At first glance, all this seems promising. However, scholars of the apocalyptic literature have noted a number of problems associated with this simple definition and its employment as a “litmus test” for apocalyptic. I will note three briefly and then concentrate on a fourth.
First, the two-ages scheme it is not a sufficient definition. Apocalyptic is about much more than eschatology, involving the revelation of, among other things, cosmological and soteriological mysteries. In short, as Rowland has argued, eschatology in the apocalypses is “not their most distinctive feature, nor does it deserve to become the focus of attention in the study of apocalyptic to the exclusion of the other secrets which the apocalypses claim to reveal.”[23]
Second, the two-ages scheme is not an exclusive defining characteristic. It is, after all, a doctrine found throughout the Old Testament, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the Rabbinic writings. This is a simple but important point, which has been argued by many. As Rowland and Morray-Jones have put it, “evidence from the apocalypses themselves indicates that, apart from a handful of passages, their doctrine of the future hope seems to be pretty much the same as that found in other Jewish sources.”[24]
Third, the characterization of the two-ages scheme as radically “dualistic” is problematic.[25] This assertion, it appears, owes less to an examination of the literature itself and more to Vielhauer’s assertion that “the dualism of the Two-Ages doctrine recognizes no continuity between the time of this world and of that which is to come.”[26] This has been variously challenged, not least by Collins, who has argued that the “two age” eschatologies of some Jewish apocalypses are characterized by “significant continuity from this world to the next.”[27]
Fourth, and finally, the two-ages scheme, which is certainly a characteristic of apocalyptic eschatology is by no means the only one. Eschatology in the apocalypses should not be reduced to this motif: there are other eschatological metaphors that are woven together in ways that are complex and mutually enriching. Stuckenbruck considers the exclusive focus on the two ages offered by Vielhauer (with Hanson and Russell) as demonstrably flawed and says that “construals of time in Second Temple Jewish literature cannot be simplified into such a scheme,” citing as evidence the presence of the periodization of history, cyclical understandings of time, and the framework of Endzeit/Urzeit.[28]
In stating this fourth point, I have already anticipated some of what follows. Part of the problem here is that Vielhauer and Russell, in making their arguments for the two ages as the sine qua non of apocalyptic, have almost exclusively emphasized its expression in 4 Ezra 7:47–50, while bracketing out temporal and eschatological themes found elsewhere in that book and in the rest of the apocalyptic literature. These conclusions have subsequently been taken up by some Pauline interpreters, who have placed all the weight on the two ages as the essence of apocalyptic. Other eschatological themes, such as the periodization of history, are then relegated to the status of “optional feature[s].”[29]
But this approach risks question-begging. The two-ages scheme is certainly important, but should not be employed as a reductionist litmus test for apocalyptic thought. Whether it is the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch 85–90, the cloud vision of 2 Baruch 53–74, or the statue and beasts of Daniel 2 and 7, what we find in apocalyptic literature (woven together with the doctrine of the two ages) is an eschatological concern with telling the story of Israel through periods of history—the very thing that some contemporary approaches to apocalyptic in Paul seek to downplay or rule out. But, as Stuckenbruck has argued, “beyond contrasting present and future reality, some writers of apocalyptic texts demonstrated a concern with divine activity as a constant that shaped the unfolding story of Israel as a way of understanding and posing questions about the present.”[30] What is needed, then, is an approach to eschatology in the apocalyptic mode that distils its essential features from the literature in their rich variety, without oversimplification into any one scheme.
In the rest of this chapter, I will attempt to provide a case study for such an approach by offering a comparison of temporal metaphors in one apocalyptic text, 4 Ezra, and would-be apocalyptic interpretations of time in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Multiple Eschatological Themes in 4 Ezra
“Not one world but two”: 4 Ezra 7
Any discussion of apocalyptic eschatology must deal with 4 Ezra 7:47–50, where, as Stone comments, “the author sees a clear separation of two ages.”[31] The passage involves Ezra’s response to a vision of coming judgment:
I answered and said, “O sovereign Lord, I said then and I say now: Blessed are those who are alive and keep your commandments! But what of those for whom I prayed? For who among the living is there that has not sinned, or who among men that has not transgressed your covenant? And now I see that the world to come will bring delight to few, but torments to many. For an evil heart has grown up in us, which has alienated us from God, and has brought us into corruption and the ways of death, and has shown us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life—and that not just a few of us but almost all who have been created!”
He answered me and said, “Listen to me, Ezra, and I will instruct you, and will admonish you yet again. For this reason the Most High has made not one world but two.”[32]
I have already commented on the (almost exclusive) importance of this text for Vielhauer and Russell. Bruce Longenecker likewise observes that 7:50 is “most often cited as the centrepiece of Uriel’s two-age scheme”[33] and cites Koch, who says that “Der Satz 7,50 . . . gilt weithin als der ‘Grundsatz,’ mit dem die Argumentationen des Verfassers stehen und fallen.”[34] Appeals to the doctrine of two ages, when they cite the apocalyptic literature, generally hold up 4 Ezra 7:47–50 as the parade example, and rightly so. But it is by no means the only statement of this theme in the book.[35] It is clear that the duality of “two world-ages” is a crucial aspect of the eschatology of 4 Ezra. So far, this is uncontroversial and readily cited by scholars in regard to Paul. But it is by no means the only feature of 4 Ezra’s eschatology. I turn now to a second important theme, expressed in two interrelated metaphors.
History and Harvest, Maternity and Maturation:
Salvation History in 4 Ezra 4
4 Ezra 7:50 may be the clearest example of the two-ages scheme in the book, but it is not the first. It is a theme that is introduced earlier, in chapter 4, where it is woven together with other eschatological images:[36]
He answered me and said, “If you are alive, you will see, and if you live long, you will often marvel, because the age is hastening swiftly to its end. For it will not be able to bring the things that have been promised to the righteous in their appointed times, because this age is full of sadness and infirmities. For the evil about which you ask me has been sown, but the harvest of it has not yet come. If therefore that which has been sown is not reaped, and if the place where the evil has been sown does not pass away, the field where the good has been sown will not come. For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam’s heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes! Consider now for yourself how much fruit of ungodliness a grain of evil seed has produced. When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!”[37]
The point being made by the use of this agricultural metaphor is that the relationship between the two ages is more complex than a simple binary scheme allows. Certainly, there is a duality of the time before and the time after the day of harvest, but the division of times does not result in the irrelevance of what came before. Far from it—the period of maturation before the day of threshing is of vital and continuing importance. The point is made all the clearer as the passage continues with Ezra’s next question (the characteristically apocalyptic “how long?”), and Uriel’s response:
Then I answered and said “How long and when will these things be? Why are our years few and evil?” He answered me and
said, “You do not hasten faster than the Most High, for your haste is for yourself, but the Highest hastens on behalf of many. Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters, saying “How long are we to remain here? And when will come the harvest of our reward?” And Jeremiel the archangel answered them and said, “When the number of those like yourselves is completed; for he has weighed the age in the balance, and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by number; and he will not move or arouse them until that measure is fulfilled.”[38]
Uriel is clear about the role of history in relation to the two ages. The times must be first “measured” by God until their number is “fulfilled” (36–37), and only then will God move to act and bring about the time of reaping and threshing. Crucially, this is not portrayed as smooth developmental progress that can be discerned by the human eye: it is a time of fullness known to God alone. But the day of reaping, imperceptible to human reason, is nevertheless the long-promised, long-awaited, and (retrospectively) appropriate and logical climax of the time of maturation.
The dialogue continues with Ezra’s suggestion that it is because of the sins of humanity that the time of threshing has been delayed. To explain further the relationship between this age and the age to come, and the delay of the judgment of God, the angel switches the metaphor:
He answered me and said, “Go and ask a woman who is with child if, when her nine months have been completed, her womb can keep the child within her any longer.”“No, my lord,” I said, “it cannot.”
He said to me, “In Hades the chambers of the souls are like the womb. For just as a woman who is in travail makes haste to escape the pangs of birth, so also do these places hasten to give back those things that were committed to them from the beginning. Then the things that you desire to see will be disclosed to you.”[39]
The point being made by the childbirth imagery is similar to the one made by the harvest metaphor: labor pains are a signal of the arrival of an end of an appointed span of time (a maturation of nine months, in the case of human gestation), which leads up to and anticipates (but does not condition) the birth event. There is, importantly, no radical separation between the pangs of birth and the arrival of the child, even though the birth event may be dramatic or even, in a sense, unexpected.[40] There is thus a continuity of this expectation while also surprising discontinuity in the manner of its fulfillment.
How do these apocalyptic eschatological images of harvest and childbirth work together with the two-ages scheme? Answering this question is important for any distillation of apocalyptic eschatology in 4 Ezra. Yes, there is a binary in these images—there is a qualitative difference between the time before and the time after the threshing/birth—but that should not obscure the importance of the motif of the “fullness of the times.” These redemptive-historical metaphors work together with the two ages motif in a complex whole, and so, we should resist overly simplistic schemes that employ the latter to the exclusion of the former.
With these two apocalyptic eschatological motifs in mind we come to Paul, and in particular to the letter that has become the storm center of the debate about his apocalyptic theology, the epistle to the Galatians.
Apocalyptic and Salvation History in Galatians?
In the continuing discussion of apocalyptic in Paul, the present focus on Galatians is a surprising turn. J. C. Beker, for whom “only a consistent apocalyptic interpretation of Paul’s thought is able to demonstrate its fundamental coherence”[41] nevertheless considered Galatians a contingent exception to this overall scheme. Its lack of concern with future eschatology, among other things, caused Beker to view Galatians as a letter whose “situational demands suppress the apocalyptic theme of the gospel.”[42] For Beker, apocalyptic in Paul must be explored on the basis of other letters. Reviewing his Paul the Apostle shortly after its publication, Martyn asked the following pointed questions:
Is the apocalyptic theme of the gospel suppressed in that letter in which Paul says with unmistakable emphasis that the truth of the gospel is a matter of apocalypse (Gal 1:12, 16; 2:2, 5, 14)? One is driven to ask whether it is not Paul’s voice in Galatians that is being suppressed, perhaps because that letter is felt to be offensive on two counts: it contains very few references to God’s future triumph, that is, to what Beker views as the core of the coherent apocalyptic core, and it can be read as revealing a conscious avoidance of the continuum of salvation history. . . . Could Galatians perhaps be allowed to play its own role in showing us precisely what the nature of Paul’s apocalyptic was? If one should answer that question in the affirmative, one would be driven back to the issue of the relationship between apocalyptic and salvation history.[43]
And driven back we are, for it is this relationship between apocalyptic and salvation history that concerns us here. Martyn’s concerns are those of Käsemann, namely that we should guard carefully against any view of history as a smooth evolutionary development. But this is a concern that Beker shares while still affirming the importance of salvation history.[44] For Beker, apocalyptic in Paul was characterized by an intimate and dynamic relationship between the two eschatological motifs of the two ages and salvation history
because the history of Israel is for him not simply the old age of darkness. Israel’s past contains the footprints of the promises of God, and these promises are taken up into the new age rather than cast aside. . . . The dualism between the old age and the new age, then, is tempered in the first place by Paul’s stress on continuity in the midst of discontinuity with respect to God’s continuing faithfulness to Israel. In the second place, the incursion of the new age occurs in the midst of the old because of the new life brought about by Christ’s death and resurrection.[45]
For Martyn, one of the major problems with Beker’s approach to Pauline apocalyptic was what he saw as a methodology which “play[ed] down the disjunctive dualism of the two ages, accenting instead the linear matter of God’s victorious faithfulness as it is directed toward the future consummation of his gracious plan.” This Martyn saw as “a brand of apocalyptic primarily focused not on dualistic patterns of thought, but rather on the continuum of history that God is directing toward his final triumph.”[46] Martyn’s antithetical assessment indicates a dichotomy that lies at the heart of his own approach to apocalyptic in Paul, as the following statement reveals: “Beker is able to discover a kind of marriage between apocalyptic (as core) and salvation history (as structure?). My own opinion is that the marriage . . . is rather more arranged by Beker than discovered in Paul.”[47]
Martyn’s critique of Beker highlights the importance of determining the relationship between salvation history and apocalyptic in Galatians—a topic that continues to draw attention.[48] In the hope of making a contribution to this debate, I now turn to a sharper focus on two verses that have borne considerable weight in this discussion of apocalyptic eschatology in Paul, namely, Gal. 1:4 and 4:4.
“The present evil age”: Galatians 1:4
The theme of the two ages is suggested right at the very start of the letter:
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ κατὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.[49]
Martyn is in no doubt about the significance of Paul’s language: the phrase τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ is a “distinctly apocalyptic expression . . . the first of numerous apocalyptic expressions in the letter.”[50] De Boer follows Martyn in seeing 1:4b as a clear indication that Paul is “indebted to Jewish apocalyptic eschat
ology,” and in particular its “classic expression in the apocalypse of 4 Ezra [2 Esd.] 7:50.”[51] Of course, Martyn and de Boer are by no means alone in seeing a connection between Paul’s use of the expression “the present evil age” and the Jewish apocalyptic literature.[52] But Paul has not simply lifted this theme from his tradition and used it uncritically, but has subjected it to modification in the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The most obvious difference in Paul’s use of this eschatological duality is that he does not speak straightforwardly about “the age to come.” What are we to make of this? For Martyn, the recognition that Paul does not mention “the age to come” is no impediment to identifying the two ages doctrine in Galatians and elsewhere in Paul.
To speak of the present age is obviously to imply that there is another age (or something like another age). . . . Although Paul himself never speaks literally of “the coming age,” his numerous references to “the present age” (in addition to Gal. 1:4, see Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2:6; 2:8; 3:18; 2 Cor. 4:4) reflect this assumption of eschatological dualism.[53]
For Martyn, the distinction between the two ages in Galatians is not between “this age” and “the age to come,” but between “this age” and “the new creation” (6:15). This adaptation of the two ages reflects, for Martyn, the development of the doctrine in the exilic period.[54] But it is also a variation on the two-ages theme that can be found in Jewish apocalyptic literature. De Boer also notes this connection, commenting that “the concept of a ‘new creation’ is at home in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology” citing, among other texts, 4 Ezra 7. There, in 7:75, Ezra voices his conviction that the Lord will “renew the creation.” This statement is found sandwiched between the classic statements of the two ages in 7:50 and 7:112–14. As such, there is support from Paul’s context for reading the “[re]new[ed] creation” as roughly equivalent to the “age to come” in the dualistic eschatological scheme. When the whole passage is read, however, it becomes clear that 4 Ezra weaves this eschatological duality, together with other eschatological motifs, such as the notion of “the last days/times” (7:73, 77) and a belief in the divinely foreordained periodization of history (7:74). Returning to Galatians, this observation tempers Martyn’s assertion that the “new creation” is a motif “in which the accent lies on the motif of radical, uncompromising newness” and the resulting conclusion that “far from repairing the old cosmos, God is in the process of replacing it.”[55] Galatians 1:4 and 6:15 are certainly indications of the two-ages doctrine and that Paul is writing his letter in an apocalyptic mode. But the relationship in 4 Ezra between that dualistic eschatological scheme and other temporal motifs leads us to ask whether, for Paul, a similar interweaving of eschatological metaphors might be in play.
Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination Page 44