Divine Diction: Heavenly Speech among Sethians, Valentinians, and Ignatius

Abstract

While ancient people defined themselves largely by their ability to employ correct speech in Greek or Latin, many early Christians discussed a foreign type of speech from heaven. This celestial communication medium created a different criterion to establish status and identity in Christian communities. This article explores conceptions of this heavenly speech in Sethian and Valentinian writings, as well as in Ignatius. Sethians and Valentinians appeal to different sensory perceptions to describe celestial communication. For Sethians, heavenly speech is imbued with light and is conceptualized through visual frameworks, whereas for Valentinians, celestial communication functions like smell. In contrast, Ignatius associates celestial speech with a person: the bishop. That is, Ignatius defines celestial communication as whatever the bishop communicates, whether spoken or silent. For all these second- and third-century Christians, correct employment of celestial speech forges a unique social structure and reifies boundaries for a given in-group.

Introduction

In the famous account of his martyrdom, bishop Polycarp of Smyrna enters a hostile arena roaring so loudly that no one’s voice “can be heard.”¹ Unbridled shouts create a raucous environment as crazed Smyrnans jeer the faithful bishop, negating any possibility of comprehensible communication. Despite this deafening racket, the text explains that a “voice from heaven” speaks words of encouragement—“Be strong and courageous, Polycarp”—which is audible exclusively to Polycarp and “those of our people.”² That is, this heavenly speech resonates in a unique timbre that only Christian allies of Polycarp can perceive.³ All others in the boisterous arena are unable to hear it.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp leaves many questions about this celestial speech unanswered, including what it sounded like, how it differed from standard speech, and why only a certain Christian cohort could hear it. While this text does not elaborate on these issues, other Christian sources from the second and third centuries provide more detail about a celestial communication medium perceptible solely by insiders.⁴ This article explores conceptions of otherworldly, divine speech in diverse Christian sources of this era—Sethian, Valentinian, and Ignatian texts—that demonstrate the widespread nature of this phenomenon. While scholarship often treats these sources in isolation from one another, they all participate in a common enterprise of identity formation based on heavenly speech. In other words, unlike many of their neighbors in the Greco-Roman world who defined status largely on the ability to master correct Greek or Latin, these diverse Christian sources depict the unique diction of heaven as the new rubric to gain prestige and be incorporated into an in-group.⁵ Heavenly speech reinforces Christians’ perceived heavenly identity.

Divergent Christian sources approach this phenomenon in different ways, however. To underscore the transcendental nature of heavenly speech, Sethians and Valentinians appeal to different sensory perceptions: Sethians conceptualize celestial speech in visual terms, whereas Valentinians describe it using olfactory imagery. Perceiving this divine communication transforms Sethians and Valentinians into these respective sensory identities; Sethians morph into light and Valentinians become the scent of God. By contrast, Ignatius subsumes heavenly speech into the office and person of the bishop; celestial speech is whatever the bishop communicates, silent or spoken. Heeding this heavenly episcopal voice renders a person part of the ekklesia of God. Regardless of whether divine speech is episcopal, olfactory, or visual, it ultimately distinguishes an insider from an outsider. As such, the broadly attested phenomenon of heavenly speech should be included among the various other strategies of self-differentiation that scholars have observed in second- and third-century sources, including heresiology, scriptural canons, and claims to apostolic succession.⁶ Alongside these modes of differentiation, divine diction is fundamental to the study of Christian identity formation in the second and third centuries.

Sethian Speech: Luminous and Eternal

While the term “Sethian” was used pejoratively by ancient heresiologists, twentieth-century scholars resurrected the term to refer to Christians who were also sometimes called “Gnostics.”⁷ Though heresiologists often categorized disaggregate individuals or ideas under heretical monikers, Sethians were not mere heresiological constructions but actual Christians who formed real social groups.⁸ One of the central ways that Sethians defined their in-group identity was via speech. This section explores two texts from Sethian circles that discuss an exclusive speech imbued with light: Trimorphic Protennoia and The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, also known as The Egyptian Gospel.

The Sethian text Trimorphic Protennoia is an account of the salvific descents of the divine figure Protennoia into the lower, material realm. Alternating between narrative passages and Protennoia’s “I am” sayings, Trimorphic Protennoia culminates in a description of Sethian baptismal rituals that allow the seed of Seth to experience salvation.⁹ For decades, scholars have noted the text’s obvious engagement with the Logos theology of the Johannine prologue.¹⁰ But they have also noted a key difference—while the Johannine Logos is only “the Word,” Trimorphic Protennoia expands the linguistic idea, identifying Protennoia as Sound (ϩⲣⲟⲟⲩ), Voice (ⲥⲙⲏ), and Word (ⲗⲟⲅⲟⲥ).¹¹ That is, her descents consist of three levels of articulation: general sound (ϩⲣⲟⲟⲩ), articulated voice (ⲥⲙⲏ), and the rational content of speech (ⲗⲟⲅⲟⲥ).¹² Another key difference in Trimorphic Protennoia is that while John’s Logos is the Word from the very beginning (John 1:1), Protennoia’s original state is silence. Only as the text progresses does she express herself in various sonic terms.

Many commentators have noted that these aspects of Trimorphic Protennoia bear resemblance to Stoic linguistic theory.¹³ Stoics distinguished between silent, internal reason (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος) and expressed reason (λόγος προφορικός).¹⁴ This latter category had three degrees of articulation: 1) vocal “sound” (φωνή), 2) articulate “voice” which can be written down (λέξις), 3) and intelligible speech or “word” that bears meaning (λόγος).¹⁵ For Stoics, the latter, λόγος, is superior to the less articulate sound and voice. Modern readers of Trimorphic Protennoia have mapped this Stoic progression of silence, sound, voice, and word onto the Sethian text, arguing that it is a theology based on the progressive disclosure of the auditory. For instance, John Turner observes that salvation occurs in this text through “sound and audition,” as Protennoia is conceived mainly in auditory terms. Thus, he argues, we should consider the revelatory descents of Protennoia as “theophony” rather than a “theophany.”¹⁶

But in a recent dissertation, Tilde Bak Halvgaard has demonstrated that Trimorphic Protennoia inverts the Stoic trajectory and value system of sound. In other words, Trimorphic Protennoia flips the levels of semanticity “upside-down.” Halvgaard explains, “whereas in the Stoic theory it is the end point of the process, namely, Word/Discourse (λόγος), that has the highest value, in [Trimorphic Protennoia]. . . it is rather the beginning of the process (in fact, Silence) that has highest value.”¹⁷ Halvgaard’s analysis is convincing, as the primordial state of silence is not merely the originary condition of Protennoia, but the ultimate goal of the Sethian baptismal ritual as well. In fact, the text concludes with Protennoia dwelling with her baptized, redeemed seed in “incomprehensible silence.”¹⁸

Building on Halvgaard’s work, I highlight the crucial role that light plays in Trimorphic Protennoia. In the first line of the work, Protennoia introduces herself by underscoring her lustrous identity: “I am Protennoia, the thought that is in the light.”¹⁹ Thus, the original state of Protennoia is not only silent, but also luminous. Furthermore, the ultimate goal of the Sethian baptismal ritual is not just silence, but luminous silence; as Protennoia explains in the last line of the work, “I will bring my seed into the holy light, in incomprehensible silence.”²⁰ The emphasis on light indicates that Trimorphic Protennoia is not merely inverting the semantic values of Stoic theory, but demonstrating that Protennoia’s communication medium is qualitatively different from mundane speech. In other words, Trimorphic Protennoia is not merely flipping the Stoic linguistic system “upside-down” and placing silence above the word; instead, the text is demonstrating that Protennoia’s semantics are imbued with light, so they bear an entirely different essence than normal speech. The luminous aspect of Protennoia’s silence and speech sets both her and her “seed” apart from those of the lower realm who communicate with mundane speech like an ordinary Stoic might, for instance.

To better understand this phenomenon, we can turn to Philo of Alexandria. Philippe Luisier has argued that the writer of Trimorphic Protennoia was familiar with the work of Philo.²¹ Regardless if this is the case, Philo’s analysis of light and divine words is informative for how Trimorphic Protennoia theorizes the interaction between light and sound.²² Philo states that sight, which for him is masculine, is eminently superior to “womanish” hearing.²³ In fact, the process of learning progresses from hearing to vision, according to Philo. As such, God is experienced in the visionary realm. At Sinai, for instance, God’s words are words of light, not sound.²⁴ Moses sees them; he does not hear them. On the contrary, the idolatrous golden calf represents hearing and the feminine (since the Israelites fashioned the calf out of their gold earrings).²⁵ Significantly, however, the divine and the human merge when God descends via the verbal to his prophets, who ascend via the visual. God speaks luminosity, and prophets experience synesthesia to symbolize the coming together of human and divine, the auditory and the visual. (In this experience, the visionary/luminous aspect of divine words always remain, however.)²⁶

A similar phenomenon takes place in Trimorphic Protennoia.²⁷ Unlike temporal speech, which has a beginning and end point in time, Protennoia “exists from the beginning” and operates like light.²⁸ She does not merely speak truth, she illuminates. In her initial descent to the earthly realm as “sound” (ϩⲣⲟⲟⲩ), for instance, she shines her light into the darkness and makes everything radiant.²⁹ Her luminous nature is manifest in her other manifestations, as well. When she reveals herself as “the Mother” she identifies herself as “the light.”³⁰ And when she descends as the Word, the text explicitly designates her as “light.”³¹ Furthermore, the work describes her various linguistic manifestations—the Voice, the Speech, and the Word—as existing “secretly in ineffable silence.”³² This “silence,” according to the text, is identified with “immeasurable light,” and is the source and root of everything.³³ Most significantly, this silence, or light, functions as the luminous “eye” of Voice, Speech, and Word.³⁴ Thus, rather than resonating in the auditory realm, Protennoia’s linguistic manifestations function like visible light.

The luminous language of Protennoia is antithetical to the time-bound speech of the lower, material realm. For ancient thinkers, sound, particularly when it is in the form of words, is a temporal phenomenon. Unlike vision, whose major structuring principle is space, hearing—particularly hearing words—is suspended across time.³⁵ The descents of Protennoia’s luminous verbosity perturb this temporal realm of sound. For instance, the initial account of her descent describes how she reveals her voice “secretly” and, as the true light, disrupts everyone in the house of “ignorant light,” shaking the abyss.³⁶ Later, the text describes how she disturbs the demiurgic powers with her “secret voice of exalted speech.”³⁷ The demiurgic powers lament in fear that they are not familiar with this invisible, secret speech, and they contrast it with the speech of the Demiurge.³⁸ The text then discloses the mystery of this secret voice: it brings an end to the aeon of time ruled by hours, days, and months, ushering in the age that never changes.³⁹ This voice of light, which is an atemporal phenomenon, destroys the aeon ruled by time and temporal sound.

While the luminous voice is entirely foreign to the archons of the sonic realm, it is familiar to the “Children of light.”⁴⁰ This phenomenon is consistent with ancient conceptions of sight. Plato, for instance, argues that sight occurs when the eye emits a ray of light that makes contact with an object. But, according to Plato, something is only visible if an external light—sun, fire, or candle—seals the bond that is established between the eye and the object.⁴¹ The external light is essential in this process, as the ocular light coalesces into it, “like unto like.”⁴² However, when the ocular light projects into darkness, which is “unlike” it, the light is quenched and vanishes into the night, so no sight occurs.⁴³ While the demiurgic powers—who are in the realm of darkness and thus foreign to Protennoia’s luminosity—cannot recognize her because she is light, Protennoia’s “Children of light” are able to comprehend her light.⁴⁴ Just as sight can only occur when like flows unto like, the Children of light grasp the heavenly message of light because they resemble it. This is illustrated in a passage where Protennoia’s children respond to her call. They describe her relationship to them in terms of light, explaining that while her voice is “invisible” to all others, her voice is visible to those who have fled the world and entered the waters of baptism like “a light dwelling in light.”⁴⁵ Protennoia confirms this claim, explaining that her mission is to make her Children “shine” and to prepare them for the “ineffable lights.”⁴⁶

The luminous nature of Protennoia’s speech sets apart her seed, the Children of light, from those who are not by nature luminous and cannot understand the lustrous communication. While Philo’s teaching about divine words of light distinguishes the speech of God from the mundane, Trimporphic Protennoia’s luminous communication places more emphasis on the receptors of radiant heavenly speech, drawing a clear boundary between those who can see it and those who cannot. As opposed to typical mundane speech which consists of words bound by temporal sound, the Children of light are privy to a different type of language which is rooted in silent light. And even when such luminous speech is audible, as it seems to be in the various descents of Protennoia, it is imbued with a different quality than terrestrial speech. However, this heavenly communication does not climax in these sometimes “barbarous” temporal words, but ultimately leads the Children of light back to the original state of luminous silence that is typified in Sethian baptismal rituals.

Another Sethian work, The Egyptian Gospel, illustrates what these luminous words might have looked like in practice. The supreme being in this work is the Unnamable Parent who resides in radiant silence. The text explicitly underscores both the silent and luminous nature of this highest One, overtly marking both his silence and light.⁴⁷ From this Parent emanate three entities: the father, the mother, and the son. Although the silent Parent generates these entities in silence, they bring forth “seven powers of great light” or “seven vowels” which produce “the word.”⁴⁸ In other words, while these three entities emanate from silence, they produce a new phenomenon that contains the same radiance as silence: luminous sound. This sound is not mere terrestrial noise. Instead, it is eternal, as seen in the mystery that the three entities utter—an undisclosed name which consists of the seven Greek vowels: ιηουεαω—repeating each vowel 22 times.⁴⁹ These vowels are arranged to spell ιηου—which is likely a variant of the true name of God (Yeu) according to the Book of Jeu and magical papyri—followed by epsilon, alpha, and omega.⁵⁰ The epsilon likely represents the Greek word εστιν (“is”).⁵¹ In this case, the series of vowels read “Yeu is alpha and omega.”⁵² This luminous proclamation of the mystery associates Yeu with alphabetic perfection, asserting that divinity encapsulates the entire Greek alphabet, from alpha to omega. Furthermore, the repetition of each letter 22 times, which likely alludes to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, renders this speech complete and eternal.⁵³ It runs the gamut of speech.

This eternal speech is marked in two later passages in the text where it stands in contrast with the repeated references to the silence of the silent Parent.⁵⁴ First, when an entity named Providence emanates in the upper realm,⁵⁵ myriads of angels unite in “one voice and one accord” to sing praises to the silent divinity “with a sound that is never silent.”⁵⁶ Second, when the Four Luminaries of the upper realm are enthroned, the entire spiritual realm, or “spiritual church,” once again unites into one voice to praise divinity with “a sound that is never silent.”⁵⁷ Throughout the text, the aeons of this upper realm, who repeatedly erupt into praise of their superior divinities, consistently mark the silent nature of the silent Parent.⁵⁸ The effect is that the upper realm consists of two sonic realities: the perfect silence of the silent Parent, and the perfect, perpetual praising sounds of the aeons. Heaven is a binary of perfect silence and perfect sound.

This luminous, heavenly soundscape is revealed to the seed of Seth in The Egyptian Gospel. In fact, Seth’s mission is to reveal this “silence and speech” to his seed on earth to redeem them; knowledge of this radiant silence and speech is what demarcates the seed of Seth from others.⁵⁹ Seth discloses this saving soundscape when he institutes baptism as the incarnated Jesus.⁶⁰ In the baptismal hymn at the end of the narrative, initiates announce a slightly modified version of the luminous seven vowels that the heavenly entities uttered initially, as well as a proclamation that likely means, “you are alpha and omega,” repeating the letters four times each.⁶¹ They then claim that the “great name” of God is upon them which allows them to “see” divinity; the luminous sound renders sight.⁶² The initiates then offer a praise to the “God of silence,” linking their baptismal ritual to his silent state of “repose.”⁶³ With these utterances, initiates proclaim the binary soundscape of the upper realm and demonstrate that they are in tune with it. The eternal, luminous silence and speech has “mixed” the initiates with divine light, imbuing them with luminosity.⁶⁴ As a result, they proclaim, “I have become light” and been “armed” and “formed” by light, having it infused “into my breast.”⁶⁵ As light can only be perceived by light according to ancient mechanics of sight, so also only these illuminated initiates can perceive God’s luminous speech. In fact, their illumination leads them to proclaim that they have “comprehended” Jesus, the “eternal omega” and the “eternal epsilon.”⁶⁶ Such a comprehension via mere terrestrial speech would be impossible, as they ask rhetorically, “Who can comprehend you in voice and praise?”⁶⁷ In contrast to this finite speech, their luminous speech facilitates knowledge of the infinite.

In sum, Sethians understood their sui generis speech to be of a different nature than standard language. These children of light were one and the same as the luminous language, rendering them able to see the bewildering heavenly speech. Meanwhile, their neighbors who had not been infused with the luminous essence of the celestial soundscape remained in the dark.

Valentinians and the Scent of Immortality

Followers of Valentinus also discussed a particular type of speech that set them apart. Believing they were the “spiritual ones” or “pneumatic ones” (πνευματικοί), they distinguished themselves from less-advanced Christians—whom they designated the “animate ones” (ψυχικοί)—and non-Christians whom they referred to as the “material ones” (ὑλικοί). A major demarcation of pneumatic status was the ability to perceive a pneumatic communication medium. Like Sethians, many followers of Valentinus appealed to a non-auditory sense to describe this speech. But in their case, it was the sense of smell.

The myth of Ptolemaeus, a famous member of the school of Valentinus, provides a good example of this phenomenon. According to Ptolemaeus’s myth, Wisdom is responsible for the error that results in the creation of materiality. When Wisdom enacts this cosmic blunder, a portion of herself known as lower Wisdom, or “Achamoth,” is separated from the heavenly realm and dwells outside of the heavens. Though Achamoth is alienated from divinity, she still contains one aspect of the divine: “she has a certain odor of immortality left in her by Christ and the holy spirit.”⁶⁸ This divine odor prompts her to yearn to return to the realm of the divine. As one modern observer argues, this “scent of immortality” is almost certainly the pneumatic essence itself.⁶⁹ When Adam is created, Achamoth implants this pneumatic essence in him and his seed.⁷⁰ Later in the narrative, Adam’s seed, also known as “the seed of Achamoth,” is empowered to speak things of a “higher nature” than other humans.⁷¹ Thus, Adam’s seed is authorized to utter lofty speech due to the fragrance of divinity they receive from Christ through Achamoth. Pneumatic speech is rooted in pneumatic scent.

The association between Adam and a divine scent was not a Valentinian creation ex nihilo. Themes of aroma, Wisdom, and Eden are present in Jewish literature from around the turn of the eras. In Sirach (24:15), Wisdom explains how she came forth from the mouth of God and spread the sweet fragrance of her odor in creation. Furthermore, divine aroma is explicitly linked to Eden in 1 Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve.⁷² The text of 1 Enoch explains that the remarkable fragrances of the trees in the Garden of Eden were the original source of life and will be again at the end of time. Similarly, in first-century versions of the Life of Adam and Eve, Eden is saturated with divine fragrance, the same fragrance which cloaks the cherubim who worship God in heaven. The text relates that after Adam is told to leave the garden, he begs God to let him take fragrance from paradise. God relents, so Adam takes spices and aromatic plants which become “the one element in the inhabited world that [has] its direct source in Eden’s splendor.”⁷³ Regarding this phenomenon, Susan Harvey explains: “In their fragrances, the spices of paradise joined heaven and earth, mortality and immortality, alienation and reconciliation, human and divine.”⁷⁴ Like the “fragrance of immortality” embedded in Achamoth in the Valentinian myth, divine scent in the Life of Adam and Eve is the only remnant of the immortal realm that persists in the fallen world. In the Valentinian schema, however, this pneumatic aroma is linked to the pneumatic speech that demarcates Pneumatics from outsiders.

A similar discourse is found in the Gospel of Truth, a work in which scent and immortal words play key roles. The Gospel of Truth is an anonymous homily that scholarship has traditionally attributed to Valentinus himself.⁷⁵ While scholars today are divided on how certain we can be about this attribution, they all agree that the text stems from Valentinian circles.⁷⁶ The work begins with a cosmic myth of personified Error trapping the Universe in the ignorance and darkness of the material realm. To rectify this situation, the Father sends the Savior—also called the Son, the Name, or the Word—who brings knowledge and light, overturns Error’s dominion, and restores humanity to the Father’s truth.

A major aspect of this salvation hinges on naming. The Savior is called “the Name” because he receives the Father’s name which is different from terrestrial names in the sense that it does not derive from “ordinary speech or name giving.”⁷⁷ Indeed, the Word “did not receive the name as a loan like others who get their names when they are created.”⁷⁸ Rather, this “true name” or “lordly name” is different in nature from the temporally bound words of the terrestrial realm.⁷⁹

Closely associated with the Name are the names of those destined for salvation. These designations are not mere terrestrial words; they are from above. In fact, these names represent the elect person’s true and higher self that is revealed by the Name.⁸⁰ Einar Thomassen explains the relationship between the Name and the names: “the Name. . . makes possible the transformation of the transcendent unity of the Father into a plurality of individual names, or words, which nevertheless remain united with their source.”⁸¹ Thus, these names participate in the eternal realm of unity despite their multiplicity.

But what did these names sound like? Perhaps the better question would be, surprisingly, what did these names smell like? Thomassen proposes a context for the bestowal of the names, a context that associates them with the olfactory. Citing the overt references to chrism and sealing in the Gospel of Truth, Thomassen argues convincingly that Valentinians received the names during an anointing performed with perfumed oil.⁸² Irenaeus attests to this ritual, reporting that during the ceremony surrounding the Name, initiates were anointed with balsam oil that was a type of the sweet fragrance which permeates the upper realm.⁸³ This ritual forged an inseparable connection between the perfumed fragrance and the names.

To better contextualize this phenomenon, consider the role of smell in ancient cults. In the Greco-Roman world, gods and goddesses could be recognized by “the perfumed scent they wafted; their divine abodes were redolent with sweet scents.”⁸⁴ These fragrances often permeated the clothing and bodies of worshippers, leaving them inundated with divine smells. For instance, in a second-century CE account about a temple dedicated to a Syrian goddess, Lucian explains that an ambrosial odor exudes from the temple and penetrates the fabric of the pilgrim’s garment. This smell “never fades even when you depart: your garments long retain a scent of it, and you will remember it forever.”⁸⁵ In this context, scent functioned in a way that ephemeral sound never could. Fragrances attached themselves to a worshipper, imbuing them with permanent divine presence. Similarly, as Valentinians received the names attached to a fragrant anointing, they too received these names like a divine aroma, bearing the scent of these names on their persons, even becoming these names themselves as the scented oil seeped into their skin.

With this in mind, consider the following cryptic passage from the Gospel of Truth that likens the Father’s children (those who have received the names) to fragrance:

The children of the Father are his aroma, because they are from the grace of his countenance. For this reason the Father loves his aroma, and he manifests it everywhere, and when it mixes with matter he gives his aroma to the light, and in his rest he makes it surpass every form, every sound. For the ears do not smell the aroma, but the spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ) is that which has the (sense of) smell, and it draws it to itself, and it sinks down into the aroma of the Father . . .⁸⁶

In this sensorium, the fragrance seems compatible with the visual, because the Father “gives his aroma to the light”; yet the aroma is incompatible with the auditory, as the “ears do not smell the aroma” which surpasses “every sound.” Most significantly, however, it is the spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ)—the aspect which distinguishes the Pneumatics from others in Valentinian thought—that contains the sense of smell. The same pneumatic essence that Achamoth imbues Adam and his seed with, the “scent of immortality,” renders someone as the Father’s “aroma” or “child” who bears a pungent name.

This process takes place in a manner that differs from normal speech. Like notions of visuality, smell was a sense associated anciently with space, not time.⁸⁷ By rejecting the realm of sound and embodying the realm of smell, the children move from the temporal and changeable realm of the auditory to the atemporal and spatial realm of the olfactory. This trajectory corresponds to the schema outlined in the Gospel of Truth. As Bentley Layton explains, the text is based on the juxtaposition between two states: movement (illusory existence, nightmare) and repose (true being, wakefulness).⁸⁸ The former state is dynamic and temporal like sound, whereas the latter is static and spatial like the olfactory. By embracing heavenly words that transcend the sonic, and thus being transformed into something akin to aroma, the children of the Father rest in a state of fragrant repose.

A similar motif is found in the Valentinian Tripartite Tractate. This text uses olfactory language to describe how the aeons come to know the Father, once again setting the sense of smell against sound:

For [the aeons] know the Father, the exalted one, by his will—that is, his spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ) breathes into all the [aeons] of the entirety and gives them a mind to seek after the unknowable one, just as someone is drawn in by an aroma to seek after the source of the aroma. Now the aroma of the Father surpasses the unworthy. For his sweetness leaves the aeons in unspeakable pleasure.. . . The [aeons] will not speak, since they remain silent about the glory of the Father.. . . He revealed himself, but it is not possible to speak about him. They have him hidden in a thought since they are from him. They remain silent about how the Father is in form, nature, and greatness. The aeons have become worthy to know through his spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ) that he is unnameable and incomprehensible.⁸⁹

Like the Gospel of Truth, this passage associates spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ) with smell, comparing the Father’s pneumatic influence to an aroma. Because the aeons are worthy enough to smell this metaphorical aroma, they remain silent about the unspeakable Father. Smell and speech are antithetical in this passage.

Just like the aeons, many Pneumatic followers of Valentinus drew on olfactory notions to describe their communion with the divine. The imagery of smell promoted an elevated, pneumatic understanding that transcended normal language. In other words, pneumatic speech functioned like pneumatic smell. Rather than unfolding through time like normal words, the loftier communication of Pneumatics wafted like fragrance. Lacking the pneumatic scent of immortality, outsiders could not smell this truth.

Ignatius and the Silent Bishop

A different type of heavenly communication prevails in the Ignatian corpus. According to the letters attributed to him, Ignatius was a bishop in Antioch who was sentenced to suffer death in Rome for an unspecified crime. En route to the Eternal City, he met with some Christians from local communities who provided him with material support. He also spent time on his journey composing letters to various communities and one to Polycarp. In these epistles, Ignatius discussed his upcoming martyrdom and instructed Christians to resist heresy. He also sought to define the Christian faith within the ecclesiastical structure of local bishoprics, teaching that without a bishop, no group could be called a church.⁹⁰ A true Christian was defined, according to Ignatius, as someone who obeyed the bishop and met with the congregation overseen by him.⁹¹

Ignatius has been quite a contested figure throughout Christian history, as demonstrated in the thorny textual history of his epistles. Three different recensions of the epistles are extant: the longer recension consisting of 13 epistles, the middle recension consisting of seven, and the shorter consisting of three. Over the course of several centuries, scholars have spent considerable effort working out which of the three recensions is original. Since the work of Zahn and Lightfoot in the late nineteenth century, consensus has emerged that the seven epistles of the middle recension are original.⁹² Consensus also reigned for a while regarding both the date and authenticity of the seven letters. While Lightfoot set the standard that both Ignatius’s death and the seven letters attributed to him date to around the year 110 CE, scholars have recently proposed later dates in the first half of the second century for their composition.⁹³ Other scholars go further: they challenge Ignatius’s authorship of the corpus, arguing that the seven letters are pseudepigraphic compositions from the latter half of the second century.⁹⁴ For the purposes of this article, neither the dating nor the authenticity of the seven letters are significant. While I refer to Ignatius as if he wrote the epistles, I acknowledge there are reasonable qualms about his authorship. The epistles could have been written in just about any decade of the second century.

One of the major discussion topics in Ignatian studies surrounds Ignatius’s remarks about the silence of bishops. In his attempts to elevate the office of the bishop, Ignatius asserts, “the more anyone sees that the bishop is silent, the more one should fear him.”⁹⁵ Also, “I was amazed by the goodness of [the bishop of Philadelphia] who accomplishes more being silent than those who speak vain babble.”⁹⁶ Scholars have generally interpreted these statements in two ways. The first supplies an ecclesiastical-political context. According to some who take this line of reasoning, Ignatius is defending the lack of skill held by “silent” bishops with regard to speech, debate, or spiritual gifts.⁹⁷ Others believe Ignatius is commending bishops for either refusing to speak to heretics or refusing to speculate about heretical ideas.⁹⁸ In all these scenarios, the bishop’s silence is due to either his inability to contend with Ignatius’s opponents or his unwillingness to do so. Second, scholars argue that Ignatius is appealing to cosmological themes. Ignatius argues, according to this line of reasoning, that Christians should revere episcopal silence because it reflects the incipient divine silence that produced the resounding Word.⁹⁹ Silent bishops, along with the presbyters and deacons, form a microcosm that reflects the relationships of the “heavenly hierarchy.”¹⁰⁰

Harry O. Maier presents a third interpretation of episcopal silence. He situates the silent bishop in the rhetorical culture of antiquity in which judicious and controlled speech was the measure of a man. Maier argues that the commendation of episcopal silence is not a reference to the absence of sound on the part of the bishop. Instead, the “silence” denotes the opposite of intemperate speech and connotes well-deployed rhetorical ability.¹⁰¹ Maier shows how Ignatius adopts and applies commonplace topoi from Greco-Roman rhetorical culture to cast opposing theologies as “vain babble” and arrogance leading to division, while the bishop embodies a prudent demeanor of quiet strength that produces unity.¹⁰²

I argue that Ignatius does more than simply participate in the hellenistic discourse surrounding correct speech and its antithetical babbling; instead, he radically transforms this rhetoric. He changes the goalposts regarding correct speech by arguing that it is no longer defined by rhetorical skill, but by ecclesiastical office. Correct Christian speech is contained in, and defined by, the bishop. That is, the bishop is the barometer for inspired language. What he says, or how he speaks, is defined as this celestial speech.

Ignatius draws on theories of language to teach this new Christian truth. Speaking of his impending martyrdom, Ignatius implores Roman Christians not to intercede on his behalf. Instead, they are to remain silent, so his witness of Christ can transform from a mere sound to an actual word: “For if you are silent and leave me alone, I will be a word (λόγος) of God; but if you love my flesh, I will again be a mere sound (φωνή).”¹⁰³ Ignatius draws on the common Stoic hierarchy of articulation that places intelligible speech (λόγος) at the top and sound (φωνή) at the bottom. By embracing martyrdom, his testimony of Christ becomes a clearly articulated word. In this case, Ignatius becomes an “imitator” of Christ’s suffering and “speaks truly,” just like Christ who is “the unerring mouth by whom the Father has spoken truly.”¹⁰⁴ It is important to note, however, that Ignatius is not issuing a call for all Christians to embrace martyrdom. Instead, he describes his own martyrdom as effective for the entire church.¹⁰⁵ In several places Ignatius explains that the Christian congregation is contained in the person of the bishop; the bishop is constitutive of his entire community.¹⁰⁶ As a bishop himself, Ignatius presents his sacrifice as a type of eucharistic offering that engenders a “unifying catharsis.”¹⁰⁷ As Candida Moss explains, “by narrating his journey to death as an imitatio Christi, a eucharistic performance, and a kind of imperial procession, Ignatius is able to position himself as mediator between divine and ecclesiastical affairs.”¹⁰⁸

A central aspect of Ignatius’s liminal position between God and the church is his speech. In his epistles, Ignatius is endowed abundantly with spiritual gifts, including the ability to prophesy.¹⁰⁹ In his letter to the Philadelphians, Ignatius describes a previous instance when his voice miraculously changed into the voice of God, and he prophesied how Christians should proceed during an impending controversy: “take orders from the bishop, the council of elders, and the deacons…. Do nothing without the bishop.”¹¹⁰ Here the gift of prophecy confirms the position of the bishop as the ultimate authority in the church.

This type of ecclesiastical structure—with the bishop over a group of presbyters and deacons—was far from universal in the second century. In fact, Allen Brent argues that Ignatius invented the notion of a single ruling bishop, while Thomas Robinson contends that Ignatius drew on a structure that already existed and attempted to make it universally normative.¹¹¹ Regardless, diversity of ecclesiology reigned. This was certainly the case in Antioch where Ignatius lived. In an article detailing evidence from different Christian sources associated with Syria around the beginning of the second century, Christine Trevett outlines a variety of positions regarding ecclesiastical structure and the role of “spiritual gifts” (χαρίσματα). Not surprisingly, her analysis demonstrates that hierarchical ecclesiology was often in tension with notions of spiritual gifts.¹¹² Christians accustomed to the gift-based, more democratic model were in the habit of coming to the truth by vetting prophecy which was widely available. A standard practice was to place prophecies under scrutiny to determine whether they were legitimately inspired by divine sources.¹¹³

Seen against this context of vetting truth, Ignatius’ statements regarding the silence of the bishop are remarkable. The bishop carries cachet regardless of how his speech is; even when he says nothing at all he is authoritative. In this regard, Ignatius transforms the discourse surrounding speech: he redefines pneumatic speech as whatever the bishop says or does not say. Inspired speech is contained in the person of the bishop. It should not, indeed cannot, be vetted like normal prophesies, since the character of the speech, or non-speech, is irrelevant. So, what does pneumatic speech sound like according to Ignatius? It sounds like the bishop.

For Ignatius, episcopal authority is further bolstered by the fact that the bishop’s silence and speech echo the manifestation of the divine. Ignatius explains that God “revealed himself through Jesus Christ his son, who is his Word that came forth from silence.”¹¹⁴ Remarking on this passage, one commentator explains that for Ignatius, “silence is not an attribute of God; it is God himself.”¹¹⁵ When the bishop is silent, he reflects the silence of God; when the bishop speaks, he produces a word from silence, like Christ.¹¹⁶ Thus, the bishop co-opts both roles and should be revered as both the Father and the Son, as Ignatius declares multiple times.¹¹⁷ Embodying both the Son’s word and the Father’s silence, the bishop approaches perfection.¹¹⁸

As the arbiter of the divine sound continuum, the bishop wields the authority to direct the speech of others. According to Ignatius, a Christian is defined as someone who obeys the bishop.¹¹⁹ And Ignatius references his office as a bishop when he commands the Roman Christians to be “silent” so he can become a “word” at his martyrdom.¹²⁰ In their silence, Ignatius explains, he leads them in a chorus to the Father.¹²¹ Heeding the bishop renders them in tune with God’s harmony.

Significantly, this ability to participate in the heavenly choir cannot be achieved through the teachings of Ignatius’s opponents. While Ignatius utilizes the gift of prophecy to command Christians to heed the bishop, he exhorts them to cover their ears when they are exposed to heretical doctrines and to “be deaf” to these falsities.¹²² After all, while the bishop conveys truth through both speech and silence, these heretical teachers “speak vain babble.”¹²³

Conclusion

Diverse second- and third-century Christians shared the belief that they did not communicate with the divine using regular speech, but via different means. Sethians worshipped the “Alien God” with a light-infused speech that transcended the mundane realm of time. Likewise, Valentinian spirituality involved words and names that took place within the realm of smell. For both the Sethians and Valentinians, such foreign communication was not perceptible to those lacking a divine essence implanted in them. This spiritual sensorium—which transformed Sethians and Valentinians themselves into the sensory phenomena of light and scent—defined an in-group who could see or smell divine words. Ignatius, on the other hand, shoehorned divine speech into the office of the bishop. Whatever the bishop did or did not say represented the divine will. By attaching divine speech to the episcopal office, Ignatius changed the rules. Celestial speech was not something that could be adjudicated, but an aspect of episcopal authority.

While these descriptions of divine speech differed, resulting in diverse visions of Christian belief and practice, they did share commonalities. As Christians thought through the dynamics of a different type of speech, they broke down the process of language production. Each of the sources treated in this article is preoccupied by silence, which is the originary state from which language emerges according to Stoic language theory. By redefining the role of silence and the other mechanics of speech—such as placing it in the realm of vision or smell—they changed the nature of speech itself. As such, this foreign type of communication did not simply grant Christians typical skills associated with correct speech like rhetorical prowess, but allowed them to transform into divine sensory phenomena. Even Ignatius described those who heed the bishop as participating in the process of the bishop transitioning from a mere sound into a word. In this regard, Christian celestial speech was a much stronger means for reifying in-group boundaries than simple terrestrial speech. Rather than merely having the ability to speak correct Greek or Latin, those who perceived the celestial language—whether luminous, olfactory, or episcopal—became one and the same with the divine medium.