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From Noble Death to Crucified Messiah*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Adela Yarbro Collins
Adela Yarbro Collins
Affiliation:
The Divinity School, University of Chicago, 1025 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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In his excellent study of crucifixion, Martin Hengel has documented the harsh reality of the penalty in antiquity and has shown that it was seldom portrayed in detail or in an idealized manner. These facts are important and should be kept constantly in mind. They make all the more pressing the question why a detailed narrative of Jesus' death was composed and lead us to look closely at the way the story is told. An ancient opponent of Christianity, Celsus, provides an interesting illustration of both the cultural situation and the literary question. On the one hand, he expressed the general view that crucifixion was the most ignominious and shameful type of death. On the other hand, he made charges that were based, not so much on the disgrace of death by crucifixion as such, but on the way the story is told, on the character of Jesus as revealed by the narrative. As is well known, in part of his work entitled On the True Doctrine, he employed the device of a fictitious Jewish interlocutor. Alluding to the scene in Gethsemane, this critic challenged the teaching that Jesus was a god or the son of the most high God because he hid and tried to escape when the Jews decided that he was worthy of death. Further, this so-called god was betrayed by his own disciples, a criticism that applies to several scenes of the passion narrative. Returning to the Gethsemane story, the interlocutor attacks the theory that Jesus foreknew and intended his sufferings on the basis of his portrayal as mourning and lamenting and praying that this cup might pass from him.

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Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 481 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

References

1 Hengel, Martin, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977)Google Scholar.

2 Origen, , Contra Celsum 6.10Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 2.9.

4 Ibid., 2.24.

5 Ibid., 2.38.

6 Ibid., 2.42.

7 Homer, , Iliad 9.412–13Google Scholar; the translation is cited from Lattimore, Richard, The Iliad of Homer (Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1951) 209Google Scholar. On the noble death in antiquity, see Droge, Arthur J. and Tabor, James D., A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992)Google Scholar and Seeley, David, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and Paul's Concept of Salvation (JSNTSup 28; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990)Google Scholar.

8 Homer, , Iliad 22.303–5Google Scholar; Lattimore, , The Iliad of Homer, 443Google Scholar.

9 Herodotus, History 1.30Google Scholar; Greek text and translation from Godley, A. D., Herodotus (4 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann/New York: Putnam's Sons, 1931) 1.34–5Google Scholar.

10 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.71–4Google Scholar; for discussion see Döring, Klaus, Exemplum Socratis: Studien zur Sokratesnachwirkung in der kynisch-stoischen Popularphilosophie der frühen Kaiserzeit and im frühen Christentum (Hermes Einzelschriften 42; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1979) 39Google Scholar.

11 See Collins, Adela Yarbro, ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, Studia Theologica: Scandinavian Journal of Theology 47 (1993) 3–28, especially 13 and the literature cited thereCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 See Döring, , Exemplum Socratis, 16–20Google Scholar; see index b under ‘Gefangenschaft und Tod des S[okrates]’ for further passages.

13 2 Maccabees 6–7; 4 Maccabees 5–18; for discussion see Collins, Yarbro. ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, 7–11Google Scholar. See also the account of the death of Razis in 2 Mace 14.37–46.

14 Dörìng, , Exemplum Socratis, 143–61Google Scholar.

15 E.g., the death of Adam in Gen 5.5; Westermann calls the genealogy a type of enumerative narrative (Westermann, Claus, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary [Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1974; ET 1984] 6–18)Google Scholar.

16 E.g., the death of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse (Gen 35.8); this is another type of enumerative narrative (Westermann, Claus, Genesis 12–36: A Commentary [Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1981; ET: 1985] 36, 552)Google Scholar.

17 E.g., the report of Jacob's death, which is a redactional product including an oath regarding his burial, blessings, prophecy, accounts of mourning and burial (Gen 47.28–50.14). See also the accounts of death which include a farewell discourse (e.g., Moses in Deuteronomy 31–4; and Joshua in Joshua 23.1–24.31) and the notices (i.e., brief reports) of death and burial in the context of a regnal resumé (e.g., David in 1 Kings 2.10–12a; see Burke O. Long, 1 Kings [The Forms of the Old Testament Literature 9; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984] 22, 160–4, 259 and idem, 2 Kings [FOTL 10; 1991] 109; see also De Vries, Simon J., who speaks of a death and burial formula, 1 and 2 Chronicles [FOTL 11; 1989] 346)Google Scholar.

18 For discussion see Collins, Yarbro, ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, 6–7Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., 9–10.

20 Laertius, DiogenesLives 7.184Google Scholar.

21 E.g., the deaths of Diodorus (Laertius, DiogenesLives 2.112Google Scholar), Stilpo (2.120), Menedemus (2.144), Speusippus (4.3), Arcesilaus (4.44–5), Lacydes (4.61), Lyco (5.68), Menippus (6.100), and Ariston (7.164). Lucian's account of the death of Alexander, whom he dubbed ‘the pseudoprophet’, belongs in this category as well. Whereas he had predicted that he himself was fated to live 150 years and die by a stroke of lightning, Lucian reports that he actually died from a mortified leg, complete with maggots, and that the medical treatment exposed his baldness (Alexander the False Prophet 59).

22 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero 5Google Scholar; for a Greek text and English translation, see Perrin, Bernadotte, Plutarch's Lives (11 vols.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University/London: Heinemann, 1986) 7.220–1Google Scholar.

23 Heschel, Abraham J., The Prophets Part 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1962) 3–6Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., 18–20.

25 Cullmann, Oscar, ‘Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead: The Witness of the New Testament’, in Immortality and Resurrection (ed. Stendahl, Krister; New York: Macmillan, 1965) 9–53, especially 12–20Google Scholar.

26 Schiller, Friedrich, ‘On the Pathetic’, Schiller's Works, Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays (London: George Bell & Sons, 1898) 142–68Google Scholar; citations are from pp. 143 and 147; for the German original, see Friedrich Schiller: Werke und Briefe (12 vols.; Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker 78; ed. Otto Dann et al.; Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker, 1988–) vol. 8; Theoretische Schriften (ed. Janz, Rolf-Peter; 1992) 423–51, especially 423–4 and 428Google Scholar; this work was cited by Heschel, , The Prophets, 271Google Scholar. Pathos, as described by Schiller, is characteristic of the tragedies of Seneca; see, for example, Hercules Oetaeus 796–807, in which the sufferings of Heracles from the poisoned garment are described.

27 A widespread theory about the earliest understanding of the death of Jesus is that it was interpreted in terms of the Biblical and Jewish motif of the suffering just person. This theory was proposed by Ruppert, Lothar (Jesus als der leidende Gerechte? Der Weg Jesu im Lichte eines alt- und zwischentestamentlichen Motivs [SBS 59; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972])Google Scholar. If the earliest recoverable Christian traditions about Jesus' death are already associated with his role as messiah, it is unnecessary to posit a stage at which the motif of the passio iusti was the only model for the interpretation of his death. Although the motif is not explicit in the Gospel of Mark, it does play a role in the accounts of Matthew and Luke. For further discussion, see Collins, Yarbro, ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, 4–5Google Scholar.

28 So also Hengel, Martin, ‘Jesus, der Messias Israels’, in Messiah and Christos: Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity Presented to David Flusser (ed. Gruenwald, Ithamar, Shaked, Shaul, and Stroumsa, Gedaliahu; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992) 155–76, especially 165–70Google Scholar; idem, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (Studies of the New Testament and its World; New York: Crossroad, 1981) 39; see also Dahl, Nils A., ‘Der gekreuzigte Messias’, in Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische Christus (ed. Ristow, H. and Matthiae, K.; Berlin: Evangelische, 1960) 157–69Google Scholar; ET: idem, ‘The Crucified Messiah’, in idem, The Crucified Messiah (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1974) 10–36.

29 There was of course considerable diversity of eschatological expectation in contemporary Judaism; but the identification of Jesus as an anointed one, apparently as the Davidic messiah, in the earliest Christian traditions about his death and eschatological role is the focus here. See also the article by Nils Dahl cited in the next note.

30 Nils Dahl has argued that it is highly probable that Jesus was crucified as the King of the Jews, i.e., as a messianic pretender, and that this fact is at the basis of the developing tradition of the passion narrative (Dahl, N. A. [revised by D. H. Juel], ‘Messianic Ideas and the Crucifixion of Jesus’, The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity [ed. Charlesworth, J. H.; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992] 382–403Google Scholar; reference is to p. 390). It is not clear, however, whether he concludes that this was an understandable mistake made by the opponents of Jesus or whether a significant number of Jesus' followers acclaimed him as a messianic leader (ibid., 402–3). Dahl describes his work, in effect, as a retrieval of J. Wellhausen's thesis that the crucifixion of Jesus caused a radical alteration of the concept ‘Messiah’.

31 I use the phrase ‘Christian faith’ here to mean a religious perspective arising from the acclamation of Jesus as the messiah. This religious perspective and the social formation associated with it may be seen, on the one hand, as one form of Jewish messianism among many; on the other, it may be viewed as the beginning of a process that eventually led to the separation of Christianity, as a religion with its own institutions, from Judaism.

32 See Collins, Adela Yarbro, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992) 92–118Google Scholar. An English translation of the reconstructed text may be found in eadem, ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, 21–2.

33 Schenke, Ludger, Studien zur Passionsgeschichte des Markus: Tradition und Redaktion in Markus 14.1–42 (Würzburg: Echter, 1971) 353, 360–2, 423, 561Google Scholar.

34 Pss 42.6,12; 43.5 MT; Pss 41.6,12; 42.5 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 42.5,11; 43.5 RSV. On the use of Psalm 42/43 in the Gospel of John, see Beutler, Johannes, ‘Psalm 42/43 im Johannesevangelium’, NTS 25 (1983) 33–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Habt keine Angst: Die erste johanneische Abschiedsrede (Joh 14)(SBS 116; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984) 25–46.

35 See Gerstenberger, Erhard S., Psalms Part 1 (FOTL 14; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988) 178–82Google Scholar.

36 On Christ as the speaker of the psalms in early Christian texts, see Hays, Richard B., ‘Christ Prays the Psalms: Paul's Use of an Early Christian Exegetical Convention’, The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck (ed. Malherbe, A. J. and Meeks, W. A.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 122–36Google Scholar.

37 This technique of interpretation is analogous to one employed by the authors of p˘˘πárîm (commentaries on biblical texts) found at Qumran. The latter is described by Horgan, Maurya P. as follows: ‘The pesher may follow the action, ideas, and words of the lemma closely, developing a similar description in a different context’ (eadem, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books [CBQMS 8; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1979] 244)Google Scholar. It is exemplified by the apparent identification of the kings who bring gifts to God in Psalm 68.30 with ‘the Kittim’ in lQpPs frg. 9.1–2 (see ibid., 67–8). It is also noteworthy that those who produced the p˘šārîm understood the psalms, as well as the prophetic books in the narrow sense, as prophecies of the history of their community, including the past, present, and the future (ibid., 248–9).

38 Ps 42.11 MT; 41.11 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 42.10 RSV; the LXX differs from the MT and reads ν τῷ καταθλσαι τ στ μον ὠνεδισν με οἱ θλβοντς με

39 For an analysis and interpretation of this text, see Sasson, Jack M., Jonah (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1990) 269–320, especially 306–7, 316–20Google Scholar.

40 See Matt 12.39–41; cf. Matt 16.4; Luke 11.29–30, 32.

41 For a summary and brief discussion of the evidence, see Goppelt, Leonhard, ποτριον, TDNT 6 (1968) 149–51Google Scholar.

42 Jer 51.7.

43 For discussion, see Best, Ernest, The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology (SNTSMS 2; 2nd ed.; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University, 1990) lxvi, 153CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 On the likelihood of Christian and Jewish women authoring written works in the Greco-Roman period, see Kraemer, Ross S., ‘Women's Authorship of Jewish and Christian Literature in the Greco-Roman Period’, in ‘Women Like This’: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Levine, Amy-Jill; SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 1; Atlanta: Scholars, 1991) 221–42Google Scholar.

45 Scholars who come to similar conclusions include Feigel, Friedrich Karl, Der Einfluβ des Weissagungsbeweises und anderer Motive auf die Leidensgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur Evangelienkritik (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1910) 49–50Google Scholar and Lindars, Barnabas, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM, 1961) 80–1Google Scholar.

46 Ps 38.14–15 MT; 37.14–15 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 38.13–14 RSV.

47 See Gerstenberger, , Psalms Part 1, 160–5Google Scholar.

48 See the discussion in Crossan, John Dominic, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988) 174–87Google Scholar.

49 See the discussion by Feigel, , Der Einfluβ des Weissagungsbeweises, 10Google Scholar.

50 The term servant [of God] was of course widely used, usually without any connection with Isa 52.13–53.12. If, however, the epithet ‘servant [of God]’ was common, or at least predictable, as a designation of the messiah in Jewish circles of the time, the association between the two terms would have facilitated the early Christian identification of the servant of Isaiah 52–3 with the messiah, since the suffering of this servant was no longer a deterrent, but rather an advantage for such an identification in their eyes. The designation of the messiah as the servant of God is attested by 4 Ezra 13.32; for discussion see Stone, Michael Edward, Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990) 207, 392Google Scholar.

51 The motif of spitting recalls Isa 50.6–7; on the allusion to this passage in the Gospel of Peter, see Denker, Jürgen, Die theologiegeschichtliche Stellung des Petrusevangeliums: Ein Beitrag zur Frühgeschichte des Doketismus (Europäische Hochschulschriften 23, Theologie 36; Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 1975) 62Google Scholar. For hypotheses about the role of this passage in the development of the passion tradition as a whole, see Koester, Helmut, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International/ London: SCM, 1990) 224Google Scholar; Crossan, , The Cross That Spoke, 142–3Google Scholar. As noted above (see note 38), the motif of mocking is present in Psalm 42 (41 LXX), though it is clearer in the MT than in the LXX.

52 Philo, Flaccus 36–9Google Scholar; see the discussion by Box, Herbert, Philonis Alexandrini: In Flaccum (London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University, 1939) xl–xliii; 91–2Google Scholar.

53 See Musurillo, Herbert A., The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954) 49–50,184Google Scholar.

54 See the discussion in Collins, Yarbro, ‘The Genre of the Passion Narrative’, 15–16Google Scholar; see also Koester, , Ancient Christian Gospels, 225Google Scholar; Crossan, , The Cross That Spoke, 139–59Google Scholar.

55 According to Wayne Booth the relevant portion of the text of Mark displays a ‘double irony’ (idem, A Rhetoric of Irony [Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1974] 92).

56 Donald Juel calls this process ‘messianic exegesis’ and argues that its logic is midrashic (idem, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988] 90).

57 See Origen, Contra Celsum 2.34Google Scholar.

58 The reconstruction and translation are based on Mark 15.24.

59 Psalm 22.19 MT; 21.19 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 22.18 RSV; the LXX reads διεμερσαντο τ μτιμον αντοῖς κα π τν ἱματισμν μον ἒβαλον κλρον

60 Ps 22.7–9 MT; 21.7–9 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 22.6–8 RSV; the LXX reads, beginning with v. 8, πντες νε ξεμνκτρισν με, λλησαν ν χελεσιν ἕκνησαν κεφαλν ???λπισεν π κριον ῤνσσθω σωατω αὐτν ὅτι θλει αὑτν

61 Ps 22.17 MT; 21.17 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 22.16 RSV; the translation of the MT cited above is taken with slight modification fromDahood, Mitchell, Psalms 1: 1–50 (AB Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966) 137Google Scholar; see the comments on 140–1; the LXX reads ρνξαν χεῖρας νο καἰ πδας

62 Compare the discussion in Feigel, Der Einfluβ des Weissagungsbeweises, 65–6.

63 Even though Psalm 22 has little intrinsic connection with messianic ideas, it was interpreted messianically in the earliest recoverable Christian traditions. The presupposition of this interpretation was the execution of Jesus by crucifixion as a messianic pretender. The process by which the followers of Jesus arrived at this conclusion and attempted to persuade others of its validity cannot be determined exactly, but they probably began by interpreting a more messianic psalm as a prophecy of Jesus and then extended the argument to other psalms. Donald Juel has attempted to reconstruct the process(Messianic Exegesis, 90, 98 117); see alsoHays, , ‘Christ Prays the Psalms’, 130–1Google Scholar.

64 Feigel makes this argument (Der Einflufβ des Weissagungsbeweises, 72); it may hold, however, for the motif as part of the Markan passion narrative.

65 E.g., Feigel (ibid., 73–6). His argument is based on the Markan form of the passion narrative and takes the cry together with the reaction of the centurion.

66 SeeCollins, Yarbro, The Beginning of the Gospel, 117Google Scholar.

67 On the ambiguity of the relation between the tearing of the curtain and the death of Jesus, seeFowler, Robert M., Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991) 202–3, 211Google Scholar.On the variety of interpretations, seeGeddert, Timothy J., Watchwords: Mark 13 in Markan Eschatology (JSNTSup 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 140–3Google Scholar.

68 Ps 18.7 MT; 17.7 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 18.6 RSV; note that φωνς occurs in Ps 17.7 LXX and φων or (φωνν in the pre-Markan passion narrative; cf. Mark 15.34 and 37; ναο also occurs in both; cf. Ps 17.7 LXX with Mark 15.38.

69 Ps 18.17–20 MT; 17.17–20 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 18.16–19 RSV.

70 Gerstenberger, , Psalms Part 1, 96Google Scholar. This psalm is explicitly associated with David by its appearance, with minor variations, in 2 Samuel 22 as his victory song.

71 The book of Jonah has a similar motif; it presents the prophet as saying, ‘As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple’ (Jonah 2.7). The LXX reads ἓν τῷ κλεπειν π' ἒμο τν φνχν μον τοῠ κνρον μνσθην, κα ἒλθοι πρς α προσενχ νον εἰς ἂλιν σον (Jonah 2.8, ed. Rahlfs).

72 SeeJosephus, Jewish War 5.219Google Scholar.

73 On the tearing of the veil as theophanic, see the discussion inCollins, Yarbro, The Beginning of the Gospel, 116–17Google Scholar; see alsoGeddert, , Watchwords, 141Google Scholar.

74 Josephus, Jewish War 5.212–14Google Scholar; David Ulansey argued that the outer veil was meant and that Mark intended to link this image with the tearing of the heavens at the baptism of Jesus (idem, ‘The Heavenly Veil Torn: Mark's Cosmic Inclusio’, JBL 110 [1991] 123–5).

75 Heb 6.19–20; 10.19–20; for discussion seeAttridge, Harold, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989) 183–5, 284–7Google Scholar.

76 Ps 22.2 MT; 21.2 LXX (ed. Rahlfs); 22.1 RSV.

77 See the discussion inCollins, Yarbro, The Beginning of the Gospel, 115–16Google Scholar.

78 E.g., byHase, K., mentioned by Feigel, Der Einfluβ des Weissagungsbeweises, 67Google Scholar.

79 Compare Feigel, ibid., 67–8.

80 In ancient literature, the last words of a dying man were often prophetic; examples includePatroklos, (Iliad 16.843–54Google Scholar), Hektor, (Iliad 22.355–60Google Scholar), and Pherecydes, who prophesied his own death (Laertius, DiogenesLives 1.117–18Google Scholar); this motif occurs also in the Hebrew Bible in connection with Jacob (Genesis 49), Joseph (Gen 50.24), Moses (Deuteronomy 32), Joshua (Joshua 23) and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.

81 Compare the account of the death of Carneades; Diogenes reports that the moon is said to have been eclipsed at the time of his death; he interprets this phenomenon as a sign of the sympathy of the brightest luminary next to the sun, in spite of the fact that he states that the philosopher met his death with a certain lack of courage (Laertius, DiogenesLives 4.64Google Scholar). See also the accounts of the death of Julius Caesar (Virgil, Georgics 1.468Google Scholar;Plutarch, Lives: Caesar 69.4–5Google Scholar).

82 See the mention of burial in the story of Tellus, cited above in relation to note 9; Suetonius gives an account of the funeral, cremation and apotheosis of Julius Caesar (The Twelve Caesars: Julius Caesar 80–2, 84, 88). Diogenes Laertius occasionally mentions the funeral or burial of his subjects (e.g., of Chilon [1.72], Pherecydes [1.118], Anaxagoras [2.15], and Plato [40–1]).

83 See, for example, the discussion byBakhtin, M. M., The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. Holquist, Michael; trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael; Austin: University of Texas, 1981) 51–68Google Scholar. An example of a parodistic travesty of the account of a noble death isLucian's, The Passing of Peregrinus, especially 23 and 42Google Scholar.

84 See Luke 24.13–32, 44–9; John 14.25–6; for discussion of this point in relation to the Emmaus story, seeBetz, Hans Dieter, ‘The Origin and Nature of Christian Faith according to the Emmaus Legend (Luke 24:13–32)’, Interpretation 23 (1969) 32–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a German version of this article, see idem, ‘Ursprung und Wesen christlichen Glaubens nach der Emmauslegende (Lk 24.13–32)’, in idem, Synoptische Studien: Gesammelte Aufsatze 2 (Tubingen: Mohr [Sie-beck], 1992) 35–49.

85 Like the passion narrative, the letter to the Hebrews combines the notions that the death of Jesus was exemplary and that it changed reality. See Heb 2.10–18; for discussion seeAttridge, , The Epistle to the Hebrews, 78–87Google Scholar.

86 Origen, , Contra Celsum 3.1Google Scholar; compare Plato Phaedrus 260c where Socrates uses the proverb ‘shadow of an ass’ to make a point about good and bad speaking and writing. Celsus apparently used the proverb to signify a dispute of no importance.