The Passion Narrative in the Sibylline Oracles
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70 Tatian’s Diatessaron is the first known Harmony of the four Gospels, but Tatian’s teacher, Justin, seems to have already known such a synoptic harmony. See also Nicklas, “Apokryphe Passionstraditionen” (n. 3), 274, n. 52, and Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles (n. 1), 426–427.
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and 8:303: colh, and o;xoj), sometimes not (Sib Or 1:365–366: “unclean lips;” Sib Or 8:299: “polluted mouths;” Sib Or 1:375: “a monstrous dark night in midday;” Sib Or 8:306: “dark monstrous night for three hours,”) while adopting a way of reading the Prophets which derives directly from the canonical Gospels. The Sibyls of these Books belong therefore to cur- rents of early Christian exegesis of Scriptures in which they embody a pa- gan prophetess supposed to prophecy the Gospels alongside with the He- brew Prophets, towards whom the Sibyl of Book 1 even pretends to dis- tance herself, since she announces their end (v. 386). Regarding the Passion narrative, two different perceptions can be seen in these books of the Sibylline collection. Books 1 and 6 are extremely hostile to the Jews (1:360–371; 387; 6:21–25): they are responsible for the Messiah’s death. This aspect is also found in the Gospel of Peter, 71 but it does not imply that there is a literary dependence between these texts. Nothing of this has any parallel in Book 8, where the Jews are never named and Jesus’ enemies hardly identifiable, except by their impiety (v. 287). If Book 1 is openly polemical against Israel, at the same time it is favourable to the mission to the Gentiles (e;qnh; vv. 345–347 and 383–384), which could mean that his author “sees himself primarily in terms of the Gentiles and not as a sect of, or development, from Israel.” 72 Unlike him, the author of Book 8 seems to be simultaneously concerned by the conver- sion of both the Jews and the pagans (v. 316b–317: “so that, born from above, they may no longer serve the lawless customs of the world,” 73 v. 324: “Rejoice, holy daughter of Sion, who have suffered much,” 74 v. 332: “Set aside the former [gods or customs] and wash from his blood.”) In Book 1 (v. 364) Jesus is called Son of God (pai/j qeou/), while in Book 8 (v. 288) he is named God (qeo,j). These two titles, of which we have other examples (Sib Or 1:324, 331 and Sib Or 8:242, 249–250), reflect different christologies. Although too vague to be connected with a specific Gospel, the christology of Book 1 is rather close to the canonical tradition, while Book 8 reflects a form of “modalist monarchianism”, in which Father and Son are perfectly identified. We have other striking
71 On this, see T. Nicklas, “Die Juden im Petrusevangelium (PCair 10759). Ein Test- fall,” NTS 47 (2001), 206–221, as well as J.D. Crossan’s and J. Verheyden’s contribu- tions in: Kraus/Nicklas (eds.), Das Evangelium nach Petrus (n. 3), 117–134 and 281– 300. 72
73 These “lawless customs of the world” might refer to the pagan as well as to the Jewish practices. 74 See Isa 62:11 and, above all, Zec 9:9: “ Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” [NRSV] ), this one quoted by Matt 21:5 and John 12:15.
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examples of this in Book 6 (vv. 22–24) of the Sibylline Oracles, which I believe is one of the earliest Christian compositions of the collection (A.D. 150–250): “For you were malicious, and did not recognize your own God /
75 as well as in Book 7 (v. 53: “because they did not recognize God,”) vv. 66–67: “Wretched one, you did not recognize your God, whom once Jordan washed three times, and the Spirit flew like a dove.”) 76
The Christian authors who quote the Sibyls of our books do so in order to show the concord (sumfoni,a) between the message of the Old Testament and that of the (supposed) pagan prophecies. 77 Thus Lactantius, in the fourth book of his Divine Institutes, draws heavily on the christological section of Book 8 (vv. 272–314), citing first an Old Testament prophecy, then a passage of Book 8 which is supposed to corroborate it. As we have seen, Lactantius often quotes the very biblical passage on which the Sibyl relies, and presents her text as if it was an independent prediction (cf. Sib
24 in Div. Inst. 4:18:18–20). In so doing, Lactantius is the Sibyl’s ideal reader, since he interprets her exactly as she hopes to be interpreted, simul- taneously “raising and dismissing the possibility of forgery.” 78 Lactantius, in using 8:272–314, shows no other interest than in the narrative parts of the section, in other words, in the predictions of events related to the life of
75 My translation. Sib Or 6:22–23: auvth. ga.r du,sfrwn to.n so.n qeo.n ouvk evno,hsaj / evlqo,nta qnhtoi,sin evn o;mmasin\ avll v avp v avka,nqhj … – Strikingly, neither the name of Jesus or his designation as “Christ” appears in this book. It is also the case in the pre- served fragments of the Gospel of Peter; see Nicklas, “Apokryphe Passionstraditionen” (n. 3), 267, n. 20. 76 My translation. Sib Or 7:53: o[ti dh. qeo.n ouvk evno,hsan. Sib Or 7:66–67: tlh,mwn( ouvk e;gnwj to.n so.n qeo,n( o]n pot v e;lousen / VIo,rdanoj evn trita,toisi kai. e;ptato pneu/ma pelei, v w`j) For a French translation and a commentary on Books 6, 7 and 8 of the Sibyl- line Oracles, see Roessli, “Les oracles sibyllins” (n. 26), as well as my dissertation on this topic to be published in the Series apocryphorum of the Corpus Christianorum. 77 See J.-M. Roessli, “Catalogues de sibylles, recueil(s) de Libri Sibyllini et corpus des Oracula Sibyllina. Remarques sur la formation et la constitution de quelques collec- tions oraculaires dans les mondes gréco-romain, juif et chrétien,” in E. Norelli (ed.), Re- cueils normatifs et canons dans l’antiquité. Perspectives nouvelles sur la formation des canons juif et chrétien dans leur contexte culturel. Actes du colloque organisé dans le cadre du programme plurifacultaire “La Bible à la croisée des savoirs” de l’Université de Genève, 11–12 avril 2002 (PIRSB 3; Lausanne 2004), 47–68, here 64. 78 Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles (n. 1), 425. See Lactantius, Div. Inst., 4:15:26: “His testimoniis quidam reuicti eo confugere ut aiant non esse illa carmina Sibyllina, sed a nostris ficta atque composita.” “Some, refuted by these testimonies, are accustomed to have recourse to the assertion that these poems were not by the Sibyls, but made up and composed by our own writers.” (Translated by Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers [n. 27], 116.)
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Jesus. He passes over the theological reflections which constitute a main feature of Book 8 (cf. vv. 279–286; 295–298; 299–301; 307–311) and which differentiates it so strongly from Book 1. Lactantius’ use of the Sib-
who sees the Sibyl as “a seer in accord with the holy prophets.” 79 Let us
note that the parallelism between the supposed pagan prophecies of the Sibyls and that of the Hebrew prophets is at the origin of the iconographi- cal correlation that Christian art will draw from the eleventh century on- wards and which will bring the artists to juxtapose Sibyls and Hebrew Prophets in a single scene. 80
From the fact that Lactantius and early Christian literature before the Tübingen Theosophy (5 th -6 th century) 81 cite both Books 8 and 6 and not Book 1, some scholars have concluded that Book 8 is prior to Book 1. In a further step it has been assumed that Book 1 derived from Book 8, until Kurfess argued that both Books had drawn independently from the New Testament and that similarities between them were accidental. 82 With
Waßmuth and Lightfoot, I consider that the numerous similarities between the two books militate against a total independence of the two books. More recently, Olaf Waßmuth, following Kurfess, argued for the priority of Book 1 over Book 8, among other reasons because its theology is more complex and sophisticated. This divergence of views explains the diffi- culty in dating Book 1 and 8, particularly Book 1, some arguing for a Christian rewriting of a Jewish oracle in the middle of the second century (Friedlieb, Collins, Waßmuth) 83 , some in the third (Geffcken) 84 , and finally
79 Tübingen Theosophy, § 10 (Erbse [n. 5], 80,294): w`j de. su,mfwno,j tij h` pro,mantij tw/n profetw/n .”
80 See E. Mâle, L’art religieux du XIII e siècle en France (Paris 1919 [1898]), 339– 343; id., L’art religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge en France (Paris 1949 [1908]), 254–279; L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien (II, 1; Paris 1956), 420–430; G. Seib, “Sibyllen,” in: E. Kirschbaum (ed.), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie 4 (1972), 150–153; Re- daktion, “Propheten,” in: id. (ed.), o. l. 3 (1972), 461–462; F. Gay, “Sibille,” in Enciclo-
81 If we except a possible allusion to Sib Or 1:283ff. in the Constantine’s Discourse to the Assembly of the Saints (18,2), dated between 313 and 325 (see J.-M.
Roessli, “Vies et métamorphoses de la Sibylle,” review article about M.
Bouquet and F. Morzadec (eds.), La Sibylle. Parole et représentation [Collection « Interférences »], Rennes 2004, and about J.
Pigeaud (ed.), Les Sibylles. Actes des VIIIe Entretiens de La Garenne Lemot, 18 au 20 octobre 2001, Nantes 2005, in Revue de l’histoire des religions 224/2 [2007] 253–271, here 259–260), the first textual evidence for Books 1 and 2 comes from the Tü- bingen Theosophy. 82 A. Kurfess, “Oracula Sibyllina I/II”, ZNW 40 (1941), 151–165, here 159–160. 83 J.H. Friedlieb, Crhsmoi. sibulliakoi,. Oracula Sibyllina ad fidem codd. mscr. quotquot extant recensuit, praetextis prolegomenis illustravit, versione Germanica in- struxit, annotationes criticas et indices rerum et verborum locupletissimos adiecit, Leip- The Passion Narrative in the Sibylline Oracles 331
some seeing in Books 1 and 2 a Christian composition of the second (Lightfoot [n. 1], 149), the third (Alexandre) 85 or the fifth century (Bleek, Goodman). 86 Whatever the priority, what is important to understand is that the author who wrote after felt free to use his sources (Bible and Sibylline Oracles) in his own way.
zig 1852 / Die sibyllinischen Weissagungen, vollstaendig gesammelt nach neuer Hand-
Waßmuth, Sibyllinische Orakel 1/2 (n. 1). 84 J. Geffcken, Komposition und Entstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina (TU 8.1; Leip- zig 1902), 47–53. 85 Ch. Alexandre, Oracula Sibyllina (vol. 2, Excursus ad Sibyllinos libros, V, cap. x. De primo libro et secundo; Paris 1856), 389–401. 86 F. Bleek, “Ueber die Entstehung und Zusammensetzung der uns in 8 Büchern er- haltenen Sammlung Sibyllinischer Orakel; eine kritische Untersuchung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Thorlacius,” ThZ 1 (1819), 120–246, here 167–197; M. Goodman, “The Sibylline Oracles,” in The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175
Goodman; vol. III.1; Edinburgh 1986), 618–654, here 645. Yüklə 246,16 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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