The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  Parvis, S., and P. Foster, eds. 2007. Justin Martyr and His Worlds. Minneapolis, MI.

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  Puech, A. 1912. Les apologistes grecs du IIe siècle de notre ère. Paris.

  Rajak, T. 1999. “Talking at Trypho: Christian Apologetic as AntiJudaism in Justin’s Dialoge with Trypho the Jew.” In Apologetics in the Roman Empire, edited by M. Edwards, 59–80. Oxford.

  Rankin, D. 2009. Athenagoras: Philosopher and Theologian. Cornwall.

  Richter, D. S. 2011. Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire. Oxford.

  Segal, C. P. 1962. “Gorgias and the Psychology of the Logos.” Harv. Stud. 66: 99–155.

  Skarsaune, O. 1987. Proof from Prophecy: A Study in Justin Martyr’s Proof-Text Tradition. Leiden.

  Swain, S. 1996. Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World,AD50–250. Oxford.

  Van Nuffelen, P. 2011. Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period. Cambridge.

  Van Winden, J. C. M. 1971. An Early Christian Philosopher: Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho 1–9. Leiden.

  Whitmarsh, T. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation. Oxford.

  Whittaker, M., ed. and trans. 1982. Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments. Oxford.

  Young, F. “Greek Apologists of the Second Century.” In Apologetics in the Roman Empire, edited by M. Edwards, 81–104. Oxford.

  Zeegers-Vander Vorst, N. 1972. Les Citations des poètes grecs chez les apologistes chrètiens du IIe siècle. Louvain.

  CHAPTER 41

  JEWISH LITERATURE

  ERICH S. GRUEN

  THE Jews saw themselves as a people apart. The Bible affirmed it, and the nation’s experience seemed to confirm it. As God proclaimed in the Book of Leviticus, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be mine” (Lev. 20:26). The idea is echoed in Numbers: “There is a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations” (Num. 23:9). Other biblical passages reinforce the sense of a chosen people, selected by the Lord (for both favor and punishment) and placed in a category unto themselves (e.g., Gen. 12:1–3; Exod. 6:7, 33:16; Deut. 7:6, 10:15, 14:2). This notion of Jewish exceptionalism recurs with frequency in the Bible, most pointedly perhaps in the construct of the return from the Babylonian Exile when the maintenance of endogamy loomed as paramount to assert the identity of the nation (Ezra, 9–10; Neh. 10:29–31; 13:1–3, 23–30).

  The image was more than a matter of self-perception. Greeks and Romans also characterized Jews as holding themselves aloof from other societies and keeping to their own kind. The earliest Greek writer who discussed Jews at any length, Hecataeus of Abdera, described them (in an otherwise favorable account) as somewhat xenophobic and misanthropic (Hecataeus, apud Diod. Sic. 40.3.4). That form of labeling persisted through the Hellenistic period and well into the era of the Roman Empire. One need only cite Tacitus and Juvenal for piercing comments on the subject: Jews are fiercely hostile to gentiles and spurn the company of the uncircumcised (Tac. Hist. 5.5.1–2, 5.8.1; Juv. 14.103–104).

  Whatever the perceptions or the constructs, however, they did not match conditions on the ground. Jews dwelled in cities and nations all over the eastern Mediterranean, spilling over also to the west, particularly in Italy and North Africa. The diaspora population far outnumbered the Palestinian, and the large majority of the dispersed grew up in lands of Greek language and culture—and Roman political dominance (Barclay 1996; Gruen 2002). Isolation was not an option.

  Indeed, the Hellenic world of the Roman Empire was part and parcel of the Jewish experience, no alien setting or foreign intrusion. It had been so for a long time. Jewish intellectuals showed familiarity with and engagement in the genres and forms of Greek literature from the later third century BCE. Jewish writers composed tragic drama, epic poetry, history, philosophy, and even prose fiction in Greek with some frequency (far more than we know, since we have but a fraction of it). By the time of the Second Sophistic, they were steeped in Hellenic literary traditions, many of them probably knew no language other than Greek (the Hebrew Bible had long since been translated into Greek), and they were fully comfortable with the intellectual horizons of the Hellenic Mediterranean.

  Did this produce strain and tension? Did working within well-established Greek literary conventions in a world under Roman sway require compromise of Jewish principles and values that had an even longer history and a more compelling hold on the consciousness of the Jews? A revealing clue lies in the subject matter that pervades Jewish writings in Greek of every form from the beginning. Epic, tragedy, history, and prose fiction did not celebrate the exploits of Zeus, Heracles, Odysseus, or Aeneas. Their heroes were Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. The genres of classical cultures were put to use to retell in new shapes and guises the ancient tales on which Jews founded their faith. The Hellenic mode served as a means of expression rather than an adoption of ideology.

  That does not, however, fully resolve the issue. The pride in isolation and distinctiveness, on the one hand, and immersion in Hellenic culture, on the other, hardly made for a cozy fit. Tensions and strains must have existed as Jewish writers grappled with the amalgam of ideas and formulations at the intersection of the cultures. The literary output constituted a rich and diverse mix, and no brief survey can do it justice. Some salient examples will have to suffice.

  PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA

  Philo of Alexandria stands out as the most prominent and conspicuous instance of the Jewish intelligentsia steeped in Greek learning. His output was vast, and his corpus (of which most, though not by any means all, survives) defies summary. He held a position of high esteem in the Jewish community of Alexandria in the period of the early Roman Empire, living into the reign of Claudius (Schwartz 2009, 9–31). The diversity and variety of his writings reflect a lifetime of learning of which only a small hint can be given here (Morris 1987, 819–870; Royse 2009, 32–64). Philo was a devoted student and adherent of the Hebrew Bible in its Greek version (he knew little or no Hebrew), and he dedicated much of his energy to biblical exegesis. Interpretation of the Pentateuch, often elaborate allegorical interpretation, represented his principal métier and drove his mission throughout. But he brought to that task a wealth of erudition in Greek literature and, especially, Greek philosophy (Dillon 1977, 145–183; Niehoff 2001, 137–158; Wolfson 1948, passim).

  Philo’s deep engagement with Hellenic culture is no better illustrated than by his treatise Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit (“Every good man is free”). The work tackles a familiar Stoic “paradox,” the proposition that the Stoic wise man alone is free, regardless of material condition, oppressed circumstances, or even servile status. Philo follows Stoic doctrine in insisting that freedom is a quality of mind or soul, an inward certitude of virtue, unaffected by anything external. Only the sage is rich, no matter how poverty-stricken, and only he is sovereign, no matter his fetters, brands of servitude, and enduring enslavement (Philo, Omnis Probus, 8–10, 59–61). Genuine eleutheria comes from scorning the claims of the passions, resisting the blandishments of wealth, reputation, and pleasure, and renouncing human frailties. The wise man is thus immune to the shifts of fortune and unaffected by avarice, jealousy, ambition, fear, or even pain (17–25). Philo assigns due credit to the fountainhead of Stoicism, Zeno, as the peerless practitioner of true virtue, even defending his doctrines against critics and skeptics. Zeno was the preeminent advocate of living life in accord with nature (53–56, 97, 108, 160). But Philo’s exposition went beyond Stoicism. The sources he cites and the illustrations he employs show a wide acquaintance with Hellenic history, literature, tradition, and mythology. Philo does not hesitate to appeal to Pythagorean teachings, t
o Plato, to other philosophers like Antisthenes, Anaxarchus, Zeno the Eleatic, and Diogenes, to Sophocles, and indeed to Homer (2, 13, 19, 28, 31, 106–109, 121–125, 157). He makes reference to the constitutions of Athens and Sparta, and to their lawgivers Solon and Lycurgus, he includes anecdotes about Alexander the Great, and he praises the sentiments and actions of the hero Heracles as conveyed by Euripides (47, 92–96, 99, 101–103, 114). And he freely employs tales from Greek history, drama, and legend to reinforce his philosophical propositions (125–146). All of this shows Philo comfortable, quite unselfconsciously so, in the culture of the Hellenes.

  Yet the comfort level was incomplete. Reading between the lines shows that the cultivated philosopher did not altogether escape a sense of tension in negotiating the relationship of his ancestral tradition to the intellectual world of Hellas. Philo felt obliged to remind his readers that the lawgiver of the Jews went beyond the praise of inner virtue to celebrate love of the divine that makes the devout similar to gods among men (Philo, Omnis Probus, 43). The passage fits ill in its context, almost an afterthought or an insertion, suggesting a need to reassert foundational principles, however incongruous in the setting. And Philo goes further still to propose that Zeno himself drew on the Torah for some of his precepts (57). That proposition was not novel. Earlier Jewish thinkers too had advanced the idea that the best in Greek philosophy was prompted by the Bible—and none was deterred by the fact that the Greek translation was unavailable to Zeno or any of his predecessors (Gruen 1998, 246–253). Philo cites Moses more than once for statements that supposedly anticipated the Stoics (Philo, Omnis Probus, 68–70). He occasionally takes potshots at Greek sophists, mere wordsmiths absorbed in logic-chopping and petty quibbling (80, 88, 96; cf. Philo, Mos. 2.211–212). And he identifies as the very embodiment of ascetic existence and devotion to spiritual life the Jewish sect of the Essenes. They need no philosophical justification, only the piety that stems from adherence to the laws of the fathers (Philo, Omnis Probus, 75–88). The digression on the Essenes looks very much like an intrusion in the treatise, hardly a smooth transition. Although (or perhaps because) this work is as thoroughly Hellenic as any item in Philo’s large corpus, the author felt obliged to reassure readers, even at the cost of consistency, that his commitment to Jewish teachings remained unshaken.

  The motif that Jewish learning lies behind the Hellenic intellectual achievement appears with some frequency in Philo’s other writings. In different contexts he has Heraclitus, Socrates, Zeno, and various Greek lawgivers owe their insights to the laws of Moses (Philo, Leg. All. 1.108; Mut. 152; Q Genesis, 2.6; Somn. 2.244; Spec. Leg. 4.59–61). In the Life of Moses, Philo goes further still, asserting that Jewish law has earned the respect of Hellenic communities everywhere and gentiles generally who, among other things, have embraced the Sabbath and the Day of Atonement as nearly universal practices (Philo, Mos. 2.17–24, 2.44). No Greek legislator comes close to the supreme accomplishments of Moses (2.12–14). Philo even accounts for the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek by a Hellenic desire to emulate the ways of the Jews (2.25–27, 2.43). Extravagant claims of this sort leave more than a hint of the disquiet that accompanied the embrace of Hellas even for this most Hellenic of Jews.

  Philo devoted a whole treatise, De Congressu, to discussing the value of the various branches of educational training. He ranges over grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, dialectic, music, and the whole span of subjects that belong to the traditional curriculum of the Hellenic elite. He even provides some autobiographical notices of his own educational experience that proceeded through these forms of instruction, for all of which he expressed praise and admiration (Philo, Congr. 11–18, 74–76, 144). The combination of disciplines leads the mind inexorably toward its true goal, the acquisition of wisdom through philosophy (77–80, 146–148). Philo underscores throughout the contrast between the formation of the mental faculties and the ultimate objective, employing the analogy of Hagar and Sarah, and including a host of biblical allusions and allegories (Pearce 2007, 170–175). But there are no theological overtones here. The work provides as thoroughly Hellenic a presentation as one could wish for the Stoic doctrine of preliminary teachings that lead to the embrace of philosophy (Alexandre 1967, passim; Mendelson 1982, passim). Yet it is not the whole story.

  A remarkable passage encapsulates both Philo’s firm attachment to Hellenic education and his need to go beyond it. He provides a strikingly idiosyncratic version of Moses’s own primary and secondary education. For Philo, the Hebraic founder of the faith had Egyptian teachers at the outset, followed by masters summoned from Greece to advance his intellectual training. Egyptians took him through the initial stages in arithmetic, geometry, rhythm, harmony, and astrology, and Greeks carried him to higher learning, evidently literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. Lest readers conclude, however, that Moses was fully formed by educators beyond the biblical borders, Philo adds that the young man’s inner genius allowed him swiftly to transcend his teachers, who had no more to give him—as if he drew more on his own recollection than on anyone’s instruction (Philo, Mos. 1.21–24). Philo’s blend of Hellenism and Judaism was less a smooth process than a tense negotiation.

  4 MACCABEES

  A complex interweaving of Greek philosophy and Jewish precepts appears also in a treatise that our textual tradition labels as 4 Maccabees. The genre of the work does not conform readily to a single or standard model. Its form suggests, at least on the face of it, a diatribe, expounding on a philosophic position and defending it against objections (Hadas 1953, 101–102; Norden 1898, 303–304, 416–420). The opening of the treatise indicates that its topic will be the mastery of devout reason over the passions, and that motif holds, in various ways, throughout. Yet the bulk of 4 Maccabees treats, often in graphic detail, the noble resistance and the cruel fate of Jewish martyrs in the persecutions that led to the Maccabean rebellion. This might recall the genre of the encomium, a eulogy of praiseworthy persons, often in the form of a funeral oration (Lebram 1974, 81–96; deSilva 1998, 26–28, 46–49, 76–97; Van Henten 1997, 60–67). It carries echoes of lofty rhetoric, the epideictic speech, performative oratory that stemmed from Classical Greece and enjoyed a vogue in the era of the Second Sophistic. 4 Maccabees appears to be something of a hybrid, a rare combination of the diatribe and the encomium, or, more likely, an entity of its own, not a conscious mixture of genres and not easily subject to classification. Whatever label one applies, however, Hellenic features predominate.

  The peculiar work not only defies categorization but baffles inquiry into author, provenance, and date. There is little point in probing beyond its anonymity which leads nowhere. And the author’s location could be anywhere in the Jewish diaspora. Asia Minor or Antioch is a favored guess because of the “Asianism” of the author’s style (Anderson 1985, 534–535; Barclay 1996, 370; deSilva 1998, 18–21; Hadas 1953, 110–113; Klauck 1989, 666–667; Norden 1898, 1:416–420; Van Henten 1997, 78–81). But “Asianism” is largely a pejorative term flung about by critics who prefer a more direct “Attic” style, and has little to do with geography (Van Henten 1997, 59–60). A rough date, on the other hand, is slightly more accessible. Language and vocabulary, as well as historical arguments, have induced most scholars to place it anywhere between the mid-first and mid-second centuries CE (Anderson 1985, 533–534; Barclay 1996, 449; Breitenstein 1978, 75; Collins 2000, 203–204; deSilva 1998, 14–18; Dupont-Sommer 1939; Van Henten 1997, 73–78). Similarities with philosophical treatises and with rhetorical pieces of the Second Sophistic, in any case, place the work snugly within that cultural context.

  Much ink has spilled over the question of whether the author owes more to Plato or to the Stoics (Anderson 1985, 537–539; Breitenstein 1978, 132–133; Collins 2000, 205–206; Hadas 1953, 115–118; Klauck 1989, 665–666; Renehan 1972, 224–232). None of the arguments has compelling force. The issue of reason’s control over the emotions, with which the text opens, was a standard Stoic topic, as is the claim tha
t reason is mind choosing with right judgment the life of wisdom, and wisdom, in turn, being the knowledge of things divine and human and their causes (4 Macc. 1.1–3, 1.15–16). But the Stoics had no monopoly on such precepts. 4 Maccabees’s insistence on the four cardinal virtues, good sense, justice, courage, and self-control, can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and numerous thinkers who followed, including Philo (4 Macc. 18; cf. Philo, Leg. All. 1.71–72). The author need not and should not be pinned down. Some have plausibly dubbed him an eclectic, though one might as easily see him as the purveyor of philosophic clichés (Barclay 1996, 370–372). The work, on any reckoning, resonates with Hellenic philosophy. The encounter between Antiochus, the Hellenistic monarch who was determined to bend Jews to Greek ways, and Eleazer, the elderly Jewish sage of priestly stock and deep legal training, turns into a philosophic dialogue (Van Henten 1997, 275–278). Antiochus indeed challenges Eleazer by asserting that he cannot be a true philosopher if he adheres to the observances of the Jews, and he brands his beliefs as “foolish philosophy.” Eleazer responds in kind, affirming that it is precisely his philosophy that teaches self-restraint, justice, and courage, the traditional Hellenic virtues, but adds to them the requirement of piety, thus best to worship the sole god in properly magnificent fashion (4 Macc. 5.1–38).

  The philosophic character of the piece predominates. The author proceeds to detail the tortures and death inflicted by the tyrannical monarch not only upon the aged Eleazer but upon a steadfast and devout mother and her seven stalwart sons, horror scenes that occupy most of the treatise. But the horror serves a larger purpose. These actions, for the author, represent exemplary instances of the exercise of philosophic principle in the face of autocracy and injustice (deSilva 1998, 65–74). The text indeed repeats these points, almost to excess, as recurrent themes that bind together the story and remind readers of its meaning. After Eleazer’s noble death, the author declares that it represented the triumph of devout reason over the passions (4 Macc. 6.31–35). Only a man of wisdom and courage, like Eleazer, can be lord of his emotions (4 Macc. 8.23). The author delivers the same verdict upon the seven brave sons who defied the king and went proudly to their deaths. They showed that reason is sovereign over the passions, and that right reasoning can overcome suffering (4 Macc. 13.1–5). Reasoning powers, so declares the author, are more kingly than kings and freer than free men (4 Macc. 14.2). Even the superiority of the martyrs’ convictions over royal power and persecution is described in terms of a Greek athletic contest, with competitors contending for prizes and the winners metaphorically crowned as spiritual victors (4 Macc. 17.11–16).