Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

CYNICISM AND CHRISTIANITY IN ANTIQUITY

Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity

Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé Translated by Christopher R. Smith

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 www.eerdmans.com © 2019 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Published 2019 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Originally published as Cynisme et christianisme dans l’Antiquité © Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 2015. http://ww.vrin.fr 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ISBN 978-0-8028-7555-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

CONTENTS

Foreword by John S. Kloppenborg

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Cynicism in the Hellenistic Era and under the Roman Empire

The History of the Movement

The Context of Its Birth

The First Generations of Cynics

Diogenes of Sinope

Crates of Thebes

Hipparchia of Maroneia

Menippus of Gadara

Bion, Cercidas, Teles

An Eclipse?

Under the Roman Empire

Demetrius 19 Demonax 20 Peregrinus Proteus

Oenomaus of Gadara

Maximus Hero of Alexandria

24 v

Contents

Salustius 26

The Cynicism of Diogenes

The Heritage of Antisthenes

The Name “Dog”

The Basis of the Cynic Movement

“Falsifying the Currency” or the Critique of Civilization

On the Sociopolitical Level

On the Religious Level

On the Literary Level

On the Philosophical Level

Cynic Asceticism, a “Shortcut to Virtue”

Cynic Happiness

Relationship with Others

Cynicism in the Imperial Era

Transmission and Reception

An Austere, Rigorous, Spartan Cynicism versus a Soft, Hedonistic, Aristippean Cynicism?

At the Beginning, Diogenes and Crates: Two Temperaments

Bion of Borysthenes and Adaptation to Circumstances

The “Softness” of Demonax and Dio Chrysostom

Witnesses to an Austere Asceticism under the Roman Empire 67 The Pseudepigraphal Letters

Cynicism as a School of Thought and as a Way of Life

A Literate Cynicism and a Popular Cynicism

Literate Cynicism

The Cynicism of the Disadvantaged Classes

Charlatan Cynics

The Literary Works of Literate Cynicism and Popular Cynicism

Cynicism and Pagan Religion under the Roman Empire vi

Contents

The Cynic Relationship to Power

The Complicated Relationship between Cynicism and Stoicism

An Embarrassing Heritage Stoics and Cynics under the Roman Empire

Conclusion

2. Contacts between Cynicism and Judaism from the Septuagint to the Talmud

95 100

106

108

How Strongly Hellenized Was the Jewish World in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras?

108

Attested Contacts between Cynicism and Judaism in Antiquity

115

The Septuagint (Third Century BCE)

115

Meleager of Gadara (Second/First Century BCE)

116

Philo of Alexandria (First Century CE)

118

Flavius Josephus (First Century CE)

121

Oenomaus of Gadara (Second Century CE)

122

The κυνικός in the Talmud

124

The City of Gadara and Its Central Role in the Relationship between Cynicism and Judaism

127

Literary Connections?

129

Conclusion

133

3. Cynicism and the Jesus Movement

134

Galilee in the Time of Jesus: “Greek Hypothesis” or “Aramaic Hypothesis”?

134

Are There Connections between the Gospel Source Q and Cynicism?

139 vii

Contents

Are There Literary Connections between Q, the Collections of Cynic Chreias, and the Hellenistic Cynic Bios? Q as a Collection of Isolated Sayings

141

Λόγοι σοφῶν

142

Q and the Cynic Chreia

143

A Hellenistic βίος κυνικός

146

A Lost Gospel with Cynic Wisdom Aphorisms

148

Conclusion about the Literary Genre of Q

151

Could Jesus and His Companions Have Been Cynics?

161

Gerd Theissen’s “Wanderradikalismus”

161

The “Cynic Hypothesis,” from F. Gerald Downing to the Jesus Seminar

163

John Dominic Crossan’s “Peasant Jewish Cynic”

165

Burton L. Mack’s “Lost Gospel”

166

Leif E. Vaage’s “Social Gadfly”

169

John S. Kloppenborg’s Clarification

174

Critical Reflections

176

The Advantages and Difficulties of the “Cynic Hypothesis”

177

The Problems with Bernhard Lang’s Position

185

The Case of Paul

4. The Relationship between Cynicism and Christianity under the Roman Empire Cynics and Christians Compared and Assimilated

189

197 197

By Pagans

197

By Christians

202

A Relationship of Mutual Opposition In Actual Fact

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140

203 203

The Martyrdom of Justin in 165

203

The Martyrdom of Apollo(nio)s Sakkeas in 180–185

206

A Cynic Persecuted by Christians in 359?

206

Contents Christians as Scapegoats in 362?

207

Were Cynics and Monks Rivals in Antioch in 387?

208

In Representations

209

The Christian Critique of Cynicism

209

Were These Severe Judgments Justified?

213

Ambivalent Attitudes

215

A Certain Admiration

215

Eusebius of Caesarea’s Appeal to Oenomaus of Gadara

218

The Sometimes-Ambivalent Attitude of Christians

219

Cynic and Christian at the Same Time The Troubling Case of Peregrinus Proteus

220 220

The Christian Phase and the Break with Christianity

221

Peregrinus’s Titles and Functions

223

The Value of Lucian’s Testimony to Life in the Christian Communities

230

Peregrinus: Christian and Cynic, Then Just a Cynic

231

The Cynic Christian Maximus Hero of Alexandria Cynicism and Monasticism

234 238

Conclusion

244

Bibliography

249

Index of Authors

263

Index of Scripture References

266

Index of Other Ancient Texts 268

FOREWORD

In tracing the genealogy of the Valentinian heresy, Tertullian offered a tour of Greek philosophers—Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, Heraclitus, and Aristotle—at the end of which he posed his famous question, quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? quid academiae et ecclesiae? What then does Athens have to do with Jerusalem, or the Academy with the Church? 1 Although Tertullian passed over Diogenes in silence, his verdict on the famous Cynic would doubtless not have been any different. Yet as Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé shows, the intersection of Christian thinking and Cynicism has had a very long and complex history. Tertullian would not have approved. Lucian of Samosata’s Perigrinus of Parium, a would-be Cynic philosopher, had been welcomed by a group of Christians in Palestine, had composed commentaries on their writings, and was elected as their president. And some later Christians even considered themselves to be Cynics. The engagement of the Jesus movement with Cynicism, or at least evidence of cynic-like thinking and practices, might have been even earlier. Gerd Theissen’s celebrated model of itinerant radicalism as the earliest form of the Jesus movement, even if it did not claim a genealogical relationship with Greco-Roman Cynicism, had obvious affinities with the kinds of social practices represented by Cynicism.2 Gerald Downing, an indefatigable advocate of the utility of comparison of the discourse of the Jesus movement with that of the likes of Diogenes of Sinope, Crates, Bion, and the later Roman Cynics, was able to adduce numerous possible contacts between Christ- 1. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 7. 2. Gerd Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978).

Foreword

followers and Cynics.3 From a methodological point of view, Downing’s work was important, since it moved well beyond the then-customary habit of locating early Christian thought almost exclusively in relation to Second Temple Judaism. Although Downing was sometimes tempted to make genealogical claims about influence, the more important advance was to think of the discursive field of the early Jesus movement as including not only Palestinian Judaism, viewed as an isolated island, but the entire intellectual heritage of the Eastern Mediterranean. The developments that attracted the most attention, however, were the claims of Burton L. Mack and Leif E. Vaage, that Q, one of the earliest literary artifacts of the Jesus movement, could be viewed meaningfully as cynic-like,4 and the even more provocative thesis of John Dominic Crossan that Jesus might be treated as a “peasant Jewish Cynic.”5 At least two dimensions of these hypotheses attracted criticism as well as praise. On the one hand, the advocates sometimes claimed that the Q folk and indeed Jesus himself lived in sufficiently close proximity to sites where Cynic philosophers were active— Tyre and Gadara—to know of such figures and to be influenced by them. On the other hand, even apart from the issue of genealogy and influence, one might nevertheless consider Jesus’s social posture as cynic-like insofar as he engaged in vocal criticism and burlesque of prevailing social practices. The reaction to the “Cynic hypothesis” is itself an interesting chapter of scholarship on Christian origins, since the vehemence with which the hypothesis was attacked verged on exorcism.6 It seems that a very deep nerve had been touched by the allegation that Jesus (or the Q folk) might have been up to something a little more countercultural than many in the guild were willing to countenance. Jesus might be a prophet, but he surely was not comparable to a Cynic! Or so the argument went. It is now almost twenty years since the height of the controversy over a Cynic Q or a Cynic Jesus, and perhaps it is time for a less fraught assessment 3. F. Gerald Downing, Christ and the Cynics: Jesus and Other Radical Preachers in First-Century Tradition, JSOT Manuals 4 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). 4. Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q & Christian Origins (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993); Leif E. Vaage, Galilean Upstarts: Jesus’ First Followers according to Q (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994). 5. John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1991). 6. See John S. Kloppenborg, “A Dog among the Pigeons: The ‘Cynic Hypothesis’ as a Theological Problem,” in From Quest to Quelle: Festschrift James M. Robinson, ed. Jon Asgeirsson, Kristin de Troyer, and Marvin W. Meyer, BETL 146 (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 73–117.

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Foreword

of the hypothesis. The signal importance of Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity is to bring to bear on the discussion of Cynicism and its possible impact on the early Jesus movement the expertise of Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, who has been a major contributor to scholarship on Cynicism in its various forms since the early 1980s. She is not only the author of an important commentary on Diogenes Laertius Book 6 and many articles on Cynicism, but she is also the coeditor of two authoritative anthologies of works on Cynicism, Le Cynisme ancien et ses prolongements, edited with Richard Goulet (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1993), and The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, edited with R. Bracht (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996). The translation of her 2014 Cynisme et christianisme dans l’antiquité (Paris: Libraire philosophique J. Vrin) now offers to English-speaking audiences not only a crisp and nuanced survey of Cynicism from its origins to its forms in the Roman Empire, but also a remarkably well-informed and critical engagement with scholarship on Q and the “Cynic hypothesis.” John S. Kloppenborg Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto

xiii

ABBREVIATIONS

AC ADPV ANRW

L’Antiquité classique Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2, Principat. Edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972– AR Archiv für Religionswissenschaft BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Bib Biblica BZ Biblische Zeitschrift CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca CCSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina CCTC Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries CErc Cronache Ercolanesi CJA Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CUF Collection des Universités de France CW Classical Weekly DPhA Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Vols. 1–7 and supplement. Edited by Richard Goulet. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 1989–2018 FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten (drei) Jahrhunderte GFA Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies HCS Hellenistic Culture and Society xv

Abbreviations

HTR HTS ID IG IGR IosPE

Harvard Theological Review Harvard Theological Studies Inscriptions de Délos Inscriptiones Graecae Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae IScM Inscriptiones Daciae et Scythiae minoris antiquae JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies JQR Jewish Quarterly Review JR Journal of Religion JS Journal des savants JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series LCL Loeb Classical Library LEC Les Études Classiques MdB Le Monde de la Bible MUSJ Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph (Beirut) NovT Novum Testamentum NovTSup Supplements to Novum Testamentum NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers NTAbh Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen NTS New Testament Studies OEANE The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. Edited by Eric M. Meyers. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997 OGIS Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Edited by Wilhelm Dittenberger. 2 vols. Leipzig: Herzel, 1903–1905 PG Patrologia Graeca PhA Philosophia Antiqua PW Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. New edition by Georg Wissowa and Wilhelm Kroll. 50 vols. in 84 parts. Stuttgart: Metzler and Druckenmüller, 1894–1980 RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Edited by Theodor Klauser et al. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1950– RB Revue biblique xvi

Abbreviations

RhM RHR RSPT RSR SAC SBLDS SBLSBS SBLTT SBS SC SEG SJ SVF TAPA TSK VC VCSup WUNT ZÄSA ZTK

Rheinisches Museum Revue de l’histoire des religions Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques Recherches de science religieuse Studies in Antiquity and Christianity Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Study Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Sources chrétiennes Supplementum epigraphicum graecum Studia Judaica Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Hans Friedrich August von Arnim. 4 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–1924 Transactions of the American Philological Association Theologische Studien und Kritiken Vigiliae Christianae Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

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INTRODUCTION

Many reasons warrant a study of the connection between Cynic philosophy and Christianity at its outset. Cynicism and Christianity promote similar ways of life founded on moral principles that appear, at first glance, to be identical in many respects, such as a concern for authenticity and for consistency between word and deed, and an indifference toward following social norms. Both movements promoted a form of asceticism based on poverty. Each in its own way sought to bring about a moral, rather than a political, revolution. And both claimed to have a universal message for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or social class. In the second century CE, Peregrinus Proteus claimed to be both a Cynic and a Christian at a certain point in his life. In the fourth century, Maximus Hero of Alexandria, though a Christian, similarly also identified himself as a Cynic. Since both held important positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in different periods, we may conclude that the early church had no objection to Christians practicing a certain form of Cynicism. Several of the church fathers express a genuine admiration for Diogenes, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil of Caesarea, and Jerome. So it should come as no surprise that a link between Cynicism and Christianity has long been envisioned, primarily on the basis of the witness of the church fathers. But this desire to connect the two movements took a giant step forward in the 1980s when the Jesus Seminar (founded by Robert W. Funk and John D. Crossan in California in 1985) formulated what is known today as the “Cynic Hypothesis,” according to which Jesus himself was a Cynic, in a somewhat simplified sense of the term. For some, the connection progressively became so evident that Bern hard Lang, in 2010, published in Munich a book titled Jesus der Hund: Leben

Introduction

und Lehre eines jüdischen Kynikers ( Jesus the Dog: The Life and Teaching of a Jewish Cynic).1 The hypothesis of a Cynical or at least Cynic-like Jesus, like any interpretive hypothesis, deserves to be examined carefully and impartially. But in order to appreciate whether the characterization of Jesus as a Cynic is legitimate, we must recall how Cynic philosophy defined and presented itself, according to its own followers. This is not a simple task, given that various philosophers identified themselves as Cynics over the course of nearly ten centuries. And so we need to take into account the sociohistorical changes that occurred over that period, most notably at the turning point from the Hellenistic era to the Roman Empire. We must find a way to discern what these Cynics, who came from very diverse backgrounds and had varying degrees of education, had in common that allowed all of them to consider themselves disciples of the “Dog.” Why would a Cynic never agree to be called a Stoic, and vice versa? But why, at the same time, was it possible under the Roman Empire to confuse Stoics with Cynics, and Christians with Cynics? Before we try to connect Jesus and his movement, as well as the church fathers, with Cynicism, we have to have an accurate understanding of this philosophy that is overall quite complex, even if its theoretical foundations are somewhat basic. The extent of its legacy is astonishing, suggesting that Cynicism does indeed contain some universal element that speaks to everybody. Diogenes was one of Montaigne’s favorite models. The Enlightenment philosophers, from Pierre Bayle to d’Alembert, from Wieland to Rousseau, from Voltaire to Diderot, were fascinated by this “Socrates gone mad” whom Plato spoke of. For his part, Nietzsche must have been strongly influenced by Diogenes, the “shameless buffoon,” the “scientific satyr,” from whom he borrowed his Umwertung aller Werthe, his “transvaluation of all values.” Cynicism also left traces within Christianity well after the monasticism of the early centuries. Its spirit reemerged especially in the mendicant orders such as the Franciscans, Capuchins, and Dominicans. In our own day, Emil Cioran, Michel Foucault, Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, and Peter Sloterdijk have all heard the call of Cynicism. But this universality can also lead to some confusion. That is why we must begin by defining and describing the Cynicism of Diogenes and the one of the imperial period as accurately as as possible. 1. Bernhard Lang, Jesus der Hund: Leben und Lehre eines jüdischen Kynikers (Munich: Beck, 2010).

Introduction

In a second part, this study will undertake to catalog all the witnesses found in the ancient literary tradition that suggest specific historical contacts between Cynicism and Judaism. Such a study is necessary not just because Cynicism exerted a real influence on writers such as Philo of Alexandria but also because its discrete presence can be detected within Judaism from the Septuagint to the Talmud. This study is equally indispensable for establishing whether it is imaginable that a young Galilean Jew like Jesus could have come into contact with Cynicism in one way or another.2 However, the key element of this investigation will be a study of any possible relationship between Cynicism and the Jesus movement, and then of the historically well-attested relationships between Cynicism and Christianity. Why do contemporary researchers, despite the absence of any historical testimony proving that Jesus might have ever even met any Cynics, want to turn him into a Cynic or assimilate him to Cynicism? How are we to evaluate the arguments that the adherents of this “Cynic Hypothesis” have developed? Finally, how are we to make sense of the astonishing diversity of attitudes among Christians, ranging from the bitterest criticism of Cynic behavior to sincere admiration of it, and of the way that some people belonged to both communities? Christian monks did not hesitate to wear the coarse garment (τρίβων) of the Cynics, and they practiced a radical asceticism themselves.

2. I have already sketched out the broad lines of this research in the article “Kynismus” in RAC 22:631–87, esp. 641–49.