not been addressed. By setting this half of the text in a literary historical framework—and then by doing the same for the second half in Chapter Four—I hope to be able to say more about how the {76|77} text works internally and, more importantly, how it relates to the culture that produced it.

In a similar vein, the bibliographer Donald McKenzie addressed the question in his 1985 Panizzi lectures of how “textual artifacts” should be treated in an age when the printed word threatens to overwhelm the human ability to process. [34] In a self-conscious attempt to redefine the vocation of bibliography for the new millennium—trying on the label “sociology of texts”—he insisted that scholars should pay close attention to the physical properties of the texts they study, since these properties can tell us as much about what the text means as can the intentions or ideologies that appear on its surface. McKenzie writes:


and further:


The present study, like McKenzie’s new bibliography, takes seriously the changes, the resemblance, of the Life and Miracles to its Vorlage, the ATh. Thus, I examined in detail in the previous chapter the elaborations made by the author in an attempt to highlight and further explain the literary nature of the Life on its own.

The “Rewritten Bible” in Ancient Judaism

Within this latter tradition, the copyists and commentators of the Dead Sea Scrolls community chose to rewrite biblical books according to the sectarian eschatological vision of their Teacher of Righteousness. The manuscripts found at Qumran are overwhelmingly biblical in their orientation: only one major text (the Copper Scroll) is not a biblical manuscript or a work based on Scripture. And every book of the Hebrew Bible was found there, either complete or in fragmentary form. [43] But the biblical texts are not identical with the Masoretic versions: they show a tremendous amount of variation, even between themselves. [44] In addition to these individual changes (both conscious and not) to the biblical text, a striking feature of the Qumran exegetical literature is its extensive interweaving of Scripture and comment on the page, to the degree that often the commentary seems to become Scripture. The fragmentary Genesis Apocryphon, a very loose paraphrase, is outstanding in this regard. [45] Surely, this technique (called pesher in its standard Qumranic form) is where some of the scribes’ own biblical interpolations originated, but what is striking is how pervasive the habit of paraphrase seems to have been at {79|80} Qumran across the board. The scribes of this community clearly took a cognitive/interpretative position on Scripture different from those who were simultaneously working to make the Bible inviolable. At Qumran the received text of the Bible was a book susceptible to modification and elaboration, rather than the monolithic code it (more or less) became in rabbinic circles.

There is some scholarly disagreement, however, as to how the translation of the lxx itself should be understood in the context of these subsequent rewrites and translations. Barnabas Lindars, for instance, has argued that a translation of the Hebrew Bible, in whatever form, should be kept distinct from its rewriting in commentaries and the like:


Lindars’s formula, however, depends on a strict a definition of translation; what is “essential” to any translation was contested in antiquity and continues to be so today. [
51] If Lindars means the lxx Penteteuch alone, which is more literal than the other books, then he has some room for argument, but it is important to note that most scholars accept that the lxx is conceptually a paraphrase, and it was understood to be so in antiquity. It is because of this ancient understanding that I think it can be argued from a historical point of view that “content exegesis” and translation should not be so artificially separated. As already suggested, it is clear from the subsequent history of the Greek translations that the lxx was considered too loose and needed to be brought back into line, presumably because the “content” had been altered.

A very different approach to the lxx emerged concurrently with the more literal and idiomatic Greek translations. Jews writing in Greek in the first century AD, such as Philo and Josephus, continued the tradition of rewriting (expansively) their received Greek Scriptures. Louis Feldman has made a sweeping study over several years—in separate articles now collected in one volume (1998b) and also rewritten into a monograph (1998a)—of the rewriting, primarily of the lxx itself, made by Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities. Feldman observes that Josephus reworked biblical stories out of concern for certain factors, including style and narrative quality, the assumptions of his intended readerships, and historiographical tropes—though apparently not out of concern for the accuracy of the translation. Through his rewriting, Josephus emerges, according to Feldman, as “no mere copyist or compiler,” but, instead, “his own views—historiographical, political, religious, and cultural . . . are consistently seen throughout the Antiquities, particularly in the changes which he has made in his paraphrase of the biblical text.” [55] Josephus thus took a comparatively liberal view toward the lxx, introducing his unique vision of the history of the Jews within the biblical text itself, so that, like the Bible of the Qumran community, his paraphrase is an inseparable intertwining of text and commentary. Josephus in his Antiquities presented virtually a new Bible, at least in its historical account, and it is paradoxical that, while the original is all but invisible, to appreciate the argument, irony, and wit of his new text, Josephus’ readers even today must be very well acquainted with the original Scripture, in Greek at least, if not also in Hebrew and Aramaic. {82|83}

Despite the conceptual distinctiveness of paraphrase, Josephus and authors of the targumim depended on what they considered to be a stable, {83|84} authoritative text for their own rewritings. [59] The text Josephus used (primarily) was an interpretative, sometimes paraphrasing, translation in its own right, but it provided a textual “site” where Jewish writers of the Hellenistic and Roman East habitually played with the history and literature that they had inherited and, thereby, tried to make it accessible to a broader audience. In his Heritage and Hellenism, Erich Gruen has explored in depth this pervasive characteristic of Hellenistic Jewish writing:


Although Gruen is speaking here of a specifically Hellenistic context, the practice of Jewish paraphrase was at least as old as Deuteronomy and continued to be employed in the Roman and late antique periods. Furthermore, as I shall explain in the next section, there is ample evidence that the Christian tradition of biblical paraphrase emerged from this Jewish literary milieu.

From the texts and fragments that have survived, the Jewish novel seems to have been a particularly successful medium for refashioning biblical stories. James Kugel has argued that, like biblical translators and paraphrasts, Jewish novelists rewrote the stories of the Bible (and added new ones) in response to specific difficulties they found in the text. [64] While this interpretation serves as a productive matrix through which to examine scriptural elaboration, it is probably just as viable to argue that Jewish novelists were inspired by a general flowering of fictional narrative in the Hellenistic Diaspora: works such as Tobit, the Greek Esther, Judith, and the novelistic extensions to Daniel (Bel and the Dragon and Susannah) belong to this tradition and were widely known in the late Hellenistic period. [65] These novels and their successors—Joseph and Aseneth, Artapanus’ On Moses, Third Maccabees—interacted with the canons of Greek literature more directly than biblical commentary and can perhaps be seen as cross-fertilizing the Greek Romance, which emerged concurrently. There is no doubt that Jewish novels owe a great deal to the Bible itself, but the {85|86} latter’s influence on the novel was less compartmentalized than on standard biblical paraphrase, such as that found in the targumim or Josephus’ Antiquities. Nevertheless, Josephus himself is the conveyer (in the Antiquities) of two historical novels—the Tobaid Romance and the Royal Family of Adiabene—and his juxtaposition of these with biblical paraphrase points directly to the crucial interpenetration of translation, paraphrase, and the novel in ancient Jewish literature.

Textual Elaboration in Early Christian Tradition: From Bezae to Homerocentones

The Gospels amidst Jewish paraphrase

Rather than looking for their sources and origins, it may be more helpful, considering the tremendous amount of evidence for ancient Jewish paraphrase, to see the Gospels as historical “sites” of rewriting where the authors were appropriating a recognizable method of literary activity within their immediate cultural and religious milieu. To be sure, this approach involves a shift of perspective, but it is one that pays dividends. This is true especially when looking at the way late antique prose narratives, such as the Life of Thekla, treat earlier Christian literature. The canonical Gospels and Acts became models for how Christian literature was supposed to be written—in language, style, and religious discourse generally—and, despite (or in conjunction with) the persistent influence of classical Greek literature through the educational system, these earliest Christian narratives took on for many later writers a mimetic authority. We have already glimpsed this in the Life’s invocation of Luke at the beginning of its paraphrase (see above pp. 18–21).

Looking more closely, however, Luke and Matthew are demonstrably not paraphrases—at least not in the traditional Jewish form exemplified by Chronicles, the Greek Esther, or Josephus. Bypassing summary and elaboration, these writers instead reorganize, moving snippets of Mark and Q around like puzzle pieces. Now that some Jewish examples have been produced above, this method can be brought into relief, especially for the sake of comparison with later Christian literature. On the surface, Matthew and Luke seem to be doing something different, but from a cognitive point of view, I argue, they are treating their source texts in much the same way, or at least producing similar effects on the reader.

Matthew and Luke do not approach Mark as a traditional paraphrast might because they do not see the first gospel as an ancient tradition: to put it differently, not only do we know them as the part of the first generation after Jesus, they recognize themselves as such. As Luke says in his prologue to Theophilus: {87|88}


I have already acknowledged above, in the Prologue to this chapter, the uniqueness among the evangelists of Luke’s creation of his own audience. What is also significant is that he claims to have (re)investigated the details again without using the “many” (Mark and Q?) who came before him. [
70] He acknowledges to Theophilus that he currently has the investigative opportunity to return to “the very first”—presumably he means Jesus’ early life, which, of the four evangelists, only he discusses in detail.

What is important for the present argument is that, while Luke and Josephus conceive of their temporal distance from the textual site in very different ways—with implications for how they treat their source material—both use that textual “site,” the textus receptus, to invent a new narrative recognizably different from the original. Prescriptively they are very different but descriptively they are similar. Or, in other words, their approaches, while distinct in conception, nevertheless imply a similar cognitive angle on received texts, an angle which, I would argue, takes its inspiration from contemporary Jewish habits of rewriting more than from Greek historiographical conventions.

Close elaboration of the New Testament

The habit of rewriting penetrated much of early Christian textual activity, even if not in the style of a formal paraphrase: all of the New Testament Gospels betray some kind of recasting of their source material, and, as I have tried to emphasize, the prevalence of this activity reflects a wider Judeo-Christian metaphrastic mindset. Moreover, as might be expected given the evidence from Qumran, the subsequent copying of these early Christian texts was a particularly fervent locus of rewriting as well.

Taking inspiration from Epp and others who highlighted “theological” changes in the Bezae text of Acts, Bart Ehrman has attempted to situate these modifications within a competitive cultural milieu. [81] While Bezae itself probably originated in fifth-century Egypt, the text it contains is considered by most scholars to reflect a second or perhaps third-century textual tradition. [82] Ehrman has convincingly argued that the revisionist milieu of the second century offers the best interpretative matrix for the Greek text of Codex Bezae. [83] Especially with regard to Christological terminology and Jewish-Christian relations, Bezae is one dramatic example of a dominant mentality of rewriting that came to the fore in the second and third centuries. However, anti-Jewish interpolators were not the only ones rewriting the New Testament at this time. In response to Docetic, Ebionite, and other forms of Christianity deemed heretical by “proto-orthodox” apologists, the Gospels and Acts were often rewritten to further emphasize, from an orthodox point of view, the doctrinal differences between the heretical and orthodox sides. [84] For instance, against so-called “adoptionist” (e.g. Ebionite) readings of the Gospels that {91|92} argued for the human Jesus’ adoption as God’s divine Son only at his baptism, the well-attested reading of “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Υἱός μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε) at Luke 3:22 was changed by proto-orthodox scribes to read “You are my beloved son; in you I am pleased” (Σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα). The latter is exactly the text of Mark 1:11, with which the scribes harmonized the former, more difficult passage in Luke. [85] This alteration, which soon gained wide support in the manuscript tradition, seems to be an attempt to remove any opportunity for adoptionist Christians to claim Luke 3:22 in support of their theological agenda. Numerous examples of this process occur in the early textual tradition of the Gospels and Acts: difficult verses that, while not necessarily heretical in themselves, left a door open for heretical eisagesis, were rewritten and sometimes significantly expanded (e.g. the variant endings of Mark) to protect orthodox readings of the New Testament.

The emergence of a Christian paraphrase tradition: Gregory Thaumaturgus on Ecclesiastes

The third century yields a different, perhaps transitional, example of Christian biblical rewriting, this time in the form of the standard biblical paraphrase common to Hellenistic Jewish literature. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the bishop of Neocaesarea in Asia Minor, wrote a lengthy paraphrase of Ecclesiastes that stands out as one of the few patristic commentaries on that elusive book. [88] Originally from a pagan family, Gregory attended Origen’s philosophy classes at Caesarea in Palestine during the 230s, to be converted to Christian theology under his tutelage. Taking up the bishopric of Neocaesarea, Gregory was credited with several writings and labeled a wonder-worker in late antiquity, picking up the title Thaumaturgus sometime in the sixth century. [89] His paraphrase of Ecclesiastes is significant as the earliest surviving Christian exemplar of this genre. [90] The paraphrase is in prose and follows the {93|94} text of the lxx closely. The text shows no sign that Gregory was making reference to the Hebrew, as might be expected from one of Origen’s students. [91] A look at the short preface reveals Gregory’s intentions to recover this work for Christian believers:

Τάδε λέγει Σαλομών, ὁ τοῦ Βασιλέως καὶ προφήτου παῖς ἁπάσῃ τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκλησίᾳ, παρὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους βασιλεὺς ἐντιμότατος, καὶ προφήτης σοφώτατος.


John Jarick observes in his commentary on the text that, instead of the shadowy Hebrew sage from the original Ecclesiastes, Gregory has named the traditional author of the text, Solomon, and given him his traditional epithet as well, “most wise.” The work is here redirected to a Christian audience through the use of “assembly/church” (ἐκκλησία) and its message is brought into the present tense (λέγει), replacing the lxx’s aorist (εἶπεν). [
93] Throughout the Paraphrase there is a conscious effort on Gregory’s part to smooth out both linguistic and theological difficulties: [94]


Gregory replaces the “all is vanity” mantra of the original text with a revisionist comparison between those who “see” spiritually and those who do not: “Most people have given themselves over to transitory things, not wanting to look—with the soul’s noble eye (τῷ γενναίῳ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμματι)—at anything higher than the stars.” [
96] Further, Gregory exchanges the original “the wise person dies, {94|95} just like the fool” for “the wise person never shares the same fate as the fool,” with an emphasis on the moral responsibilities of his Christian congregation. [97]

All of these (and many more) striking changes to the biblical text come in the narrative of the Paraphrase, which is (one must keep in mind) ostensibly only the text of Ecclesiastes itself. Towards the end of his Paraphrase Gregory gives some hints at how he perceived his role as paraphrast:

Δώσουσι δέ τινες τὰ σοφὰ ἐκεῖνα διδάγματα, παρ᾿ ἑνὸς ἀγαθοῦ λαβόντες ποιμένος καὶ διδασκάλου, ὥσπερ ἐξ ἑνὸς στόματος ἅπαντες αὐτοῖς συμφώνως δαψιλέστερον τὰ πιστευθέντα διηγούμενοι.


The use of the word “shepherd” perhaps points to Solomon, as the legendary “wisest of all,” or perhaps it signals Christ, who will have taught the faithful through the Paraphrase the Christian “wisdom” that is communicated therein. [
99] Most likely the shepherd is simply Gregory, who portrays himself as communicating age-old wisdom to his young Christian flock—who were in turn previously unaware of the riches of this Old Testament manual. He seems here (like Erasmus) to view the Paraphrase as a mode of communicating the deep truths of a difficult text which are not apparent on the surface but which have been nonetheless handed down as pronounced in the chorus of the ages. By adopting the persona of the Koheleth—or “Solomon,” as he names him—Gregory can bring out those truths in a Christian guise and, most importantly, with the authority of the original author.

Cento and the reception of biblical paraphrase in the fifth century

Sherry’s argument about authorship, while widely criticized, has the benefit of suggesting a new way of looking at these texts. In particular, Sherry’s suggestion that a mixing of literary forms (cento and paraphrase) was even possible in this period reaffirms the need for a much wider discussion of the interpenetration of styles and genres in late Greek literature. Centones, typically written directly from the Iliad and Odyssey and not from recent Homeric continuators, are not extremely well attested but seem to have been a literary entertainment akin to the epigram and often appropriated by magical charm writers: lines of Homer pulled from their context in both a bookish and a religious manner. [112] Likewise, formal Christian paraphrase in late antiquity, in its Homeric forms at least, probably developed directly out of the educational system. [113] As Dennis MacDonald has observed in his study on the Gospel of Mark’s imitation of the Homeric epics:


Students learned to write through copying and recopying Homer and other canonical authors, a process which instilled in them both the style of the original and a capacity for rewriting. It is quite right, then, that these genres, cento and paraphrase, could potentially mingle together in the fifth century, despite appearing distinct in earlier literary history.

Substantial late antique paraphrasing activity in prose and verse did not go unnoticed by other contemporary writers. The historians Socrates and {100|101} Sozomen both comment on the writing of biblical paraphrase, though with contrasting conclusions. These fascinating vignettes on Christian literary history are worthy of being quoted here in full:

Socrates:

The imperial law [of Julian] which forbade Christians to study Greek literature, rendered the two Apolinarii, of whom we have above spoken, much more distinguished than before. For both being skilled in polite learning (ἄμφω ἤστην ἐπιστήμονες λόγων), the father as a grammarian, and the son as a rhetorician, they made themselves serviceable to the Christians at this crisis. For the former, as a grammarian, composed a grammar consistent with the Christian faith (τὴν τέκνην γραμματικὴν Χριστιανικῷ τύπῳ συνέταττε): he also translated the Books of Moses into heroic verse (τά τε Μωυσέως βιβλία διὰ τοῦ ἡρωικοῦ λεγομένου μέτρου μετέβαλεν); and paraphrased all the historical books of the Old Testament (καὶ ὅσα κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν διαθήκην ἐν ἱστορίας τύπῳ συγγέγραπται), putting them partly into dactylic measure, and partly reducing them to the form of dramatic tragedy. He purposefully employed all kinds of verse, that no form of expression peculiar to the Greek language might be unknown amongst Christians. The younger Apolinarius, who was well trained in eloquence (εὖ πρὸς τὸ λέγειν παρεσκευασμένος), expounded the Gospels and apostolic doctrines in the way of dialogue (ἐν τύπῳ διαλόγων ἐξέθετο), as Plato among the Greeks had done. Thus showing themselves useful to the Christian cause they overcame the subtlety (τὸ σόφισμα)of the emperor through their own labors. But Divine Providence was more potent than either their labors, or the craft of the emperor (κρείσσων ἐγένετο καὶ τῆς τούτων σπουδῆς καὶ τῆς τοῦ βασιλέως ὁρμῆς): for not long afterwards, in the manner we shall hereafter explain, the law became wholly inoperative; and the works of these men are now of no greater importance than if they had never been written (τῶν δὲ οἱ πόνοι ἐν ἴσῳ τοῦ μὴ γραφῆναι λογίζονται). [125]

Sozomen:

[Julian] forbade the children of Christians from being instructed in {101|102} the writings of the Greek poets and authors and from visiting their teachers. He entertained great resentment against Apolinarius the Syrian, a man of manifold knowledge and philosophical attainments, against Basil and Gregory, natives of Cappadocia, the most celebrated orators of the time, and against other learned and eloquent men, of whom some were attached to the Nicene doctrines, and others to the heresy of Arius. His sole motive for excluding the children of Christian parents was because he considered such studies conducive to the acquisition of argumentative power. Apolinarius, therefore, employed his great learning and ingenuity in the production of a heroic epic (ἐν ἔπεσιν ἡρῴοις) on the antiquities of the Hebrews to the reign of Saul (τὴν Ἑβραϊκὴν ἀρχαιολόγιαν συνεγράψατο μέχρι τῆς Σαοὺλ βασιλείας), as a substitute for the poem of Homer (ἀντὶ μέν τῆς Ὡμήρου ποιήσεως). He divided this work into twenty-four parts, to each of which he appended the name of one of the letters of the Greek alphabet, according to their number and order. He also wrote comedies in imitation of Menander, tragedies resembling those of Euripides, and odes on the model of Pindar. In short, taking themes of the “circle of knowledge” from the Scriptures (ἐκ τῶν θείων γραφῶν τὰς ὑποθέσις λαβὼν τῶν ἐγκυκλίων καλουμένων μαθημάτων), he produced within a very brief space of time, a set of works which in manner, expression, character, and arrangement are well approved as similar to the Greek literatures and which were equal in number and in force (ἰσαρίθμους καὶ ἰσοδυνάμους πραγματείας ἤθει τε καὶ φράσει καὶ χαρακτῆρι καὶ οἰκονομίᾳ ὁμοίας τοῖς παρ᾿ Ἕλλησιν ἐν τούτοις εὐδοκιμήσασιν). Were it not for the extreme partiality with which the productions of antiquity are regarded, I doubt not but that the writings of Apolinarius would be held in as much estimation as those of the ancients. The comprehensiveness of his intellect is more especially to be admired; for he excelled in every branch of literature, whereas ancient writers were proficient in only one. [126]


The Apolinarius the elder whom both writers cite was the father of the Apolinarius the younger whose Christological teaching was condemned at the first Council of Constantinople in AD 381. A Paraphrase of the Psalms attributed to Apolinarius the elder has come down to us, though the attribution must {102|103} be incorrect due to its dedication to the emperor Marcian (AD 450–457). This text has been analyzed in detail by Golega, who firmly established its date on stylistic grounds to the fifth century. [
127]

Clearly Socrates and Sozomen know of even more paraphrasing activity going on in the fourth century, for which we have no texts or fragments, but it is of course reasonable that Gregory of Thaumaturgus’ paraphrase of Ecclesiastes in the third century would have had some immediate successors. The length alone of the vignettes quoted above attests to an interest on the part of Socrates and Sozomen in the literary history of the period, but their assessments of the value of these works are strikingly different.

The Apolinarii, far from inventing the genre, were rather perpetuating a long tradition of paraphrase that could claim a famous proponent, Gregory Thaumaturgus, just a century before. Moreover, Socrates and Sozomen set their notices on the Apolinarian paraphrases in the context of fourth-century disputes over education, precisely the region of knowledge from which Christian paraphrases—especially those in heroic meter—seem to have emerged. The Christian tradition of paraphrase to which these vignettes point confirms the argument of the present chapter: that paraphrase and rewriting, even on a very literal level, was more common, and more integral, to Jewish {103|104} and Christian textuality than has previously been recognized, or than, most importantly, is represented by surviving exempla.

Fifth-Century Metaphrastai: Revisiting Rapp on Antiquarianism

In addition to thriving Homeric imitations, the fourth through sixth centuries was a period when apocryphal Acta from the second and third centuries were being rewritten, extended, and embroidered with facility and vigor. [133] In the late antique East this meant that received texts about famous apostolic personages—like Thekla, the apostle Philip, and the apostle John—were the loci of several individual rewritings and extensions. These latter texts testify, of course, to textual competition and the appropriation of the cults for specific sites—Seleukeia for Thekla, Ephesus and Patmos for John—but, more fundamentally, these rewritings are indicative of an indigenous cultural habit of Christian textuality. To be sure, in late antiquity the apocryphal Acta were not Scripture, and textual critics like Ehrman suggest that rewritings of the New Testament were not still occurring on a large scale in the fourth and fifth centuries (at some point between the third and fourth centuries the {104|105} manuscript traditions solidified and became more or less stable—attitudes had thus changed with regard to the biblical texts). [134] Nevertheless, the apocryphal Acta were often rewritten at this time with the same goal in mind as the earlier biblical revisions, that is, to purge the texts of opportunities for heretical readings, or of heretical material itself. Following this period of reception and rewriting, which helped spawn new forms of literature, writers like Leontius of Neapolis in the seventh century began to collect and to rewrite more recent (fourth- to sixth-century) saints’ Lives in a consciously antiquarian fashion; within a few more centuries, Leontius’ antiquarian tendencies found their preeminent expression in the work of Symeon Metaphrastes. [135]

The contemporary cultural imperative for this kind of literary activity was as crucial as the historical: the latter depended upon the objective existence of a text, a textual artifact, often consciously given the special status of textus receptus; the former depended upon the force of religious habit in late antiquity, the immediacy of sacred, otherworldly holiness in select men and women, and also upon a conscientious respect for the orthodox innovations of the day, notably the ubiquitous cult of the saints and the relics and local stories {105|106} it generated. This project of exhuming the textual past for cults current in late antiquity was fueled by a recognition of the need to preserve the past (and historical present) for the future.

It is standard scholarly fare that the earliest Christians, or at least representative writers, considered apocryphal stories concerning Jesus, his family, and the apostles just as factual and authoritative as the canonical New Testament. [138] What scholars of early Christianity have perhaps missed, however, is the inspirational role that apocryphal Acta had on the development of Christian literature. While later generations of writers, particularly in the fourth and fifth centuries, were interested in expunging Encratic elements in these stories—in opposition to the earliest writers who considered such elements authentic?—they were nevertheless enthusiastic about the Acta as received literary tradition. Thus, the apocryphal Acta were not simply bodiless legends about the apostles to be manipulated at will, but they had an {106|107} inspirational role as textual encapsulations of these legends. Consequently, a conscious mimesis of the style, structure, and language of apocryphal Acta is very present in Christian novelistic literature from the fourth and fifth centuries. This fact remains underappreciated by scholars of both early Christianity and late antiquity because most saints’ Lives in this period have no direct early predecessor but instead describe contemporary holy figures. By contrast, the argument of the present study is that a mimetic motivation could potentially stand behind the authorship of some saints’ Lives that have been seen as more or less sui generis. The Life of Thekla is very strong evidence that the tradition of Christian biography (or Christian Romance) represented by the second-century apocryphal Acta was alive and well in the fifth century, a hundred years after Athanasius wrote the seminal Life of Antony.

In addition to these substantial, and apparently frequent, rewritings of second and third-century Acta, new Acta in the style of the earlier ones continued to be written in late antiquity. While the lack of precise dates for the authorship of many Acta prevents scholars from establishing exactly how late this trend continued, it is nevertheless clear that they were still being written and read in tandem with the first late antique saints’ Lives (mid fourth century), and that they were around for a long time after the latter had become widely disseminated. For example, the Acts of Philip, recently re-edited by François Bovon and others, was written no earlier than the fourth century and most likely represents an Encratic community of Asia Minor attempting to provide historical documentation for their position in the face of increasing hostility from the ecclesiastical establishment. [139] This hostility came perhaps even from Cappadocian bishops like Basil of Caesarea and Amphilocius of Iconium who participated in the Council of Gangra in Paphlagonia (c. AD 341 or 355), a Council which condemned the extreme asceticism advocated by Eustathius of Sebaste (c. 300–after 377). [140] In subsequent centuries these apocryphal Acta were still widely read and incorporated into homilies, later saints’ Lives, and chronographies that dealt with the early church. [141] For instance, it appears that apocryphal acts of James, now lost, were incorporated into a {107|108} sermon by Nicetas David of Paphlagonia, who shows a very detailed knowledge of that tradition. [142] The apocryphal Acta thus survived, and surely cross-fertilized, the flowering of the traditional saint’s Life in late antiquity and, moreover, continued to be considered legitimate historical literature concerning the apostles. While it is not clear precisely how late these Acta continued to be written in the style of the second-century ones, they are found as late as the fifth and sixth centuries and, not insignificantly, they were mined by homilists and historians of Byzantium for their own creative writing on the early saints. The Acts of John by Pseudo-Prochorus (fifth or sixth century) stands as perhaps the latest surviving Greek exemplum of this tradition, [143] but the sixth and seventh century translations of the apocryphal Acta into Syriac and Armenian attest to their continued popularity in non-Greek early Byzantium.

Conclusion: Metaphrasis in Late Antiquity and Beyond

The brief survey just presented offers an opportunity to consider synchronically a literary activity that, by the fifth century AD, had been ongoing for a very long time in Jewish and Christian literary traditions. It is probable, though most likely impossible to prove, that the evidence of μετάφρασις in the {109|110} received texts of both religions—e.g. the canonical books of the Chronicles—provided the initial impetus for the receivers (Jews or Christians) to engage in that activity themselves. Scholars would, of course, be arrogant to assume that early Christians were unaware of something of the metaphrastic relationships among the synoptic gospels: the fascinating, if elusive, example of Tatian’s Diatessaron is already suggestive of such an awareness. Through the reception of texts and rewritings of those texts, as well as through the reception of the project of rewriting (as a kind of institution), μετάφρασις became a literary vocation and proceeded to cross-fertilize new and influential texts, such as the disparate group of writings broadly labeled as “hagiography.”

Concerning a topic as big as rewriting there will always be new evidence to cite and new syntheses to be made. However, I have tried in this chapter to point to commonalities among the examples cited above in an attempt to center the scholarly discussion of rewriting on the processes involved. The investment of contemporary ideology or polemic is visible in all of the rewritings, even if not always as pronounced as in the Qumran community’s eschatological anticipations. The presence of the paraphrast in the “hypertext”—sub evangelistae persona—is also a common feature, though often less self-conscious than in Erasmus’ dedication of his Paraphrase on Luke to Henry VIII. Further, Vorlagen could be changed almost beyond recognition, as in the Genesis Apocryphon or Eudocia’s cento of Christian redemptive history; however, subtle changes also point to a similar process of reception and modification, as evidenced by Codex Bezae.

In other words, not only does the physical history of a text “make up” its meaning, but the dissemination of a text (oral, visual, or written) “lets out” its meaning to be reconstructed by as many as come into contact with it. McKenzie has formulated this argument not to relativize textual meaning as {110|111} much as to historicize it, and to provide a firmer basis for the work of textual criticism in the age of textual deconstruction:


My argument in this chapter takes inspiration from McKenzie in that I have tried to forge a link between rewriting and paraphrase in practice (as examined in Chapter One above) and the literary history of biblical and apocryphal paraphrase. Such a link is not primarily about authorial intention but about how texts are inevitably changed by their receivers. This may seem at first glance to be a banal point in an age when every phenomenon in human experience comes under the academic designation “text.” However, with regard to the history of Greek literature in late antiquity, the important connections between paraphrase as a literary form, literate education, and the way Jews and Christians read their “Bible” (or the history of their institutions in general) suggest that a link between minute changes to received Scriptures and the wholesale rewriting of formative texts, canonical or apocryphal, needs to be made and explored.

The seriousness with which the author of the Life of Thekla has taken the received testimony of her apostolic status is evident in every one of the changes that he makes to his source text, the ATh. His cognitive appreciation of that text’s authority is dependent on its received, quasi-canonical status in his contemporary situation. His appreciation is strengthened and intensified by his spiritual relationship to Thekla herself and by her local activities at the shrine in Seleukeia. Both the past and the present thus serve as motivations for the Life and Miracles as a whole—and, as will be shown, so does the future. With this in mind it is time to look closely at the second half of his text in order to see how he transforms Thekla the apostolic saint into Thekla the late antique miracle worker. {112|}

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. Quoted by Vessey 2002a:7; parentheses are his. For Udall, see Craig 2002:316–322 and n22.

[ back ] 2. See Bedouelle 2002 on their translation and reception and Rummel 2002 on Noël Béda’s condemnation of them.

[ back ] 3. For this see Craig 2002 and references, esp. n12 for accounts of the translation of the Paraphrases into English. Interestingly, the Paraphrases were not on the list of proscribed books issued during Mary’s reign: Craig 2002:326–327.

[ back ] 4. Noël Béda was especially resistant to Erasmus’ assertion that some passages of Scripture are not understandable by themselves (Rummel 2002:267); he also condemned the implication that Scripture should be made available in the vernacular (Vessey 2002a:18).

[ back ] 5. For Erasmus’ Paraphrase on Luke, see Phillips 2002.

[ back ] 6. Vessey 2002a:14–15.

[ back ] 7. “Luke-voice” is from Phillips 2002:e.g. 131; the prologue to Luke is expanded into an essay twenty-six times its original length (ibid.).

[ back ] 8. Vessey briefly discusses Erasmus’ knowledge of earlier paraphrasts and cites Roberts 1985, which explores only the Latin side of biblical paraphrase in late antiquity. Bernard Rousell in his contribution mentions a few ancient paraphrasts, such as Gregory Thaumaturgus and Nonnus of Panopolis, but only in passing; his interest lies in the Reformation paraphrasts subsequent to Erasmus (Roussel 2002:59).

[ back ] 9. For the Septuagint as a paraphrase, see below. For the revival of biblical languages in the Reformation and some of their political and social implications, see Goldhill 2002:14–57. Erasmus probably knew the first printed edition of the Targums by Felix Pratensis, who printed them in Venice alongside his four-volume edition of the Hebrew Bible (1517–1518). Pratensis was a Jew who had converted to Christianity and was in the employment of Daniel Bomberg, a wealthy Antwerp native who spent his fortune in Venice printing Hebrew (and Aramaic) books—about two hundred in all. On the early printing history of the Aramaic Targums, see Díez Merino 1994, esp. 80–86.

[ back ] 10. He certainly knew Juvencus, and, “when the Paraphrases themselves came under attack, he repeatedly allied himself with that fourth-century Christian poet” (Vessey 2002b:32). It has been argued, however, that he was unacquainted with Proba’s cento (Vessey 2002b:52n17). There is a good chance Erasmus knew something of Nonnus’ Paraphrase of John, since editions of the latter had been printed at least twice by this time (Roussel 2002:79n3)—one of these was the Aldine edition of 1501–1504; the other was the 1527 edition by Philipp Melanchthon and Johann Setzer. Vessey makes a useful comparison between the rhetoric of Erasmus’ paraphrase program and Jerome’s reflections on paraphrase vs. translation (Vessey 2002b:52n13).

[ back ] 11. For theories of “hypertextuality” in ancient literature, see MacDonald 2000:1–14.

[ back ] 12. For the Renaissance and Reformation, see the standard study of Eisenstein 1980 and, in opposition, Johns 1998; and, for the still disputed significance of our current transition from print to electronic media, see O’Donnell 1998. Both Eisenstein and O’Donnell rely on Goody’s formulations. See also the seminal studies of Marshall McLuhan 1962 and Walter Ong 2002, who rely less on Goody.

[ back ] 13. See his trilogy of major studies, Goody 1977, 1986, 1987, and 2000, which is a convenient summary restatement of his views.

[ back ] 14. Goody 2000:53.

[ back ] 15. Goody 2000:118.

[ back ] 16. Goody cites especially Derrida’s Of Grammatology (1974) but also references discussion of Derrida’s work in Culler 1979. It should be noted that Goody’s student David R. Olson, has discussed in depth the effect of literacy on cognition, especially in the context of linguistic self-location: “Writing is largely responsible for bringing language into consciousness” (1994:xviii).

[ back ] 17. Goody 2000:114–115. Goody’s commitment to the oral has been followed by many outside his discipline. The classicist Gregory Nagy, for example, has repeatedly emphasized the oral vitality of the Homeric epics. See Nagy 1996; and also his and Stephen Mitchell’s new edition of Albert Lord’s Singer of Tales (Lord 2000).

[ back ] 18. Goody 2000:iii.

[ back ] 19. For a thoughtful critique of Goody on this point, see Bloch 1998:131–151. One could argue that Goody has misunderstood Derrida in that, for the latter, “text” is a metaphor more than a mode of communication. Nevertheless, Goody’s seminal conclusions about the cognitive relationship between canon and elaboration still stand.

[ back ] 20. Goody 2000:151: “writing is a prerequisite, a prerequisite for the development of all the technologies with which our intellect engages.”

[ back ] 21. Goody 2000:21.

[ back ] 22. Alter 2000:60. Alter is here admittedly building on Alan Bloom’s The Western Canon (1994), though is critical of its central Oedipal metaphor.

[ back ] 23. Alter 2000:61.

[ back ] 24. Morgan 1998:224. She is right to formulate a pair with these two cognitive activities, but whether there was ever, even in literate societies, a “particular version” of the canonical texts is still debated.

[ back ] 25. On paraphrase in ancient schools, see Morgan 1998:198–226.

[ back ] 26. Zeitlin 2001.

[ back ] 27. See Hollis 1994 and forthcoming.

[ back ] 28. Alan Cameron 1965:482; Suda s.v. “Μαριανός.”

[ back ] 29. According to a TLG search (performed by the author on 28 March, 2005), μεταβολή appears to be a standard Byzantine term for paraphrase from about the tenth century. It only rarely has this meaning in classical and late antique literature (LSJ s.v.). Note, however, that the Suda entry for Marianus just cited calls his works μεταφράσεις.

[ back ] 30. Josephus Antiquities 1.5, 10.218. Interestingly, the verb μεθερμενεύω is also used by Josephus when describing the Greek Septuagint “translation” of the Hebrew Bible (12.20, 48); while this usage may seem like contrary evidence, there is good reason to render it also as “to interpret” or “to paraphrase”; for this see Feldman 1998a:44–45.

[ back ] 31. Writers who use μετάφρασις to mean “paraphrase” include Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, [ back ] Origen, and Eusebius; see LSJ and Lampe s.v. “μετάφρασις” and “μεταφράζω.”

[ back ] 32. On the refashioning of myth for contemporary political ideologies, see Veyne 1988.

[ back ] 33. Haines-Eitzen 2000:105–106, citing Foucault 1983:44.

[ back ] 34. McKenzie 1999 [1986].

[ back ] 35. McKenzie 1999:19.

[ back ] 36. McKenzie 1999:23.

[ back ] 37. Cf. Høgel 2002.

[ back ] 38. See Alter and Kermode 1987:92–101 and Alter 2004:xv, 869–877, and passim.

[ back ] 39. See Kugel 1998:2, 6, and the refs at 2n2, esp. Japhet 1997 [1989].

[ back ] 40. The inclusion of rewrites within the Old Testament canon itself must be of fundamental importance for early Christian conceptions of the validity of paraphrase with regard to their own Scriptures.

[ back ] 41. That an importance was attached to the Hebrew text, by the end of the first century AD at the very latest, can be shown from the fact that Aquila’s literalist rendering of the Hebrew into Greek was well received by the Jewish community, over and against the paraphrasing Septuagint preferred by the Christians; see Swete 1900:31–42.

[ back ] 42. The phrase “Rewritten Bible” was apparently coined by Vermes 1975, but others have taken up this concept with vigor. See esp. Kugel 1998, whose conception of the history of Jewish biblical interpretation hinges upon the concept: e.g. “The Rewritten Bible is really the interpreted Bible,” and “The Rewritten Bible (whether one is talking about an extended retelling of whole biblical books, or the ‘retelling’ of a single verse) should be recognized for what it is: the most popular transmitter of biblical interpretation among ancient writers” (Kugel 1998:23).

[ back ] 43. Vermes 1975:39.

[ back ] 44. Only a small proportion of these variations are scribal errors. See Vermes 1998:15 on the “extreme fluidity” of the Qumran Bible(s). On the distinctiveness of the Septuagint’s Vorlage and the Qumran texts, see Tov 1992: “many, if not most of the biblical texts of the third and second centuries BCE were unique . . .” (42–43).

[ back ] 45. See Vermes 1998:448–459.

[ back ] 46. Bernstein 1994:2; Vermes 1975:62–63.

[ back ] 47. As is well known, the Letter of Aristeas records the translation of the LXX by seventy-two Jewish scholars from Jerusalem invited to Alexandria by the king Ptolemy. In a rather frustrating manner the text does not get around to discussing the actual work of the translators until the very end, and, even then, the details of the process are not revealed. However, what the Letter of Aristeas does make clear, through its rhetoric of superiority and self-justification, is that there were competing translations, contemporary with the penning of the Letter (perhaps 1st cent. BC). For the text of the Letter, see H. St. J. Thackeray’s still standard edition in Swete 1900:519–574; see also the translation with introduction and notes by R. J. J. Shutt in Charlesworth 1985:7–34.

[ back ] 48. Response to Barthélemy 1963 has not been completely positive: Grabbe 1992 argues that Barthélemy overemphasizes the influence of this earlier revision (the so-called “kaige recension”) on Aquila’s translation.

[ back ] 49. Brock 1992:303.

[ back ] 50. Lindars 1992:4–5.

[ back ] 51. For competing methods of biblical translation in antiquity, see Brock 1992; for a helpful anthology of essays on modern translation theories, see Schulte and Biguenet 1992.

[ back ] 52. Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 6.16. Some Christians, such as Lucian of Antioch in the third century, made their own Greek translations straight from the Hebrew, as Jerome did into Latin over a century later; for a detailed survey of all the biblical versions, see ABD s.v. “Versions.” However, for most early Christian writers, the approval of Josephus and Philo, in addition to the New Testament, was enough to guarantee the LXX’s authority.

[ back ] 53. Ralfs 1979:lxii.

[ back ] 54. Jarick 1990:6, citing Daniélou 1955:133.

[ back ] 55. Feldman 1998b:539.

[ back ] 56. See Brock 1992:303–310. Josephus Antiquities 12.108–109; Philo Life of Moses 2.25–44, esp. 40: “. . . if Chaldeans [i.e. those who read Hebrew/Aramaic] have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean [i.e. Hebrew/Aramaic], and read both versions, the Chaldean and the translation, they regard them with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather one and the same, both in matter and words, and speak of the authors not as translators but as prophets and priests of the mysteries, whose sincerity and singleness of thought has enabled them to go hand in hand with the purest of spirits, the spirit of Moses” (trans. F. H. Colson, LCL Philo vol. 6).

[ back ] 57. Thus, once the rabbis took control of the targumim which they inherited, they “were concerned that targum should be clearly distinguished from Scripture: the same person could not publicly read the Hebrew and recite the targum” (Alexander 1992:330). This is an interesting example of incorporating a paraphrase into a different cognitive system, both to appreciate its teaching as well as to make it submit to a higher textual authority.

[ back ] 58. Some targumim are more paraphrasing than others. For the individual works—Targums Neofiti, Ps.-Jonathan, Onkelos, the Cairo Geniza fragments, etc.—see Alexander 1992, Beattie and McNamara 1994, and Flesher 1995: esp. 40: “This [paraphrasing] approach enables the additions to masquerade as translation, disguising them from all but the most learned. The hidden character of the interpretive material, in turn, enables the targumist to add details, change the meaning, and even rewrite the story without the Aramaic-speaking audience being aware of it. Targum authors, then, provided their audience with a text that adhered to the original Hebrew, but at the same time presented accepted interpretations.” By whom were these interpretations “accepted”? Apparently, Flesher here means “accepted by the targumist” rather than the audience/congregation generally. I have not been able to find a clear answer to the question of whether a standard Aramaic audience would have recognized, before the rabbis instituted the parallel reading of Hebrew, that the targum was in fact a paraphrase. Flesher here suggests they would not have.

[ back ] 59. It should be noted that there are instances where Josephus uses a revised version of the LXX in his Antiquities; e.g. see Ulrich 1978:259, cited by Brock 1992:335n13: Josephus used “a slightly revised form of Old Greek [translations]” for parts of Samuel. As Feldman has shown, there is plenty of evidence that he used Aramaic translations as well, perhaps some of the targumim that have come down to us (Feldman 1998a:28–29). The earliest datable targumim are first century AD from Qumran: Job 37:10–42:11 and some fragments of Leviticus 16:12–15, 18–21 (ibid.:17).

[ back ] 60. Gruen 1998:110.

[ back ] 61. Biblical paraphrase could perhaps be seen as closely aligned to distinct categories or genres, such as commentary (e.g. much of the Qumran material), Jewish historiography (Chronicles and Josephus), or translation (LXX, targumim); however, it is not encompassed by any one of these and ultimately transcends genre.

[ back ] 62. For the salient characteristics of the Jewish novel, esp. in comparison with the Greek Romance (but not with early Christian literature), see Wills 1995.

[ back ] 63. Wills 1995:36: “The Jewish novels appear to be composed and recomposed, without the canon of a fixed text but with the canon of a traditional set of plots and characters. The study of ancient novels thus places the scholar in a difficult position between the analysis of oral and written tradition, oral and literary culture. We are addressing neither oral culture nor written culture but ‘popular written culture’ . . . Comic books, science fiction novels, and drugstore romances occupy a similar position in modern society.”

[ back ] 64. E.g. Kugel 1998:24: “Ancient biblical interpretation is an interpretation of verses, not stories.”; see esp. Kugel 1990 for his well-honed, if somewhat idiosyncratic, methodology.

[ back ] 65. Laurence Wills has produced a helpful one-volume collection of translated Jewish Novels, with introductions, notes, and bibliographies for each (2002); critical texts of these novels are not always available (due to their many recensions), nor easily found if they are—Wills includes a short guide to the disparate texts he used (2002:ix–x). The fragmentary historical paraphrases and novels (such as Artapanus) can be found with text, translation, and commentary in Carl Holladay’s four-volume collection, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors (1983–1996).

[ back ] 66. For the characteristic style of the Greek Romance, see Reardon 1991. For its influence on Christian literature, see Pervo 1987, 1996, Hägg 1983, and Johnson forthcomingb.

[ back ] 67. On the interaction of novelistic style and Jewish rewriting/interpretation, see Gruen 1998:passim and 2002:part 2, Kugel 1998 (organized according to biblical theme), and, generally, Wills 1995 (a genre-analysis) and 2002 (translations of Jewish novels).

[ back ] 68. Another way of seeing the Gospels in more than one dimension is asking, for instance, what is the relationship between Mark and John? This question of genre has been addressed in detail by Wills 1997 which takes a broader view of the question of influence and which points evocatively to a fluid exchange of literary styles and religious language in the gospel-milieu. In particular, Wills argues for a more inclusive definition of “biography” as a classical genre in order to take account of novelistic treatments of hero cults, e.g. the Life of Aesop. From the point of view of late antique Greek literature—specifically of the influence that the gospel genre had during that period—Wills’s study of the Gospels represents a salutary shift in perspective. Other studies that preceded Wills in this vein are Tolbert 1989, Burridge 1992, and Collins 1992. See Wills 1997:chapter 1 for a thorough discussion of the previous scholarship.

[ back ] 69. Luke 1:1–4 NRSV.

[ back ] 70. If the author of Luke means Mark and Q, then he is not telling the truth, for he relied upon them extensively. If he means other accounts than these, then they have not survived. The third and best option is that this statement is simply a necessary aspect of the rhetoric of historiographical prefaces. For the rhetoric of ancient prefaces (specifically Latin), see Janson 1964.

[ back ] 71. Josesphus Antiquities 1.15–17; trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL Josephus vol. 5.

[ back ] 72. Gruen 2002: chapters 5 and 6.

[ back ] 73. The “Western” tradition is believed to go back to at least the third century: see Aland 1987, cited by Elliot 1996. For Codex Bezae generally, see Ammassari 1996 (the text), Parker 1992, and Parker and Amphoux 1996. For the date and origin of Codex Bezae, see Callahan 1996:57, 64: “[The scribe] worked in the environs of a Roman colony [perhaps Antinoopolis] in upper Egypt between the fourth and fifth century.”

[ back ] 74. Strange 1992:1.

[ back ] 75. Epp 1966:41–64. For the “ignorance motif,” see also Epp 1962 and, in opposition, Conzelmann 1987:104–105, 146–147, and passim.

[ back ] 76. Epp 1966:64: “The portrayal of Jewish hostility toward Jesus and of Jewish responsibility for his death in the [Codex Bezae] reveals a clearly anti-Judaic attitude. On the other hand, the strong positive emphasis on Jesus as Lord and Christ turns the sword in the wound (so to speak), for by presenting Jesus in bold and heightened tones the heinousness of the Jews’ action against him is even more strongly emphasized.”

[ back ] 77. Idem:45. P75 from the third century already contains a truncated version of this verse (Ehrman 1996:111).

[ back ] 78. Idem: 166. The Codex Bezae Acts “seems to ‘out-Luke’ Luke in its emphasis on universalism” (66).

[ back ] 79. Witherington 1984, cited by Haines-Eitzen 2000:116. “Anti-feminist” is Witherington’s; “gender hierarchy” is Haines-Eitzen’s. For this and more examples of the “suppression of women” in early Christian manuscripts, see Ehrman 1995:367–368 and 1996:114–116. “Suppression of women” as a label, however, is perhaps too convenient and anachronistic.

[ back ] 80. Epp makes the important point that Codex Bezae is not a completely new Acts of the Apostles but retains “the bulk of the traditional text” (1966:39); however, it does have enough variants for scholars to consider it an attempt to alter significantly the force of the original work.

[ back ] 81. He rejects Epp’s calling these changes “theological,” “as if they bore no relation to sociopolitical realities” (Ehrman 1993:274). Of course, the term “theological” does not de jure rule out socio-political realities.

[ back ] 82. See Parker 1992:261–78 and Ehrman 1994. In the latter Ehrman demonstrates that the text Heracleon used for his commentary on the Gospel of John in the late second century is “a comparable form of the text that was used for the first eight chapters of John by the late fourth-century scribe of Codex Sinaiticus” and by “the scribe who produced Codex Bezae” (179).

[ back ] 83. Ehrman 1996.

[ back ] 84. Ehrman’s fullest treatment of this competitive milieu is Ehrman 1993. “Proto-orthodox” means, for Ehrman, those in the first through third centuries whose theological and hermeneutical opinions were positively received by those Christians who first called themselves “orthodox” in the fourth century: see Ehrman 1993:11–15.

[ back ] 85. Ibid.:62–67. Attestations to the more difficult reading include Codex Bezae, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Methodius, the Didascalia, Lactantius, Hilary, Augustine, and several Old Latin manuscripts.

[ back ] 86. Haines-Eitzen 2000:116. The strength of her overall argument on this point is undeniable and complementary to the present study; however, I would argue for a slightly more moderate formulation. Clearly many of the textual variants in New Testament manuscripts can be shown to be habitual, standard scribal errors, such as dittography and haplography—to name only the most straightforward—and should not be included in an analysis of the discursive networks behind the scribal project generally. Epp argues persuasively for moderation in reacting to Ur-text New Testament scholarship (1966:15–21).

[ back ] 87. Ehrman 1993:27.

[ back ] 88. Though, interestingly, Origen and his pupils seem to have had a special commitment to the book: Origen, Gregory, and Dionysius of Alexandria all wrote interpretative works on Ecclesiastes, as did Hippolytus of Rome (Jarick 1990:3).

[ back ] 89. On Gregory’s life and the sources for it, see Van Dam 1982. The main source is Gregory of Nyssa’s sermon On the Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus (ed. Heil 1990); see also Gregory Thaumaturgus’ Panegyric to Origen, written on the occasion of his departure from Origen’s school c. 240 (ed. and trans. Crouzel 1969). For Gregory’s later title, see Telfer 1936:240. On the various writings attributed to him, see Crouzel 1969:27–33.

[ back ] 90. Text is in PG 10, columns 987–1018 and is conveniently reprinted with translation and commentary by Jarick 1990.

[ back ] 91. Jarick 1990:310.

[ back ] 92. Jarick 1990:7.

[ back ] 93. Ibid.:8.

[ back ] 94. Jarick 1990:316: “In presenting the Church with this smooth paraphrase of a formerly uncomfortable work, Gregory Thaumaturgus stands firmly at the beginning of a long tradition seeking to remold Ecclesiastes into a more ecclesiastical book.”

[ back ] 95. Jarick 1990:311, citing Paraphrase 2.24, 3.12–13, 8.15–17; cf. 3.22.

[ back ] 96. Paraphrase 1.3; Jarick 1990:9, 359n25.

[ back ] 97. Paraphrase 2.16, 7.25; Jarick 1990:43, 186, 313.

[ back ] 98. Paraphrase 12.11; Jarick 1990:303, 315.

[ back ] 99. Jarick 1990:303–304.

[ back ] 100. The problem as formulated by Livrea 1989 is that the Dionysiaca is “positivamente pagano” and the Paraphrase is “positivamente ammaliato dallo splendore del Logos rigeneratore . . .” (21–22).

[ back ] 101. Sherry 1996; Coulie and Sherry 1995.

[ back ] 102. Livrea 1989; Hollis 1994:58.

[ back ] 103. The standard complete edition of Nonnus’ Paraphrase is Scheindler 1881. Livrea began a new edition (text, translation, and commentary) with the paraphrase of John chapter 18 (1989; cf. Birdsall 1990); since then, he (2000) and his colleagues Domenico Accoriniti (1996; cf. Mary Whitby 1998), Claudio De Stephani (2002; cf. eadem 2004), Gianfranco Agosti (2003; cf. Johnson 2005), and Claudia Greco (2004) have followed with John chapters 20, 1, 5, and 13 respectively. Alan Cameron’s evocative studies of fifth-century literary culture are still benchmarks for historical scholarship on the period, though he does little in the way of actual literary analysis (Alan Cameron 1965, 1982, and 2004). Golega 1930 is still the standard stylistic analysis of Nonnus’ Paraphrase, but see now Hollis 1994 (and forthcoming) in connection with the reception of Hellenistic poetry in the Dionysiaca.

[ back ] 104. Livrea 1989:19.

[ back ] 105. Alan Cameron 1965:485.

[ back ] 106. See Alan Cameron 1982.

[ back ] 107. More specifically centered around Nonnus and his (unknown) students than Golega’s soggenannte Nonnosschüler, which include Musaeus and the Pseudo-Apolinarian Paraphrase of the Psalms (Golega 1960:93–108).

[ back ] 108. This conclusion emerged out of his 1991 Columbia dissertation on the Paraphrase. Note, however, Alan Cameron’s and Sherry’s conflicting estimates of the literary value of Nonnus’ Paraphrase—Alan Cameron 1982:284: “Nonnus (if he it was) treated his model with the utmost freedom, producing an elaborate rhetorical masterpiece in the high style scarcely inferior in its way to the Dionysiaca”; by contrast, Sherry 1996:411, 414: “Why are there so few testimonia for the Paraphrase? I suggest that it is because the poem is not by Nonnus. Since it was not a serious piece of literature and a poem inferior to the Dionysiaca, it did not warrant the same attention from readers and collectors . . . Nonnus was too good a poet to produce so lame a paraphrase.”

[ back ] 109. Sherry 1996:414 and n26. See Golega 1930:143: “Und doch weist die Paraphrase fast noch mehr nonnianische Floskeln auf als Musaios, dessen Epyllion ohne weiteres auch in den Dionysiaka Platz finden könnte. Ja man darf die Paraphrase beinahe als einen Cento aus Dionysiakaversteilen und Evangelientext bezeichnen” (29); and “Die sprachlich-stilistische Übereinstimmung zwischen beiden Gedichten ist so groß, daß die Paraphrase fast ein Cento aus Dionysiakaversteilen in Evangelientext genannt werden kann” (emphasis added).

[ back ] 110. See Golega’s Zussamenfassung (1930:142–144).

[ back ] 111. E.g. Alan Cameron 1982:284; Hollis 1994; Mary Whitby forthcoming; Mary Whitby 1998 (review of Accorinti 1996): “a storehouse of ammunition is accumulated against the cento thesis.”

[ back ] 112. Usher 1998:2 offers the suggestion that the cento is technically not a genre but what he calls simply an “écriture,” which, like parody or pastiche, can take various prose and verse forms (citing Verweyen and Witting 1991:172).

[ back ] 113. See MacDonald 2000:5, with extensive references at 205n14.

[ back ] 114. Trans. ibid.; Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 10.5.4 (cf. 1.9.2–3 and Cicero On Oratory 1.154); Philodemus On Poetry 5.30.36.

[ back ] 115. See Browning 2000:868 and passim.

[ back ] 116. Sherry 1996:420: “The [Nonnian] paraphrase has a unique place in the history of Greek literature. It is not only the sole surviving New Testament paraphrase, but it may well be the only one ever attempted”—a very inaccurate and misleading statement.

[ back ] 117. Averil Cameron 1998:672: “in so far as a Christian consciousness came into being, it was moulded by scriptural patterns, both inside and outside the Christian élite.”

[ back ] 118. There is no consensus on which recension of the centones is Eudocia’s: see the succinct treatment in Mary Whitby 2001. This question has been dealt with in depth by Usher 1997 and 1999, Rey 1998, Schembra 1995, and Whitby forthcoming, all with different conclusions. It is possible that none of the recensions is Eudocia’s, but most scholars have settled on one or the other manuscript tradition, Usher preferring a longer fourteenth-century manuscript from Athos, Shembra a shorter recension incompletely edited by Ludwich 1897, and Rey accepting multiple authorship in the shorter version—see Mary Whitby 2000 for some of the interpretive implications of this debate. If one accepts Usher’s longer recension, then Eudocia’s Homerocentones, at twenty-four hundred lines, becomes by far the longest of the surviving centones. For a list of the other known Homeric centones with references, see Usher 1998:3n3.

[ back ] 119. Usher 1998:16–17. A inspired comparison to be sure, but I hardly think Homer was “discarded material” in late antiquity.

[ back ] 120. Usher 1998:ix–x.

[ back ] 121. This juxtaposition is also suggested in general by Mary Whitby forthcoming—disagreeing with both Alan Cameron 1982 and Urbainczyk 1997, she writes: “One might more cautiously suggest that Theodosius’ [II’s] combination of educational and pious objectives provided an ideal environment for experimentation with this combination in literature.”

[ back ] 122. Photius Bibliotheca 183–184; ed. Henry 1960:2.195–199. The entry for Eudocia in Bowersock, Brown, and Grabar 1999:436 is erroneous in saying that only the paraphrase of the martyrdom of Saint Cyprian has survived, ignoring completely the more significant Homerocentones (a belief, if held, that the latter is wrongly attributed should have been noted and defended).

[ back ] 123. Alan Cameron 1982 has emphasized that the reorganization of schools in Constantinople in 425 should be seen on the background of imperial politics: “After 425 education in Constantinople was in effect the monopoly of a Christian government” (287). This is certainly important, but is it not also possible to see, from a literary-historical point of view, the persistent strength in the fifth century of traditional modes of rhetorical training and biblical exegesis and, then, the contemporary “christianization” of these modes? See n. 121 above.

[ back ] 124. While both Alan Cameron 1982:282 and Sherry 1996:425n58 rightly (though only in passing) cite the Life and Miracles as a comparandum for Nonnus and Eudocia, both appear unaware that its author is not Basil of Seleukeia, accepting the mistaken Byzantine attribution and confusing it with Photius’ notice. For the authorship of the Life and Miracles, see Dagron 1974.

[ back ] 125. Socrates Ecclesiastical History 3.16.1–7; trans. A. C. Zenos NPNF 2nd series, 2:86–87 (translation altered); cf. ed. Günther Hansen 1995:210. Note also how the technical language for paraphrase appears different here, esp. μεταβάλειν instead of μεταφράζειν.

[ back ] 126. Sozomen Ecclesiastical History 5.18.1–5; trans. C. D. Hartranft NPNF 2nd series, 2:340 (translation altered); cf. ed. Bidez and Hansen 1995:221–223.

[ back ] 127. Golega 1960.

[ back ] 128. Urbainczyk 1997:33–34.

[ back ] 129. Alan Cameron 1982:283. Nonnus could have written his Paraphrase prior to 439 since it is possible Socrates would not have known it, and there are no known connections between Nonnus and the court; by contrast, the empress Eudocia could presumably not escape notice.

[ back ] 130. Urbainczyk 1997:33–34.

[ back ] 131. Though Sozomen’s approval of the practice could be read as an implicit acknowledgment.

[ back ] 132. How do we explain Socrates’ harshness in this matter? Besides assuming a distaste for the younger Apolinarius, there is no clear answer. Nevertheless, it is important to note that both historians set the Apolinarii in the same context. They highlight the educational environment from which the paraphrases come and, in their own ways, they obscure the broader tradition of paraphrase through their specific denigrations of Julian’s policies.

[ back ] 133. Bovon 1988:19–20 emphasizes the fact that this vigorous activity was ongoing even in recent times: “At the same time as Konstantin von Tischendorf was preparing his critical edition of the martyrdoms and apocalypses of the apostles, a Greek monk from Palestine [Joasaph of Saint Sabba] was retelling in his own style the same stories which Tischendorf and R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet were editing” (see references ad loc.); contrast this observation with the following: “Today no one dreams of publishing interpolated versions of these [canonical] Gospels or of doctoring our holy books” (ibid.)—we have thus inherited a cognitive distinction (formulated sometime between the second and sixth centuries?) between inviolable and violable Christian texts.

[ back ] 134. See Ehrman 1993:17–20: The first attempts to restrict the Christian canon were not voluntary but came only in response to heretical (e.g. Marcionite) canonical definitions. On conceptual distinctions in the second and third centuries between canonical and apocryphal Gospels, see Bovon 1988.

[ back ] 135. See Høgel 2002.

[ back ] 136. It is often the case that the novelistic elements are highlighted by these authors as much as the historical. See Hägg 1983 chapter 6 and Pervo 1996.

[ back ] 137. The term “Encratites” comes from ἐγκράτεια, “self-control” or “continence”; while this label probably refers to various different sects with Gnostic connections, the second century writer Tatian is often said to be their heresiarch. They are described by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1.28), Clement (Paedagogus 2.2.33; Stromateis (“Patchwork”) 1.15, 7.17), and Epiphanius (Panarion (“Medicine Chest”) 47.2.3–47.3.1), among others. In addition to sexual continence, they were said to have abstained from wine and meat as well, though it is unclear whether abstinence from these two were also necessary for salvation.

[ back ] 138. As does in fact appear to be the case when Origen cites the Acts of Paul in On First Principles 1.2.3 and his Commentary on John 20.12 (Elliott 1999:350).

[ back ] 139. The critical text of the Acts of Philip is Bovon, Bouvier, and Amsler 1999; French translation, Amsler, Bovon, and Bouvier 1996. On the religious community that produced the Acts of Philip see the references at Bovon 2001:140n10, esp. Slater 1999.

[ back ] 140. On the Council of Gangra in the context of the extreme eastern asceticism of the fourth and fifth centuries, see Caner 2002, esp. chapter 3; in addition, see the references in ODCC s.v. “Gangra, Council of” and “Eustathius,” esp. Gribomont 1957, 1980, and Barnes 1989, and, for the text of the Council (20 canons in Greek and Latin) with a French translation, see Joannou 1962–1963:1.2.83–99.

[ back ] 141. On the Byzantine reception of early Christian apocrypha, see Patlagean 1991.

[ back ] 142. Bovon 1999a argues against Lipsius 1883–1890:2/2.233, who said that a later use of this lost apocryphal material on James, by the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, is taken from Nicetas. Bovon argues that they both independently attest these lost Acta, demonstrating that standard versions were in circulation for a considerable time.

[ back ] 143. Critical text: Zahn 1975 [1880]:3–165. See Krueger 2004:216n15 for references to modern translations.

[ back ] 144. Rapp 1995.

[ back ] 145. See Høgel 2002. Between Sophronius and Symeon comes, of course, Nicetas David of Paphlegonia in the ninth century, mentioned above in relation to the lost acts of James the brother of Jesus (Rapp 1995:35–36).

[ back ] 146. It should also be noted that the metaphrastic trend continues for several centuries after Symeon as well: see Talbot 1991, cited by Rapp 1995:36n24.

[ back ] 147. Høgel 2002:89–126.

[ back ] 148. McKenzie 1999 [1986]; see Chartier 1997 for differing reactions to McKenzie’s seminal lectures.

[ back ] 149. McKenzie 1999:37, citing Doctorow, Wittock, and Marks 1978; emphasis is McKenzie’s.

[ back ] 150. Vinel 1987:213.

[ back ] 151. See Pucci 1998 for a recent restatement of the value of allusion in late antique literature.

[ back ] 152. Boyarin 1990:15.