Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew

369 Pages·1994·18.87 MB·English

by  Dennis R. MacDonald

Christianizing Homer
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Christianizing Homer
The Odyssey, Plato, and
The Acts of Andrew
Dennis Ronald MacDonald
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1994
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1994 by Dennis Ronald MacDonald
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, 1948-
Christianizing Homer : the Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew
Dennis Ronald MacDonald.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-508722-4
1. Acts of Andrew—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Homer. Odyssey.
3. Plato-Influence.
4. Socrates—Influence.
5. Mythology, Greek—Controversial literature.
6. Apologetics-Early church, ca. 30-600.
I. Title.
BS2880.A372M34 1994
229'.92-dc20 93-5653
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 31
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
From Charlie and the Chocolate factory by Roald Dahl.
Copyright © 1964 by Roald Dahl. Copyright renewed.
Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
From The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles.
Translation copyright © 1990 by Robert Fagles.
Introduction and Notes Copyright © 1990 by Bernard Knox.
Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The following are reprinted with the permission of Harvard University Press and
the Loeb Classical Library:
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, R. C. Seaton, 1912
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, J. Arthur Hanson, 1989
Callimachus, Hymns, C. A. Trypanis, 1958
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus),
G. W. Butterworth, 1919
Euripides, Iphigenia at Autis, Arthur S. Way, 1912
Euripides, Madness of Heracles, Arthur S. Way, 1912
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Kirsopp Lake, 1926, and J. E. L. Oulton, 1932
Homer, Iliad, A. T. Murray, 1924-25
Homer Odyssey, A. T. Murray, 1919
(Ps-) Lucian, Amores, M. D. MacLeod, 1967
Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, M. D. MacLeod, 1961
Lucian, Menippus, A. M. Harmon, 1925
Lucian, True Story, A. M. Harmon, 1913
Lucretius, De rerum natura, W. H. Rouse, 1982
Nonnos, Dionysiaca, W. H. D. Rouse, 1940
Philo, On the Decalogue, F. H. Colson, 1937
Plato, Phaedo, Harold North Fowler, 1914
Plato, Phaedrus, Harold North Fowler, 1914
Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey, 1930 and 1935
Plato, Theaetetus, Harold North Fowler, 1921
Plutarch, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry, Frank Cole Babbitt, 1969
Quintilian, Institutio Oratorio, 1920-22
Quintus Smyrnaeus, fall of Troy (Posthomerica), Arthur S. Way, 1913
Sophocles, Philoaetes, F. Storr, 1913
Strabo, Geography, H. L. Jones, 1917-35
Theocritus, Idylls, J. M. Edmunds, 1928
Virgil, Aeneid, H. Rushton Faircloth, 1978
ForKatya and Julian
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
Song of the Oompa-Loompas, in Roald Dahl,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Preface
Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and another
from the Association of Theological Schools, I spent much of the summer of 1983
at the Folklore Institute of Indiana University, Bloomington, looking for evidence
of folklore lurking behind The Acts of Andrew. My first book, The Legend and
the Apostle: The Battl for Paul in Story and Canon, argued that The Acts of
Paul took much of its content from legends told by ascetic Christians, especially
by women, in second-century Asia Minor. I had hoped that a similar analysis of
the textual remains of The Acts of Andrew might disclose an oral tradition about
the apostle Andrew. I brought to Bloomington photocopies of the best texts then
available and attempted to identify in them possible oral traditions. The longer I
worked at this task, the more I became convinced that, unlike The Acts of Paul,
The Acts of Andrew was a purely literary composition with no access to traditions
about Andrew apart from the sparse information available in the New Testament
Why, then, I asked myself, did the author compose this huge work, the longest
of the apocryphal Acts? More important, where did the author derive his
narrative inspiration for these amazing tales, many of which have no obvious
analogies in contemporary Jewish or Christian literature? These questions
plagued me and remained unanswered for much of my time at the institute. The
evening before I was to return to Colorado, I treated myself to a long walk
when—eureka!—it suddenly occurred to me that many of the stories were
strangely reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey. If the author wrote the Acts as a
Christian Odyssey, it might account for its length, its interests in the sea,
shipwrecks, pirates, cannibals, demons, and the very selection of Andrew as the
Christian hero. After all, Andrew was an erstwhile fisherman whose name meant
'manliness' The next morning, as soon as the university bookstore
opened, I bought a copy of Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey, and, unknown
to the highway patrols of five states, I read the entire epic while driving home.
The edges of the paperback folded back into the steering wheel so that I had only
to turn the pages and yo-yo my eyes a few inches between text and road. That
single, bumpy reading of Homer convinced me that the author of The Acts of
Andrew had indeed tried to Christianize The Odyssey.
In 1983 no reliable text of The Acts of Andrew existed, so my first task was to
collect, edit, and translate the available manuscript evidence. Two years and
three hundred pages later I learned that Jean-Marc Prieur was preparing an edition
of the Acts for Series Apocryphorum of Corpus Christianorum. Our subsequent
correspondence revealed that, despite nearly identical reconstructions of some
viii Preface
sections, he and I differed radically in others. He published his edition in 1989;
mine appeared in 1990. Since then, I have devoted most of my research to the
present volume, in which I attempt to articulate the insight that first enthralled me
a decade ago.
This study argues for a consistent reading of the text against Homer and, to a
lesser degree, Euripides and Plato, but this focus cannot account for all of its
content. The Acts of Andrew is a marvelously rich document whose treasures for
understanding Christian Platonism, asceticism, apologetics, and poetics have
scarcely been mined. For this reason, I strongly encourage readers to keep a copy
of my edition handy for reference, so that they can both gain a fuller appreciation
of the text and test my reading against their own.
This project would have been impossible without the generous support of the
Iliff School of Theology. I hesitate to name individuals who contributed to this
research lest I overlook someone, but a few people require special thanks. Over
the years I have been blessed with several student assistants who brought their
considerable talents and efforts to bear on this book. Rebecca Kan tor, Linda
Seracuse, David Gould, Beth Mae Emerich, Yoseop Ra, and Larry Altepeter
proofread, typed, searched through bibliographies, and filled out a small tree's
worth of interlibrary loan request forms, freeing me from necessary drudgery so
that I could dally with the texts. In the final stages of my work, Richard I. Pervo
carefully read the manuscript and provided many valuable suggestions; the
endnotes are much the richer for his erudition. As always, my wife, Diane,
endured my obsessions with good humor, patience, and feigned interest. Most of
all I must thank my children, Katya and Julian, for not overly resenting my
frequent absences when following my Muse. To them I dedicate this book, less
out of paternal guilt than out of hope that they, like the author of The Acts of
Andrew, will learn to transmythologize their world through the myth we
Christians call the Gospel.
Denver, Col. D.R.M.
July 1993
Contents
Abbreviations, xiii
Introduction, 3
1. Homer in the Early Church, 17
2. The Iliad, 35
City of the Cannibals (Achilles' Myrmidons, AAMt la), 35
Abduction of Matthias (Circe the Cannibal, AAMt 1-2), 39
Jesus Consoles Matthias (Athena the Comforter, AAMt 3), 40
Voyage to Mynnidonia (Athena the Sailor, AAMt 4-11), 41
Summoning the Dead (Nekyia, AAMt 12-15), 44
Sleepy Disembarkation (Odysseus's Arrival at Ithaca, AAMt 16-17), 46
Andrew Rescues Matthias (Odysseus Rescues Crew, AAMt 18-21), 47
Slaying the Children (Iphigenia and Orestes, AAMt 22-23), 50
Devil's Advocate (Zeus's Lying Dream, AAMt 24), 52
Dragging the Apostle (Hector's Corpse, AAMt 25-28), 53
Fighting the Flood (Achilles and the Scamander, AAMt 29-32a), 55
Jesus the Child (Hermes the Youth, AAMt 32b), 58
Andrew Departs (Odysseus's Departure from Circe, AAMt 33), 59
The Order of the Parallels, 60
Conclusion, 62
3. Nekyia, 77
Rendezvous at a Mountain, 78
City of the Barbarians , 79
Raising the Myrmidons, 81
Visit to the Netherworld, 84
Departure from Mynnidonia for Amasia, 100
Conclusion, 101