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“Let us Go and Burn Her Body”: The Image of the Jews in the Early Dormition Traditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Stephen J. Shoemaker
Stephen J. Shoemaker
Affiliation:
Stephen J. Shoemaker is National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, Jerusalem.
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Extract

In his recent book, Mary through the Centuries, Jaroslav Pelikan notes that “one of the most profound and persistent roles of the Virgin Mary in history has been her function as a bridge builder to other traditions, other cultures, and other religions.” This is particularly true of the late ancient Near East, where Mary's significance frequently reached across various cultural and religious boundaries. But it is equally true that Mary often served to define boundaries between traditions, cultures, and religions. As Klaus Schreiner explains in his similarly recent book, Maria: Jungfrau, Mutter, Herrsherin, “Brücken, die Juden und Christen miteinander hätten verbinden können, schlug Maria im Mittelalter nicht… Maria trennte, grenzte aus.” In the rather substantial chapter that follows, Schreiner presents perhaps the best overview of Mary's role as a focus of Jewish/Christian conflict in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Scholars have long recognized the role played by the Virgin and her cult in the exclusion of Jews from Christian society during the Western Middle Ages, Marian piety being, along with eucharistic devotion, the most anti-Jewish aspect of medieval piety. Throughout the medieval period, and likewise continuing into the Renaissance and Reformation, the Virgin Mary figured prominently in Christian anti-Jewish literature, where the (alleged) Jewish disparagement of Virgin Mary “weighed heavier than thefts of the host, ritual murders, and … ell poisoning.”

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Church History , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 775 - 823
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 1999

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References

I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this article: Alexander Alexakis, Melissa M. Aubin, Jorunn Jacobson Buckley, Elizabeth A. Clark, Derek Krueger, David Levenson, and two anonymous readers for Church History. Earlier versions of some of this material were presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the AAR and the 1999 Southeast Regional Meeting of the AAR.

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53. As Olster correctly characterizes Harnack and his influence on early Christian studies: Roman Defeat, 8.Google Scholar

54. Williams, Arthur Lukyn, Adversus Judaeos: A Bird's-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), xv–xvi. This is also the view of Amos B. Hulen, ‘The ‘Dialogues with the Jews’ as Sources for the Early Jewish Argument against Christianity,’ Journal of Biblical Literature 51 (1932): 58–70.Google Scholar

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56. See, however, John Moschus, Pratum spirituale 172 (PG 87.3:3040–41), where John tells of an Alexandrian Christian named Cosmas who specialized in the composition of anti-Jewish literature. John also notes that Cosmas often sent him to debate the Jews, in order that they convert.Google Scholar

57. The problems with both orientations are well noted by Simon, Verus Israel, 136–40.Google Scholar

58. Although as Horbury rightly notes (Jews and Christians, 23), Simon's approach owes important debts to both Juster's Les Juifs dans l'empire romain and the work of Bernhard BlumenkranzGoogle Scholar(see for instance his collected essays in Juifs et Chrétiens: Patristique et Moyen Age [London: Variorum Reprints, 1977]).Google Scholar

59. This status is recognized, for instance, in the subtitle of Taylor's recent critique of this approach: Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus. Nevertheless, see Horbury, Jews and Christians, 21–22, where he notes that beginning with Harnack and Juster, “modern study [of the adversus Judaeos literature] has continued to exhibit a division between students of the literature for whom its Sitz im Leben within the church is decisive, and those prepared to envisage Christian-Jewish contact as part of its setting.” Here Horbury also categorizes the various modern studies of the Christian adversus Judaeos tradition according to which of these approaches they exemplify. As should be clear, the present study stands in the tradition of those works willing to recognize the significance of Christian-Jewish contact for understanding certain aspects of the early Christian depiction of Jews and Judaism.Google Scholar

60. Simon, Verus Israel, 140.Google Scholar

61. Simon, Verus Israel, 145–46.Google Scholar

62. See Déroche, “La Polémique,” and Dagron, “Judaïser.” For evidence of Judaizing Christians in the early Islamic sources see Patricia Crone, “Islam.”Google Scholar

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65. Lewis, Agnes Smith, Apocrypha Syriaca, Studia Sinaitica 11 (London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1902), (Syr) and 52 (Eng). Similar statements to this effect occur throughout the Dormition traditions.Google Scholar

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67. The above mentioned homily of pseudo-Modestus of Jerusalem and the Sahidic homily On the Dormition attributed to Evodius of Rome. The latter is, however, rabidly anti-Jewish.Google Scholar

68. This scene is found in one of the earlier representations of the Dormition, found in Cappadocia at Yilanli Kilisse and dating to around the ninth or tenth centuries. Subsequent examples including this episode, however, are somewhat later, belonging to the twelfth or thirteenth century.Google ScholarSee Revel-Neher, Elisabeth, The Image of the Jew in Byzantine Art, trans. Maizel, David (Oxford: Pergamon, 1992), 81–83,Google Scholarand Epstein, Ann Wharton, “Frescoes of the Mavrotissa Monastery near Kastoria: Evidence of Millenarianism and Antisemitism in the Wake of the First Crusade,” Gesta 21 (1982): 21–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69. The Coptic tradition in particular preserves a slightly different form of this episode. “Jephonias” is not named, and the Jews collectively attempt to burn the Virgin's body. See, for example, pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, Homily on the Dormition (E. A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt [London: British Museum, 1915], 71–72 [Copt] and 648–49 [Eng]).Google Scholar

70. Liber Requiei 75 (Arras, Victor, ed., De Transitu Mariae apocrypha Aethiopice, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium [hereafter CSCO] 342–43, 351–52, Scriptores Aethiopici 66–69 [Louvain: Secretariat du CSCO, 1973–1974], 342:43–44 [Eth] and 28–29 [Lat]);Google ScholarAntoine, Wenger A.A., L'Assomption de la T. S. Vierge dans la tradition byzantine du Vle au Xe siècle, Archives de l'Orient Chrétien 5 (Paris: Institut Francais d'Éitudes Byzantines, 1955), 236–37;Google ScholarJohn of Thessalonica, Oratio in dormitionem BMV 13 (Jugie, Martin, ed., Homélies mariales byzantines [2], Patrologia Orientalia 19.3 [Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1925], 399–400, 429);Google ScholarRevillout, E., ed., Évangile des douze apôtres, PO 2.2 (Paris: Librairie de Paris/Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1907), 175.Google ScholarOther texts give a much shorter confession, in which the Jews' malice is attributed to, among other things, “the enemy of the human race,” who has blinded their hearts. See the Latin Transitus “W” 41 (Wilmart, A., O.S.B., Analecta Reginensia: Extraits des manuscrits Latins de la Reine Christine conservés au Vatican, Studi e Testi 59 [Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1933], 352);Google Scholarand pseudo-Melito, Transitus 12 (Haibach-Reinisch, Monika, ed., Ein neuer “Transitus Marine” des pseudo-Melito [Rome: Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis, 1962], 81).Google Scholar

71. See, for example, Krueger, Derek, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius' Life and the Late Antique City, The Transformation of the Heritage, Classical 25 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), 108–25, where this is discussed in the context of the Life of Symeon the Fool.Google Scholar

72. The presence of various heterodox theologoumena in many of the earliest narratives makes an origin somewhere outside of proto-orthodox Christianity a strong possibility. For more on this, see Shoemaker, “Mary and the Discourse of Orthodoxy,” 197–220.Google Scholar

73. It appears as early as Justin Martyr's Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaeo, 43. The importance of Isa. 7:14 in the Christian anti-Jewish literature can be seen in Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte und ihr literarisches und historisches Umfeld (l.–ll. Jh.), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XXIII Theologie, Bd. 172 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1982): see the index, 662, s.v. “Isaias, 7:14,” for references. See also Simon, Verus Israel, 159–60, and Schreiner, Maria, 423–26.Google Scholar

74. Jane Schaberg, however, proposes that there are hints of a tradition of Christ's illegitimacy in the gospel narratives, where the tradition is always associated with the Jews. See Schaberg, Jane, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 145–65. Note that Justin's dispute with Trypho, mentioned above, is centered more on the appropriate understanding of Isa. 7:14 in relation to the Messiah. It does not concern the issue of Mary's virginity specifically, but rather, whether the Messiah would in fact be born of a virgin or a young woman.Google Scholar

75. Origen, Contra Celsum 1.28 (Marcel Borret, S.J., ed., Origène: Contre Celse, Sources Chrétiennes (hereafter SC) 132, 136, 147, 150, 227 [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967–76], cited at 132:150–52; translation from Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum “Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953”, 28).Google Scholar

76. Origen, Contra Celsum 1.32 (Borret, Origène: Contra Celse, 132:162; Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum, 31).Google Scholar

77. See Lods, M., “Etudes sur les sources juives de la polémique de Celsus contre les Chrétiens,” Revue d'histoire et de philosophic religieuse 21 (1941): 1–33, although one need not suppose, as Lods, that the transmission was via a written source. Celsus probably encountered these traditions in the manner that he reports—through a Jewish informant. See also Schaberg, Illegitimacy of Jesus, 245–46 n. 82;Google ScholarSmith, Morton, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), 59;Google Scholarand Wilken, Robert L., The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 109–10.Google Scholar

78. See Dalman, Gustaf, Jesus Christ in the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, and the Liturgy of the Synagogue, trans. Streane, A. W. (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., 1893), 7–25.Google Scholar

79. b. Shabb. 104b and b. Sank. 67a (Text in R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash [London: Williams and Norgate, 1903], 401).Google Scholar

80. This probably is not the origin of the name ben Stada, but was suggested later to explain its use. See the discussions in Dalman, Jesus Christ, 7–25 and Herford, Christianity, 35–41, where various explanations for the origins of both titles are considered.Google Scholar

81. Many examples are given in Dalman, Jesus Christ, 25–39.Google Scholar

82. Pesiq. R. 100B–101A (text in Herford, Christianity, 426), where the teaching that there are “two Gods” is attributed to “the son of a harlot.” Neither Jesus nor Mary is named explicitly, but there is good reason to believe that they are intended. See the discussions in Herford, Christianity, 304–6 and Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 56–57. Shaberg (Illegitimacy of Jesus, 164–65) links this accusation with the logion 105 of the Gospel of Thomas, which says, “He who knows the father and the mother will be called the son of a harlot” (Gospel of Thomas 105 [Bentley Layton, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2–7, vol. 1, Gospel according to Thomas, Gospel according to Philip, Hypostasis of the Archons, and Indices, Nag Hammadi Studies 20 “Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989], 90–91). Schaberg also claims that the Yemenite text of the Toledoth Yeshu repeats the charge that Mary was a prostitute (Illegitimacy of Jesus, 249 n. 135), but this is not immediately obvious from the text, where Jesus is referred to only as “the son of a menstruous woman,” or perhaps less rigidly, “an impure woman”: (text in Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen [Berlin: S. Calvary and Co., 1902], 118).Google Scholar

83. Visotzky, “Anti-Christian Polemic,” 96–100; quote at 96.Google Scholar

84. Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 242–18, esp. 246.Google Scholar

85. Summarized in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 28–29 n. 1.Google Scholar

86. See for instance, Celsus, who first encountered this tradition orally; see n. 77.Google Scholar

87. For more on the intercultural circulation of such stories in the early medieval Near East, see Hoyland, Robert G., Seeing Islam as Others Saw It, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 13 (Princeton: Darwin, 1997), 40–44.Google Scholar

88. See Pelikan, Mary, 113–22; Cameron, Christianity, 164–88;Holum, Kenneth G., Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Heritage, Classical 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 139–42.Google Scholar

89. Clayton, Mary, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 26 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 13–16; quote at 15. See also Schreiner, Maria, 415–23;Google ScholarSchneemelcher, Wilhelm, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, rev. ed., trans, and ed. Wilson, R. McL. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1991), 1:417, 425; for the date, see 423.Google Scholar

90. Protevangelium Jacobi 16, 20 (C. Tischendorf, ed., Evangelia Apocrypha, 2nd ed. [Leipzig, 1876; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966], 30–31, 37–39.Google Scholar

91. For a recent discussion of this biblical and rabbinic ordeal, see Hauphnan, Judith, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1998). Note also that despite Joseph's participation in the Protevangelium's account, the sotah was traditionally reserved for women.Google Scholar

92. Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 134–35 (Eng);Google Scholaridem, Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature, (London: Williams and Norgate, 1865), (Syr) and 20 (Eng); Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 22–23 (Eng).Google Scholar

93. Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 23 (Eng).Google Scholar

94. Pseudo-Evodius of Rome, Homily on the Dormition (St. Mac.) 4 (Paul de Lagarde, Aegyptiaca [1883; reprint Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1972], 41).Google Scholar

95. pseudo-Evodius of Rome, Homily on the Dormition (St. Mich.), Pierpont Morgan MSS 596, 22V; Stephen J. Shoemaker, “The Sahidic Coptic Homily on the Dormition of the Virgin Attributed to Evodius of Rome: An Edition of Morgan MSS 596 and 598 with Translation,” Analecta Bollandiana 117.3–4 (1999, forthcoming). This passage occurs in §10 of the edition.Google Scholar

96. I. Daietsi, ed., [A Narration concerning the Dormition of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary by the Blessed Nicodemus],” in [Ankanon Girk' Nor Ktakaranac'], [T'angaran Haykakan Hin ew Nor ********Dprut'eanć 2] (Venice: I Dparani S. Lazaru, 1898), 460.Google Scholar

97. Anonymus dialogus cum ludaeis 5.1–12 (Declerck, José H., ed., Anonymus dialogus cum ludaeis, saeculi ut videtur sexti, CCG 30 [Turnhout: Brepols/Leuven University Press, 1994], 34); for the date see Declerck, introd., xliii–li.Google Scholar

98. When one of the Jews present objects that in the Hebrew, the prophecies do not refer to a virgin, but to a young woman, the Christian responds that these mean the same thing in the Hebrew scriptures. Anonymus dialogus 5.263–99 (Dederck, 41–42).Google Scholar

99. Pseudo-Gregentius, Disputatio cum Herbano Judaeo (PG 86:656A) and Jacob of Serug, Homilies against the jews 1.79–80Google Scholar(Graffin, F., ed., Jacques de Saroug: Homélies contre les juifs, PO 38.1 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1976], 48 [Syr] and 49 [Fr])Google Scholar. One might also include the Testimonia adversus Judaeos attributed to Gregory of Nyssa. This collection of biblical answers to Jewish objections to Christianity contains a lengthy section devoted to defending the Virgin Birth against the Jews (PG 46:207–9). While this work is generally recognized as spurious, there is no consensus about its date. A. C. McGiffert suggests that it was “composed long after his [Gregory's] time,” and that it belongs to the seventh century (McGiffert, Arthur Cushman, ed., Dialogue Between a Christian and a Jew [Ph.D. diss., University of Marburg, 1889], 15, 34Google Scholar). Otto Bardenhewer, on the other hand, suggests that it belongs to Gregory's time, but nevertheless cannot be considered authentic (Bardenhewer, , Geschichte der Altkirchlichen Literatur [Freiburg im Breisgau: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1912], 3:202).Google Scholar

100. Jacob of Serug, Homily on the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary (Bedjan, Paul, ed., S. Martyrii qui et Sahdona, quae sujtersunt omnia [Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1902], 688).Google ScholarSee also Vona, Constantino, Omelie mariologiche de S. Giacotno di Sarug: lntroduzione, traduzione dal siriaco e commento (Rome: Facultas Theologica Pontificii Athenaei Lateranensis, 1953), 41.Google Scholar

101. Proclus of Constantinople, Oratio 2 (PG 65:696B).Google Scholar

102. See McVey, Kathleen E., “The Anti-Judaic Polemic of Ephrem Syrus's Hymns on the Nativity,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Attridge, Harold W., Collins, John J., and Tobin, Thomas H., S.J., College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5 (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1990), 229–40. The passages in which Ephrem attacks the Jews for “slandering” Mary are collected at 233 n. 28.Google Scholar

103. Text, translation, and introduction in Michel Aubineau, Les Homélies festales d'Hésychius de Jérusalem, Subsidia Hagiographica 59 (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1978–80), 1:171–205.Google Scholar

104. See Mimouni, Dormition, 394–95, but see also Aubineau, Les Homélies, 184–89, where he suggests that the homily formed part of the celebration of Epiphany.Google Scholar

105. Isa. 7:14 and Ezek. 44:2–3.Google Scholar

106. See Qur'an 4:156 and 19:27–28; and The Mandean Book of John 34–35 (Mark Lidzbarski, ed., Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer [Geissen: Verlag von Alfred Töpelmann, 1915], 127–42 [Mandean] and 126–38 [Germ]; E. S. Drower, The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandeans (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1959), 173 (trans. 130); Mark Lidzbarski, Mandäische Liturgien, Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Neue Folge, 17.1 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1920), 210–11. See also the article by Jorunn Jacobson Buckley, “The Mandean Appropriation of Jesus' Mother, Miriai,” Novum Testamentum 35 (1993): 181–96. For more on this, see Shoemaker, “Mary and the Discourse of Orthodoxy,” 317–24, although the subject merits yet further study.Google Scholar

107. A fine example of the latter is pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria, Homily on the Assumption (W. H. Worrell, ed., The Coptic Texts in the Freer Collection, [New York: Macmillan, 1923], 249–321 [Copt] and 359–80 [Eng]). Nevertheless, this text is rather difficult to date, and although it may be as early as the late sixth century, we can only be certain of its existence by 906, the date of its earliest manuscript.Google Scholar

108. For examples among the earliest texts, see Liber Requiei 43 (Arras, De Transitu, 1:26 [Eth] and 17 [Lat]); Wenger, L'Assomption, 220–21; Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 140 (Eng); Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 32 (Eng); Daietsi, “”460.Google Scholar

109. Again, examples from the earliest texts: Liber Requiei 72 (Arras, De Tmnsitu, 1:42 [Eth] and 27–28 [Lat]); Wenger, L'Assomption, 234–35; Wright, “Departure,”. (Syr) and 149 (Eng); idem., Contributions, (Syr) and 37 (Eng); pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, Homily on the Dormition (Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts, 71 [Coptic] and 649 [Eng]); Theodosius of Alexandria, Homily on the Assumption (Forbes Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, Texts and Studies 4 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896], 116–17); Daietsi, “” 472.Google Scholar

110. Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, Homily on the Dormition (Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts, 71 [Coptic] and 648–49 [Eng]).Google Scholar

111. Theodosius of Alexandria, Homily on the Assumption (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, 116–19).Google Scholar

112. Budge, E. A. W., History of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the History of the Likeness of Christ which the Jews of Tiberias Made to Mock at (London: Luzac and Co., 1899), 116 (Syr) and 122 (Eng).Google Scholar

113. Examples from the earliest narratives may be found in Liber Requiei 76 (Arras, De Transitu, 44–45 [Eth] and 29 [Lat]);Google ScholarWenger, L'Assomption, 236–37;Google ScholarWright, Contributions, (Syr) and 38 (Eng);Google Scholaridem, “Departure,” (Syr) and 149 (Eng).Google Scholar

114. Selected examples from among the earliest texts include, for the palm, Liber Requiei 76 (Arras, De Transitu, 44–15 [Eth] and 29 [Lat]); Wenger, L'Assomption, 238–39; and for the staff, Wright, Contributions, (Syr) and 38 (Eng);Google Scholaridem, “Departure,” (Syr) and 149 (Eng).Google Scholar

115. The phrase is borrowed from Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), chap. 4.Google Scholar

116. See Brown, Cult of the Saints, chap. 4.Google Scholar

117. This episode is especially characteristic of a particular group of closely related Dormition narratives, known as the “Bethlehem and Incense” texts (for more on this group of texts, see van Esbroeck, “Les Textes,” 268–76). For examples from the earliest versions, see pseudo-John the Evangelist, Transitus 2 (K. Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae [Leipzig: Herm. Mendelssohn, 1866], 95–96); Wright, “Departure,” . (Syr) and 133–35 (Eng).Google Scholar

118. See, for example, Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 134–35 (Eng).Google Scholar

119. See, for example, pseudo-John the Evangelist, Transitus 2 (Tischendorf, Apocalypses, 96).Google Scholar

120. On the various legends concerning the discovery of the True Cross, see below. From the adversus judaeos tradition, see The Teachings of Jacob, the Newly Baptized 1.34 (Vincent Déroche, ed., “Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati,” 120–21 in Gilbert Dagron and Vincent Déroche, “Juifs et Chretiens”); Leontius of Neapolis, Apology against the Jews (Vincent Déroche, “L'Apologie contre les Juifs de Léontios de Néapolis,” Travaux et mémoires 12 [1994’: 69, 134–71, 194 [Grk] and 77–78 [Fr]); pseudo-Athanasius, Doctrina ad Antiochum ducem (PG 28:621). See also the Homily on the Cross attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, where the veneration of the Cross is defended against both Jewish and Samaritan attacks (Budge, ed., Miscellaneous Coptic Texts, 183–230 [Copt] and 761–808 [Eng]). It is difficult to date this text, but its most recent editor suggests that the final redaction dates to the first half of the seventh century (A. Campagnano, Pseudo Cirillo di Gerusalemme: Omelie copte sulla passion, sulla croce e sulla vergine, Testi e Documenti per lo Studio dell'Antichita 65 [Milano: Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1980], 14).Google Scholar

121. The account of this debate is preserved in the early Syriac apocrypha: see Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 43–46 (Eng); Wright, Contributions, (Syr) and 27–30 (Eng); Budge, History of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 136–38 (Syr) and 150–53 (Eng).Google Scholar

122. Wright, Contributions, (Syr) and 29 (Eng).Google Scholar

123. Drijvers, Jan Willem, Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantme the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 27 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 143–45, 161–63, 177–80.Google Scholar

124. These three versions and their development are discussed in Drijvers, Helena Augusta, 79–180. Dates: Protonike, ca. 400; Judas Kyriakos, 400–450 (Drijvers, Helena Augusta, 174–75).Google Scholar

125. Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 130 (Eng); Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 16 (Eng); Maximillian Enger, [Akhbâr Yûhannâ as-salîh fi naqlat umm al-masîh], Id est joannis apostoli de transitu Beatae Mariae Virginis liber (Eberfeld: R.L. Friderichs, 1854), 12–13. On Kyros for Kyriakos, see Wright, “Departure,” 131 n. mGoogle Scholar

126. Drijvers, Han J. W. and Drijvers, Jan Willem, The Finding of the True Cross, The Judas Kyriakos Legend in Syriac: Introduction, Text, Translation, CSCO 565, Subsidia 93 (Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 50–51 (Syr) and 68–69 (Eng).Google Scholar

127. Howard, George, trans., The Teaching of Addai, Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations 16, Early Christian Literature Series 4 (Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1981), (Syr) and 13 (Eng); Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 134 (Eng); Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 21–22 (Eng);Google ScholarChaine, Marius, S. J., Apocrypha de B. Maria Virgine, CSCO 39–40 (Rome: Karolus de Luigi, 1909), 24–25 (Eth) and 20–21 (Lat); Enger, 22–25;for more on the Protonike version of the True Cross legends, see Drijvers, Finding of the True Cross, 147–63.Google Scholar

128. The majority of the published fragments are found in Orlandi, Tito, Storia della Chiesa de Alessandria, 2 vols., Instituto di papirologia dell'universitá degli studi de Milano, Studi Copti 2 (Milan: Instituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1968–1970). For the date, see Orlandi, Storia della Chiesa de Alessandria, 2:129–30.Google ScholarSee also Johnson, David W., “Further Fragments of a Coptic History of the Church: Cambridge Or. 1699R,” Enchoria 6 (1976): 7–17;Google ScholarOrlandi, Tito, “Nuovi frammenti della Historia Ecclesiastica copta,” in Studi in onore di Edda Bresciani, ed. Bondi, S. F., et al. (Pisa: Giardini, 1985), 363–83.Google Scholar

129. Orlandi, , Storia, 1:42–44 (Copt) and 65–66 (Lat).Google Scholar

130. See the discussion of these traditions in Levenson's, David forthcoming study, Julian and Jerusalem: The Sources and the Tradition, Brill's Series in Jewish Studies 15 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, forthcoming).Google Scholar

131. See alsoOrlandi, Tito, “Un frammento copto di Teofilo di Alessandria,” Revista degli Studi Orientali 44 (1969): 23–26;Google ScholarLantschoot, A. van, “Fragments coptes d'un Panegyrique de S. Jean-Baptiste,” Le Muséon 44 (1931): 235–54;Google ScholarMingana, A., “A New Life of John the Baptist,” Woodbridge Studies (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1927–1934), 1:234–87 (reprinted from Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 11 [1927]).Google Scholar

132. See Otto Meinardus, F. A., “The Relics of St. John the Baptist and the Prophet Elisha,” Ostkirchliche Studien 29 (1980): 118–42, esp. 133.Google Scholar

133. Codex Parisinus graecus 1115:278–80. Text, translation, and commentary are forthcoming in Alexander Alexakis, “An Early Iconophile Text: The Dialogue of the Monk and Recluse Mosctuis Concerning the Holy Icons,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998). I thank Professor Alexakis for allowing me access to his work before its publication. This text was previously signaled, with a brief description, by Jean Gouillard in “L'Heresie dans l'empire Byzantin des origines au Xlle siècle,” Travaux et Memoires 1 (1965): 311.Google Scholar

134. Alexakis tentatively suggests a date of 425–60, based primarily on the virtual disappearance of the Sabbatians, and the Novatians, from whom the Sabbatians were descended, after the fifth century. Timothy Gregory shares this general assessment that these sects were in decline during the latter half of the fifth century, after which point they pass for the most part out of view. Gregory also notes, however, that Justinian persecuted the Sabbatians, leaving the possibility that this dialogue was composed during the sixth century. See Timothy E. Gregory, “Novatianism: A Rigorist Sect in the Christian Roman Empire,” Byzantine Studies/Études byzantines 2 (1975): 16.Google Scholar

135. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.21 (PG 67:621–25); Gregory, “Novatianism,” 13–16.Google Scholar

136. See Socrates, Historic ecclesiastica 5.21 (PG 67.621B–C). This would seem to belie Patricia Crone's suggestion that the Sabbatians who broke off from the Novatians were a different group from those Sabbatians who were known in our ancient sources as Judaizers. Crone, “Islam,” 84.Google Scholar

137. Marutha Maipherkatensis, Tractate on Heresies 1 (Ignatius Ephraem II Rahmani, ed., Studia Syriaca [Monte Libano: Typis Patriarchalibus in Seminario Scharfensi, 1904–9], vol. 4, Google Scholar

138. Alexakis, “Early Iconodule Text.”Google Scholar

139. Dialogue of the Monk and Recluse Moschus Concerning the Holy Icons (Alexakis, “Early Iconodule Text”); Socrates: Historia ecclesiastica 6.25 (PG 67:793C–796A).Google Scholar

140. Regarding the Torah scroll in particular, see, for example, b. Meg. 27a; b. Mak. 22b; b. Shabb. 14a; m. Shabb. 16:1; Mo'ed Qat. 25a, 26a.Google Scholar

141. Jeremias, Joachim, Heiligengräber in Jesu Umwelt: Eine Untersuchung zur Volksreligion der Zeitjesu (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1958), 3. Teil, esp. 138–41. See also in the New Testament, Matt. 23:29: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous.” See also Brown, Cult of the Saints, 10. An example of Jewish intercessory prayer is preserved in the Liber Requiei 25–31 (Arras, De Transitu, 13–17 [Eth] and 8–11 [Lat]), in the story of Rachel and Eleazar, where Rachel calls for and receives the intercession of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This tale also appears several times in rabbinic literature:Google Scholarsee Manns, F., Le Récit de la dormition de Marie (Vatican grec 1982): Contribution à I'étude de origines de l'exégèse chrétienne, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Collectio Maior 33 (Jerusalem: Franciscan, 1989), 76, esp. n. 14a.Google Scholar

142. Jeremias, Heiligengräber, 142–44. See also Klauser, Theodor, “Christlicher Märtyrerkult, heidnischer Heroenkult, and spärjüdische Heiligenverehrung: Neue Einsichten und Neue Probleme,” Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Geisteswissenschaften, Heft 91 (Köln-Opladen, 1960), 27–38;Google Scholar reprinted in idem, Gesammelte Arbeiten zur Liturgiegeschichte, Kirchengeschichte, und christlichen Archäologie, Ernst Dassmann, ed., Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänungsband 3 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1974), 221–29, esp. 224 in the reprint.Google Scholar

143. Jeremias, Heiligengräber, 142.Google Scholar

144. On the authenticity of this work, see Déroche, Vincent, “L'Authenticité de l'«Apologie contre les Juifs» de Léontios de Néapolis,” Bulletin de correspondance héllenique 110 (1986): 655–69. I do not find Paul Speck's reply convincing;CrossRefGoogle Scholarsee Speck, Paul, “Der Dialog mit einem Juden angeblich des Leontius von Neapolis,” Poikila Byzantina 6 (1987): 315–22.Google Scholar

145. Leontius of Neapolis, Apology against the Jews (Déroche, “l'Apologie,” 69.143–44 [Grk] and 77 [Fr]). Jeremias also finds hints of a Jewish relic cult in the traditions of the bones of Moses: Jeremias, Heiligengräber, 139–41.Google Scholar

146. Jeremias, Heiligengräber, 142; see also below.Google Scholar

147. For Jacob, see Gen. 50:13–25; for Joseph, see Exod. 17:6; for Elijah, see 2 Chron. 13:21.Google Scholar

148. This practice is well described in Figueras, Pau, “Jewish Ossuaries and Secondary Burial: Their Significance for Early Christianity,” Immanuel 19 (1984/1985): 41–57.Google Scholar

149. Figueras, “Jewish Ossuaries,” 55–57;Google Scholaridem, Decorated Jewish Ossuaries (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983), 10–12.Google Scholar

150. McCane, Byron R., “Bones of Contention? Ossuaries and Reliquaries in Early Judaism and Christianity,” The Second Century 8 (1991): 245–46.Google Scholar

151. Grabar, André, “Recherches sur les sources juives de l'art paléochrétien (Troisième article),” Cahiers Archéologiques 14 (1964): 51–53.Google Scholar

152. Rahmani, L. Y., A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collection of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: The Israel Antiquities Authority/The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), 60–61.Google Scholar

153. Sanders, E. P., Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990), 33–34, 184–86. At first glance this might seem in contradiction with the practice of secondary burial during the early rabbinic period, but it is not. As Sanders explains, “for the ordinary person, contracting corpse impurity was not wrong; rather piety required care of the dead. The only transgression was to enter the temple while impure” (33).Google Scholar

154. m. Kelim 1.4d.Google Scholar

155. Sanders, Jewish Law, 187–88.Google Scholar

156. Klauser, “Christlicher Märtyrerkult,” 226.Google Scholar

157. McCane, Byron R., “Jews, Christians, and Burial in Roman Palestine” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1992), 202–13.Google Scholar

158. McCane, “Jews, Christians, and Burial,” 202–13.Google Scholar

159. These are given by Figueras, “Jewish Ossuaries,” 56–57; idem, Decorated, 12.Google Scholar

160. Visotzky, “Anti–Jewish Polemic,” 83 n. 1.Google Scholar

161. Visotzky, “Anti-Jewish Polemic,” 86–88.Google Scholar

162. For the date and provenance see Israel Lévi, edv “L'Apocalypse de Zorobabel et le Roi de Perse Siroès (Suite),” Revue des Études Juives 69 (1919): 108–115.Google ScholarWheeler, Brannon M., however, suggests that the work was composed in Edessa, without much explanation as to why: “Imagining the Sassanian Capture of Jerusalem: The ‘Prophecy and Dream of Zerubbabel’ and Antiochus Strategos' ‘Capture of Jerusalem‘” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 57 (1991): 69–85, at 73.Google Scholar

163. Sefer Zerubbabel (Israel Lévi, ed., “L'Apocalypse de Zorobabel et le Roi de Perse Siroes,” Revue des Études Juives 68 [1914]: 143; trans. Himmelfarb, Martha, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” in Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, ed. Stern, David and Mirsky, Mark Jay, [Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1990], 80, slightly modified).Google Scholar

164. I do not find convincing the recent suggestion by Speck, Paul (“The Apocalypse of Zerubbabel and Christian Icons,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 4 [1997]: 183–90) that the Sefer Zerubbabel was actually a Christian text and that the “idolsr” being opposed are actually pagan idols. Speck here, as elsewhere, argues that the cult of icons was not in existence during the early seventh century. Most scholars, on the other hand, seem to agree that the origins of the cult of icons lie even earlier, in the later sixth century;Google Scholarsee for instance Cameron, Averil, “Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium,” Past and Present 84(1979): 3–35;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrown, Peter, “A Dark Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclast Controversy,” English Historical Review 88 (1973): 1–34;CrossRefGoogle Scholarreprinted in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 251–301;Google ScholarKitzinger, Ernst, “The Cult of the Images before Iconoclasm,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1950): 85–150, esp. 129–31.Google Scholar

165. Simon, Verus Israel, 140.Google Scholar

166. Howard, Teaching of Addai, (Syr) and 75–81 (Eng).Google Scholar

167. Wright, “Departure,”, (Syr) and 134 (Eng); in addition to this version, see also the passages listed in n. 127 above.Google Scholar

168. Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 134 (Eng).Google Scholar

169. This episode appears in many of the earliest versions, with some slight variance in certain details. The following summary relates the essence of these accounts, relying primarily on the accounts preserved in the sixth-century witnesses: Wright, “Departure,” (Syr) and 141–46 (Eng); idem, Contributions, (Syr) and 24–28 (Eng); and Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 33–43 (Eng).Google Scholar

170. Smith Lewis, Apocrypha, (Syr) and 40 (Eng).Google Scholar

171. Simon, Verus Israel, 98–107.Google Scholar

172. Simon, Verus Israel, 115–25; see also Gager, Origins of Anti-Semitism, 253–56.Google Scholar

173. Luke 23:47 (NRSV).Google Scholar

174. Simon, Verus Israel, 118–19.Google Scholar

175. In novella 146, issued in 553, Justinian published instructions on synagogue worship, prohibiting the reading of the Mishnah and the Hebrew Torah and instructing that Torah be read in Greek, preferably in the Septuagint version. For further discussion of this, and perhaps other interventions in Jewish life by Justinian, see Wilken, Land Called Holy, 204–5.Google Scholar

176. See Limberis, Vasiliki, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (New York: Routledge, 1994);Google ScholarCameron, , “Theotokos”; eadem, “The Virgin's Robe: An Episode in the History of Early Seventh-Century Constantinople,” Byzantion 49 (1979): 42–56; eadem, “Images of Authority,” 22–23; Holum, Theodosian Empresses, 227–28.Google Scholar

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178. For discussion of the various accounts, see Dagron, and Déroche, , “Juifs et Chrétiens,” 22–28; Robert Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeologial Study, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 2 (Princeton: Darwin, 1995), 26–31; Wilken, Land Called Holy, 202–7; Horowitz, “Vengeance of the Jews”; Wheeler, “Imagining the Sassanian Capture.”Google Scholar

179. “Coming as these statements do from Christian writers who were outraged at Jewish collaboration in the plundering of the holy city, they no doubt exaggerate the role of the Jews in the conquest. Christian feelings were running high. Yet there is no reason to doubt that Jews took the side of the Persians. What role they played is more difficult to assess”; Wilken, Land Called Holy, 206–7; see also Dagron and Deroche, “Juifs et Chrétiens,” 22.Google Scholar

180. Schick, Christian Communities of Palestine, 26–31.Google Scholar

181. Horowitz, “Vengeance of the Jews.” In this interesting article, Horowitz links nineteenth-century efforts to minimize Jewish military involvement with an “orientalist” feminization of the Jews, and similar late-twentieth-cenrury efforts with sensitivity to depictions of Jewish violence against non-Jews and “a desire on the part of many Israelis to see themselves as enlightened and humane occupiers in the present.”Google Scholar

182. Wheeler, “Imagining the Sassanian Capture,” 81–82.Google Scholar

183. Sefer Zerubbabel (Levi, “l'Apocalypse” [1914], 134; Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 73).Google Scholar

184. Wheeler, “Imagining the Sassanian Capture,” 73–74.Google Scholar

185. Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 69.Google Scholar

186. Himmelfarb, , “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 69; echoed in Wilken, Land Called Holy, 210Google Scholar

187. Sefer Zerubbabel (Lévi, “l'Apocalypse” [1914], 136; Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 75).Google Scholar

188. See, for example, Himmelfarb, , “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 68–69; Israel Lévi, “l'Apocalypse de Zorobabel et le roi de Perse Siroès (Suite et fin),” Revue des études juives 71 (1920): 58–61.Google Scholar

189. Sefer Zerubbabel (Lévi, “Sefer Zerubbabel” [1914], 143; Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 80).Google Scholar

190. Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” 69, 82 n. 11; Lévi, “Sefer Zerubbabel” (1920), 60. See also the discussion of this practice in Kitzinger, “The Cult of Images,” 110–12.Google Scholar

191. Kitzinger, “Cult of Images,” 111.Google Scholar

192. See above, n. 33.Google Scholar

193. See the discussion in Wilken, Land Called Holy, 83–100.Google Scholar

194. Drijvers, Helena Augusta, 81–93.Google Scholar

195. Drijvers, Helena Augusta, 182.Google Scholar