Hellenism, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity: Transmission and Transformation of Ideas

252 Pages·2022·22.285 MB·English

by  Radka Fialovà, Jiří Hoblik, Petr Kitzler

Hellenism, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity
Arbeiten zur
Kirchengeschichte
Founded by
Karl Holl † and Hans Lietzmann †
Edited by
Christian Albrecht, Christoph Markschies
and Christopher Ocker
Volume 155
Hellenism, Early
Judaism, and
Early Christianity
Transmission and Transformation of Ideas
Edited by
Radka Fialová, Jiří Hoblík,
and Petr Kitzler
This book results from research funded by the Czech Science Foundation under grant
GA19-02741S, “Transmission and Transformation of Ideas: Hellenism, Early Judaism and Early
Christianity”.
ISBN 978-3-11-079507-3
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-079628-5
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-079640-7
ISSN 1861-5996
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022940051
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
Petro Pokorný et Paulo Oliva
viris optimis
studiorum Graecorum Romanorum Christianorum peritissimis
in Elysium nuper convocatis
numquam in oblivionem venturis
grate dicatum

Contents
Petr Kitzler
Preface   1
I Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity:
Theological and Philosophical Trajectories
Jiří Hoblík
God’s Power and Powers in Philo of Alexandria   9
Ana Carolina Delgado
The Presence of the Myth in the Pentateuch: A Platonic Argument in Philo
of Alexandria   29
Petr Pokorný (†)
Greek Heritage Reinterpreted by Jews and Christians   45
Jan M. Kozlowski
Resurrection in the Intertext: Pagan Sources in Paul’s Areopagus Speech
(Acts 17:22–31)   51
Damian Mrugalski OP
The Notion of Divine Infinity and Unknowability: Philo, Clement, and Origen
of Alexandria in a Polemic with Greek Philosophy   69
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Origen’s Philosophical Theology, Allegoresis, and Connections
to Platonism   85
Lenka Karfíková
An Arithmological Metaphor for the Holy Trinity in Gregory of Nazianzus
(Or. 29.2; 23.8) and Its Neopythagorean Background   113
VIII   Contents
II Hellenism and Judaism: Trajectories in Literature
and (Material) Culture
Agata Grzybowska-Wiatrak
Rewriting the Genesis Sequence. The Account of the Titanomachy
in the Third Book of the Sibylline Oracles Reconsidered   131
Barbara Crostini
Famous Forgiveness: The Reception of the Prayer of Manasseh in Byzantium
(with a Transcription of Hesychios of Jerusalem’s Scholia from MS Oxford,
Auct. D.4.1)   145
David Cielontko
The Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Huqoq Synagogue: A Reappraisal
of the Maccabean Interpretation   179
Juraj Franek
‘Seal of Solomon’ on a Bilingual defixio from Carnuntum (Pannonia)   205
On the Authors   223
Index Locorum   227
Index of Names and Subjects   241
Petr Kitzler
Preface
The individual papers collected in this volume are united by their aim to illu-
minate the links between Hellenism, early Judaism, and early Christianity. The
interconnection of these phenomena defies holistic analysis due to the breadth
of the topic; nevertheless, individual case studies can help us grasp different
aspects of such ties and answer the question of the impact of Hellenism on the
development of early Judaism and early Christianity. This question is rooted in
an understanding of Hellenism as an epoch of Greek influence upon the Medi-
terranean and the Near East as a result of the expansion of Alexander the Great,
exerted until the end of the Hellenistic empires and the beginning of Octavian’s
monarchist rule. However, we need first to emphasize the complex nature of the
cultural exchange between these areas: the cultural impulses brought by Alexan-
der vastly transcended the Peloponnese perspective, and in this regard the word
“Hellenism” does not fully correspond to such complexity. By “post-Hellenism”,
a term used occasionally in this book but not yet fully and firmly established, we
understand not a historical epoch but rather a sphere in which the secondary
consequences of Hellenization are to be found, visible in action, for instance, in
the evolution of early Christianity; we also use this term to indicate the continu-
ity between Hellenism and later times. By studying the Hellenistic influences on
early Christianity, both in response to and in reaction against early Hellenized
Judaism, we intend not only to better understand Christianity as a religious and
historical phenomenon with a profound impact on the development of European
civilization, but also to better comprehend Hellenism and its consequences,
which have often been relegated to the realm of political history.
Most of the studies in this book are based upon the selected papers delivered
at “Hellenism, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity: Transmission and Transfor-
mation of Ideas”, an international conference held in Prague on September 12–13,
2019, and organized by Radka Fialová, Jiří Hoblík and Petr Kitzler, who immedia-
telly afterwards began preparing this volume. This conference was attended by
some twenty-five speakers, not only from Western, Eastern and Central Europe
but also from further afield, such as from Argentina, Hong Kong, and the USA,
its main objective being to investigate individual topics from the field of early
Judaism and Christianity in the context of the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic
period, especially with regard to the history of thought. Both the conference and
this volume contribute to a three-year project, funded by the Czech Science Foun-
dation, researched by a team from the Centre for Classical Studies at the Insti-
tute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is worth mentioning that
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110796285-001
2   Petr Kitzler
within this grant-aided project the research team has also been working on the
interdisciplinary “Encyclopaedia of Hellenism, post-Hellenism and early Christi-
anity”: this encyclopaedia, currently in an early phase of its development, aims
to gather current knowledge in the field in the form of extensive entries, scholarly
yet accessible not only to experts but also to the Czech public in general, and to
boost Czech research into Hellenism, which despite its steady pursuit has been
somewhat fragmentary.
To give just some examples of this long-term interest, there is the monograph
Řecké dědictví v Orientu (Greek Heritage in the Orient; Praha: OIKOYMENH, 1993), by
one of the most prolific Czech biblical scholars, Petr Pokorný (1933–2020), which
summarizes the political, philosophical and religious development during the
Hellenistic epoch. Petr Pokorný was also one of the founders of the interdiscipli-
nary Centre for Biblical Studies, a joint research facility of today’s Centre for Clas-
sical Studies at the Institute of Philosophy, CAS, and the Protestant Theological
Faculty of Charles University in Prague. For nearly thirty years, this Centre and its
researchers have been striving to bridge the sometimes artificially fabricated gap
between biblical scholarship, a broad conception of early Christian theology, and
classical studies, and the present book can be considered one of the fruits of this
endeavour. Petr Pokorný died in January 2020, just a few months after the confer-
ence at which he delivered his short paper which, thanks to the kind permission of
his family, is posthumously printed in this volume. Unfortunately, in January 2021
he was followed by another Czech pioneer in the study of Hellenism, the doyen
of Czech classical philology and an eminent historian of Antiquity, Pavel Oliva
(1923–2021), who himself devoted two monographs to the history of Hellenism and
its context: Řecko mezi Makedonií a Římem (Greece between Macedonia and Rome;
Praha: Academia, 1995) and Svět helénismu (The World of Hellenism; Praha: Arista,
2001). It is to the memory of these two great scholars that we dedicate this volume.
The chapters in this book are arrange✶d✶ ✶into two slightly overlapping thematic
sections. The first section comprises papers illuminating different aspects of phil-
osophical theology dealt with by different Jewish and Christian authors and texts,
rooted in and influenced by the Hellenistic cultural and philosophical context;
the second section features studies focused on the Jewish literary and cultural
tradition and its reception.
The book opens with a study by Jiří Hoblík (Prague) on Philo and the concept
of “power(s)” present in his vast oeuvre. Hoblík persuasively demonstrates the
philosophical background of Philo’s multifaceted understanding of this notion,
in this respect correcting the position held by David Runia. As also well docu-
mented in Hoblík’s paper, this also provides the philosophical grounding, drawn