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Condescension, anticipation, reciprocal ecstasies: theological reflections on early Christian readings of Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2018
Abstract
In the biblical theophanies of Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3, divine condescension and human ascent constitute reciprocal ecstatic moves towards a divine–human encounter. The christological interpretation, widespread in early Christian reception history, further discerns in Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3 an anticipation of the radical condescension of the Logos-made-human and, conversely, an anticipation of the deifying ascent of humanity in Christ. Finally, the early Christian reading of Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3 as ‘christophanies’ – that is, as manifestations of the Logos-to-be-incarnate – also allows us a glimpse into the performative aspect and experiential claims of early Christian exegesis, broadly construed to also incorporate hymnography, iconography and ritual.
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References
1 Golitzin, Alexander, Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita (Minneapolis: Cistercian Publications, 2013), pp. 60–4Google Scholar. The Dionysian notion of ‘reciprocal ecstasies’ is well illustrated by Divine Names 4.13: ‘Moreover, the divine eros is ecstatic; it does not permit lovers to be among themselves but bids them to be among their lovers . . . Thus, the great Paul who came to be inspired by the divine eros and participated in its ecstatic power, straightaway declared: “I live no longer but Christ lives in me.” . . . He says this to God as a true ecstatic lover . . . We must dare to say this beyond truth: the cause itself of all beings . . . comes to be outside of itself and into all beings. . . . In an ecstatic power beyond being, it is brought down out of a separation from all and beyond all, to what is in all, yet does not wander out of itself.’ English tr. by Jones, John D., Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite: The Divine Names and Mystical Theology (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), p. 145Google Scholar.
2 Note that in the Targum Jonathan to Isaiah, the temple (6:1) and the entire earth are ‘filled by the brilliance of his glory’. Chilton, Bruce, The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus and Notes (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987), p. 14Google Scholar.
3 Levenson, Jon D., Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1987), p. 123Google Scholar.
4 Savran, George, Encountering the Divine: Theophany in Biblical Narrative (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 15Google Scholar.
5 Ironically, given the reference to Uzziah's death, this interpretation implies that Isaiah's presence in the temple is similar to that of King Uzziah (cf. 2 Chron 26:16–20) or King Jeroboam (3 Rgns/1 Kings 13:1–6) and equally transgressive. See Zeron, Alexander, ‘Die Anmassung des Königs Usia in Lichte von Jesajas Berufung. Zu 2 Chron. 26:16–22 und Jes. 6:1ff’, Theologische Zeitschrift 33 (1977), pp. 65–8Google Scholar. The Targum Jonathan to Isaiah as well as some rabbinic traditions (e.g. Exod. Rab. 1.34; Rashi to Isa 6:1) actually synchronise Uzziah's transgression and immediate punishment – leprosy, equated to death – with Isaiah's vision, but without inculpating the prophet. See for instance Exod. Rab. 1.34: ‘The king of Egypt died [Exod. 2:23]: he became a leper, who is deemed as one dead, as it is said, Let her not, I pray, be as one dead [Num. 12:12]. And it says, In the year that kind Uzziah died [Isa. 6:1].’ Other rabbinic sources take Isaiah's ‘woe is me’ as an admission of real guilt for allegedly having been present but silent when Uzziah transgressed. For a detailed discussion, see Benjamin Uffenheimer, ‘The Consecration of Isaiah in Rabbinic Exegesis’, in Heinemann, J. and Noy, D. (eds), Studies in Aggadah and Folk Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1971), pp. 232–6Google Scholar.
6 Uffenheimer (‘Consecration of Isaiah’, pp. 238–40) contrasts the biblical text, which speaks of a vision in the Jerusalem temple, with its Targumic reinterpretation into a vision of the heavenly temple. See also Aptowitzer, Victor, ‘The Celestial Temple as Viewed in the Aggadah’, in Dan, J. (ed.), Binah: Studies in Jewish History, Thought, and Culture (Tel Aviv: Praeger, 1989), vol. 2, pp. 1–29Google Scholar. In support of his thesis of a purely ‘celestial’ encounter with God, Aptowitzer notes that ‘the text supplies no hint of where the prophet saw this marvelous vision’, and that no mention is made of an earthly temple in the parallel text of 1 Kings 22:19, which reports Micaiah's vision in extremely similar terms (‘I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him’), or in other throne theophanies (Ezekiel 1, Daniel 7).
7 Jones, Morray, ‘The Temple Within: The Embodied Divine Image and its Worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Jewish and Christian Sources’, Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 37 (1998), p. 401Google Scholar. Similarly, on the concomitance of ‘heavenly’ and ‘earthly’ realities in the vision of Ezekiel, Bunta, Silviu N., ‘In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question about Ezekiel's Visions’, in Arbel, D. V. and Orlov, A. A. (eds), With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 29–44Google Scholar.
8 According to McNamara, Martin (Targum and Testament Revisited: Aramaic Paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd edn. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2010), 147–8Google Scholar), John 12:41 ‘uses good targumic language’. Indeed, the Targum to Isaiah (see note above) has ‘I saw the glory of the Lord’ for MT ‘I saw the LORD’, and ‘the temple was filled with the brightness of his glory’ for MT ‘the hem of his robe filled the temple’, while the LXX reads ‘the house was full of his glory’.
9 See Dodd, C. H., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp. 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 261; Dahl, Nils A., ‘The Johannine Church and History’, in Klassen, W. (ed.), Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 124–42Google Scholar, esp. 154–5; Hanson, A. T., Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (London: SPCK, 1965), pp. 104–8Google Scholar; Hanson, The Prophetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), pp. 167, 170, 242, 263, 339; Kanagaraj, Jey J., Mysticism in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into its Background (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), pp. 224–6Google Scholar; DeConick, April D., ‘John Rivals Thomas: From Community Conflict to Gospel Narrative’, in Fortna, R. T. and Thatcher, T. (eds), Jesus in Johannine Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), p. 308Google Scholar; Hannah, Darrell D., ‘Isaiah's Vision in the Ascension of Isaiah and the Early Church’, Journal of Theological Studies, ns 50 (1999), p. 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Raymond F., The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 486–7Google Scholar; Barrett, C. Κ., The Gospel According to St John, 2nd edn (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 432Google Scholar; Bultmann, Rudolf, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, tr. Beasley-Murray, G. R. et al. (Philadelphia: Westminster; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 452Google Scholar, n. 4; Schnackenburg, Rudolf, The Gospel According to St John, tr. C. Hastings et al. (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), vol. 2, pp. 416–17Google Scholar; Fossum, Jarl E., The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), p. 295Google Scholar, n. 112.
10 In Rev 4:6–9, the four living creatures – a fusion of Isaiah's seraphim and Ezekiel's cherubim – ‘give glory and honor and thanks’ to God by singing a version of the thrice-holy: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!’ In the next chapter, however, worship and praise seems to be directed both to ‘Him who sits on the throne’ and to the Lamb bearing the seven spirits (5:8–14). Cf. 7:10 (God and the Lamb receive the acclamation of the martyrs); 14:4 (God and the Lamb receive the self-offering of the martyrs as ‘first fruits’ of humankind); 20:6 (God and Christ receive priestly service from those who are worthy, and reign together with them); 21:22–3; 22:5 (the Lamb is or embodies the divine glory and light).
11 See the extensive presentation and discussion of the relevant texts in Bogdan G. Bucur, ‘“Isaiah Saw His Glory”: Re-Envisioning Prophetic Visions’, Pro Ecclesia 23 (2014), pp. 309–30.
12 Having identified the seraphim of Isaiah 6 (which he calls τὰ ζῷα τὰ δοξολόγα) with the cherubim of the ark in Exodus 25 (τὰ πνεύματα τὰ δοξολόγα) and with the two ζῷα found in the peculiar LXX reading of Hab 3:2 (‘you will be known between the two ζῷα’), Clement showcases the true Gnostic as one who, in the course of a dynamic process along the continuum of noetic reality that encompasses humans and angels, can and must become a seraph. See Clements, Strom. 7.12.80.4 (SC 428.246); Strom. 5.6.36.3–4 (SC 278.84): ‘He [the Gnostic] all day and night, speaking and doing the Lord's commands, rejoices exceedingly . . . and is ever giving thanks to God, like the living creatures who give glory (τὰ ζῷα τὰ δοξολόγα), figuratively spoken of by Isaiah (διὰ Ἡσαΐου ἀλληγορούμενα)’; ‘[The ark] signifies the repose which dwells with the spirits who give glory (ἀνάπαυσιν . . . τὴν μετὰ τῶν δοξολόγων πνευμάτων), which the cherubim represent darkly (ἃ αἰνίσσεται Χερουβίμ). . . . But the face is a symbol of the rational soul, and the wings are the lofty ministers and energies of powers right and left; and the voice is delightsome glory in ceaseless contemplation (ἡ φωνὴ δὲ δόξα εὐχάριστος ἐν ἀκαταπαύστῳ θεωρίᾳ)’.
13 Both the LXX and the MT versions are ambiguous: ‘the face’ and ‘the feet’ might be those of the seraphim or of the Lord; the Hebrew has the additional unclarity about the author of the veiling: the Lord may be veiling ‘his’ face and feet (presumably using the wings of the seraphim), or a seraph may be veiling ‘his’ own face and feet or those of the Lord.
14 Origen, Isa. Hom. 1.2, 4.1 (GCS 33: 245, 247; tr. ACW 68.886, 899); Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, Prologue (CCSL 73.1; tr. ACW 68.67).
15 Origen, On First Principles 1.3.4. Greek text in Herwig Görgemanns and Heinrich Karpp, Origenes vier Bücher von den Prinzipien (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), pp. 164, 166. See also Origen, Hom. In Isa. 1.2, 4; 4.1 (GCS 33.244, 258–9); Cels. 6.18 (GCS 2.88.28).
16 Palm Sunday Matins: Sticheron at the Praises: ‘Come forth, you nations . . . and look today on the King of Heaven on a humble colt as on a lofty throne treading the path to Jerusalem. . . . look on the one whom Isaiah saw who has come for our sake in flesh’; Great Vespers of the Annunciation: Glory Sticheron at Lord I have cried: ‘How shall He whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth, be held in the womb of a woman? He upon whom the six-winged seraphim and the many-eyed cherubim cannot gaze has been pleased at a single word to be made flesh of this His creature . . .’
17 For icons and manuscript illuminations, see Bucur, Christophanic Exegesis, pp. 176–8, 180–2.
18 Since the same Hebrew root yields the verb ‘to burn, to incinerate’ and the noun ‘venomous (burning) serpent’, the seraphim are generally thought to be fiery guardians of the divine presence, perhaps winged, serpentine personifications of lightning. See T. N. D. Mettinger, ‘Seraphim’, and Hendel, R. S., ‘Serpent’, in van der Toorn, K. and van der Horst, P. W. (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 742–4Google Scholar, 744–7.
19 Ephrem, Hymns on Faith 10.8–11 (CSCO 154.50; tr. FaCh 130.122–3).
20 John Chrysostom, In illud: Vidi Dominum 6.3 (SC 277.216).
21 ‘Performative exegesis’ may be defined as a ritual reading of the sacred text in which the latter is used as a script to be performed and re-enacted, so that the reader is united with the rhetorical ‘I’ of the sacred text, enters the world of the text and experiences that which the text describes. According to Angela Kim Harkins, ‘strong emotions . . . could have assisted an ancient reader in becoming one with the imaginal body of the text. . . . As the ancient reader sought to become one with the rhetorical “I” of the text, he fashioned for himself a subjectivity that fits that of the imaginal body in the text. In doing so, he came to experience what the text describes’ (‘The Performative Reading of the Hodayot: The Arousal of Emotions and the Exegetical Generation of Texts’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 21 (2011), p. 62). The term ‘performative’, coined by the British philosopher of language John Austin (How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), esp. pp. 4–11), is particularly useful in our attempt to articulate these assumptions. As can be seen in some of Austin's examples – ‘I promise’; ‘I do’ (uttered in the course of the marriage ceremony); ‘I give and bequeath . . .’ (as occurring in a will) – performatives are pronouncements in which the uttering of the sentence is not a description of an action, but itself the doing of an action; unlike an imperative, a performative talks about itself and about what it is doing, is self-referential, metalinguistic, metapragmatic. Building on Austin's understanding of performatives, scholars speak of ‘performative utterances’ and ‘performative exegesis’ in the religious literature of the Ancient Near East, in biblical and parabiblical writings. See, for instance, Delbert R. Hillers, ‘Some Performative Utterances in the Bible’, in D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman and A. Hurvitz (eds), Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), pp. 757–66; Sanders, Seth L., ‘Performative Utterances’, and ‘Performative Exegesis’, in DeConick, A. (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), pp. 57–79Google Scholar.
22 John Chrysostom, In illud: Vidi Dominum 6.3 (SC 277.214, 216).
23 Savran, George W., Encountering the Divine (London: Bloomsbury, 2005), pp. 17Google Scholar, 168.
24 Text from van der Horst, Pieter W., ‘The Measurement of the Body: A Chapter in the History of Ancient Jewish Mysticism’, in van der Plas, D. (ed.), Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1987), p. 59Google Scholar. For this texts as a ‘midrashic reflection on biblical passages concerned with tangible portrayals of G-d’, see Sweeney, Marvin A., ‘Dimensions of the Shekhinah: The Meaning of the Shiur Qomah in Jewish Mysticism, Liturgy, and Rabbinic Thought’, Hebrew Studies 54 (2013), pp. 107–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Sweeney, ‘Meaning of Shiur Qomah’, pp. 115, 117, 119.
26 Ephrem, Hymns on Faith 10.8–11 (CSCO 154.50; tr. FaCh 130.122–3); Theodoret of Cyrus, Comm. Isa. 6:6 (SC 276.266); John Chrysostom, In illud: Vidi Dominum 6.3 (SC 277.216); Theodore of Mopsuestia, Hom. cat. 16.36–8 (Tonneau, 590/591, 592/593, 594/595; Mingana 6:260–61 [Syriac]; 118–19 [English]).
27 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Hom. cat. 16.36–8 (Tonneau, 594/595; Mingana 6:260–1 [Syriac]; 119 [English]); Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, 94/95–96/97: ‘And “one of the seraphim was sent, and he took into his hand a coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs” [Isa 6:6] – this represents the priest who with the tongs of his hands (τῇ λαβίδι τῆς χειρὸς αὐτοῦ) holds in the holy altar the spiritual coal, Christ, Who sanctifies and purifies those who receive and partake.’ On Mary Theotokos as ‘tongs’, see Pseudo-Methodius, De Simeone et Anna 7, 10 (PG 18.364 AB, 372 C).
28 See the exhaustive study by Taft, Robert E., ‘Byzantine Communion Spoon: A Review of the Evidence’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 50 (1996), pp. 209–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 In the early decades of the first century ce, 3 Mac 6:2, 6 has no doubt that it was the ‘king, dread sovereign, most high, almighty God’ who rescued Daniel and his companions; the roughly contemporary Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum mentions Nathaniel, ‘the angel in charge of fire’ (LAB 38.3). Some centuries later Exodus Rabbah thinks it was Gabriel who came down to deliver Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; Genesis Rabbah, by contrast, states that it was the Lord who saved Daniel, whereas Abraham had been rescued by the Archangel Michael; finally, the Babylonian Talmud (b. Pes. 118a–b) has the Lord intervening to save Abraham and sending Gabriel to rescue the three youths (notwithstanding an attempt by ‘Yurkami, the prince [in charge] of hail’ to gain the mission for himself.
30 See Dulaey, Martine, ‘Les trois hébreux dans la fournaise (Dn 3) dans l'interprétation symbolique de l'église ancienne’, Revue des sciences religieuses 71 (1997), pp. 33–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tucker, Dennis, ‘The Early Wirkungsgeschichte of Daniel 3: Representative Examples’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 6 (2012), pp. 295–306.Google Scholar
31 Hippolytus, Comm. In Dan. 2.32–4 (GCS ns 7.118–28).
32 See Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 26, 29 (SC 99.396, 398, 402): ‘This is not an angel, but rather the God of the angels. He showed himself in the form of an angel, who is to come into the world . . . He shows himself now and points us to the image of things to pass.’
33 Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 3 (SC 99.366); 21 (SC 99.390).
34 Canon of the Exaltation of the Cross, Ode 8, Eirmos (translation mine). This hymn is sung several times during the liturgical year as part of the abbreviation of the Canon known as the katabasias, and was also incorporated in the Service of the Furnace. On this topic, see White, Andrew Walker, Performing Orthodox Ritual in Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Canon of the Forefathers, Ode 1, stanza 5: ‘In number and faith of the divine Trinity (ἀριθμῷ καὶ πίστει τῆς θείας Τριάδος) the Youths in the furnace overthrew godlessness and in symbols revealed beforehand to the world the mysteries of God that were to be . . .’
35 Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 25 (SC 99.396).
36 See Stroumsa, Gedaliahu Guy, ‘Polymorphie divine et transformations d'un mythologème: l'Apocryphon de Jean et ses sources’, Vigiliae Christianae 35 (1981), pp. 412–34Google Scholar; Lalleman, Pieter J., ‘Polymorphy of Christ’, in Bremmer, J. N. (ed.), The Apocryphal Acts of John (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995), pp. 97–118Google Scholar; Garcia, Hugues, ‘La polymorphie du Christ: Remarques sur quelques définitions et sur de multiples enjeux’, Apocrypha 10 (1999), pp. 16–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garcia, ‘L'enfant vieillard, l'enfant aux cheveux blancs et le Christ polymorphe’, Revue d'Historie et de Philosophie Religieuses 80 (2000), pp. 479–501; Foster, Paul, ‘Polymorphic Christology: Its Origins and Development in Early Christianity’, Journal of Theological Studies 58 (2007), pp. 66–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foster, Gospel of Peter : Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary (Leiden : Brill, 2010), pp. 165–8.
37 Acts of John 90, in Elliott, J. K. (ed.), The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in English Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 317Google Scholar.
38 Incidentally, Romanos’ phrase ‘standing as a choir in the midst of the furnace’ recalls 1 En. 71.1: ‘I saw the sons of the holy angels walking upon the flame of fire’ (OPT 1.49).