Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul: A Reassessment of 1 Clement

DOI 10.1515/zac-2014-0004 ZAC 2013; 18(1): 34–53 David L. Eastman Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul: A Reassessment of 1 Clement Abstract: One of the great mysteries of early Christian history surrounds the ends of the lives of Peter and Paul. In this article, I will begin by summarizing the traditional view on the apostolic martyrdoms and Oscar Cullmann’s brief argument that internal strife, not imperial paranoia, may have led to the deaths of the apostles. By appealing to the broader literary context of 1 Clement, New Testament texts, Roman historical sources, and the apocryphal acts, I will then expand on and strengthen the thesis that the author of 1 Clement is communicating that internal disputes between Christians provoked imperial attention and eventually led to the deaths of Peter and Paul. The evidence from the text itself points strongly in that direction, although this is certainly a story that authors like Luke and Clement would not want to highlight, for it would directly undermine the desired image of Peter and Paul standing together as symbols of apostolic and ecclesiastical unity in Rome and elsewhere. David L. Eastman: Ohio Wesleyan University, Department of Religion – Phillips Hall 117E, 61 S. Sandusky St., Delaware, Ohio 43015, e-Mail: dleastma@owu.edu One of the great mysteries of early Christian history surrounds the ends of the lives of Peter and Paul. Although Luke has much to say in Acts about the lives and missions of these two apostles, he remains strangely silent when it comes to describing the locations and circumstances of their deaths. In the case of Paul the situation is particularly vexing, for Luke takes the reader all the way to Rome with Paul but then ends with the positive but abrupt outcome that Paul was able to preach unhindered. The stories of the apostles were picked up and completed later in some of the apocryphal acts, yet the earliest reference to their deaths by martyrdom is usually ascribed to 1 Clement, written probably at the end of the first century C.E. In an often-cited passage, the author1 states: 1 For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the author throughout as Clement; however, the text itself gives no indication of the identity of the author(s) of this letter. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 35 διὰ ζῆλον καὶ φθόνον οἱ μέγιστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι στῦλοι ἐδιώχθησαν καὶ ἕως θανάτου ἤλθησαν. λάβωμεν πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἡμῶν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἀποστόλους· Πέτρον, ὃς διὰ ζῆλον ἄδικον οὐχ ἕνα οὐδὲ δύο, ἀλλὰ πλείονας ὑπήνεγκεν πόνους καὶ οὕτω μαρτυρήσας ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον τόπον τῆς δοξῆς. διὰ ζῆλον καὶ ἔριν Παῦλος ὑπομονῆς βραβεῖον ἔδειξεν· ἑπτάκις δεσμὰ φορέσας, φυγαδευθείς, λιθασθείς, κῆρυξ γενόμενος ἔν τε τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἐν τῇ δύσει τὸ γενναῖον τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ κλέος ἔλαβεν· δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως ἐλθὼν καὶ μαρτυρήσας ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων, οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κόσμου καὶ εἰς τὸν ἅγιον τόπον ἐπορεύθη, ὑπομονῆς γενόμενος μέγιστος ὑπογραμμός.2 In my work on the cult of Paul,3 I spent considerable energy on this section of 1 Clement. The more I analyzed this passage, the more perplexed I became by the fact that the deaths of Peter and Paul were couched as occurring “out of jealousy.”4 What could that possibly mean? Who was jealous, and toward whom? And who were the agents and objects of this jealousy? The more I explored these questions, the more convinced I became that 1 Clement is not telling the traditional story of the apostles’ deaths. After I had begun constructing an argument along these lines, I discovered that in 1930 Oscar Cullmann had suggested that internal strife, not imperial paranoia, may have led to the deaths of the apostles. In this article, I will begin by summarizing the traditional view on the apostolic martyrdoms and Cullmann’s brief argument. By appealing to the broader literary context of 2 1 Clement 5,2−7 (SUC 1, 30,5−32,6 Fischer): “On account of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars were persecuted and fought to the death. Let us place before our eyes the noble apostles. Because of unjust jealousy Peter endured hardships, and not once or twice but many times. Thus, after bearing witness he went to the place of glory that was due him. On account of jealousy and conflict Paul pointed the way to the prize for perseverance. After he had been bound in chains seven times, driven into exile, stoned, and had preached in both the East and in the West, he received the noble glory for his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world and having gone even to the limit of the West. When he had borne witness before the rulers, he was thus set free from the world and was taken up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of perseverance.” All translations in this article are my own, if not indicated otherwise. The verb μαρτυρέω had not yet taken on the technical meaning of dying as a martyr, as shown by Boudewijn Dehandschutter, “Some Notes in 1 Clement 5,4−7,” in Fructus Centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J.M. Bartelink à l’occasion de son soixante-cinquième anniversaire (ed. Antoon A. Bastiaensen, Anthony Hilhorst, Corneille H. Kneepkens; Instrumenta Patristica 19; Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 83−89. 3 David L. Eastman, Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West (Writings from the Greco-Roman World, Supplement 4; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature/Leiden: Brill, 2011). 4 Three different Greek terms are used by Clement to explain the dynamic in question: ζῆλος, φθόνος, and ἔρις. Translating this passage is challenging, and the results can be misleading if we attempt to impose on the text the nuances and philosophical constructs of our own cultural context. An excellent study on this danger is David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), especially “Jealousy,” 219−243. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 36 David L. Eastman 1 Clement, New Testament texts, Roman historical sources, and the apocryphal acts, I will then expand on and strengthen the thesis that the author of 1 Clement is communicating that internal disputes between Christians provoked imperial attention and eventually led to the deaths of Peter and Paul. Traditions concerning the preaching and eventual deaths of Peter and Paul in Rome lie at the heart of the Roman church’s claims to ecclesiastical authority. From a scriptural perspective, Rome began its rise to ecclesiastical prominence at a distinct disadvantage, because its apostolic associations are limited. Yes, Paul wrote to the Romans, and Luke claims in Acts that Paul spent two years preaching in Rome, but that does not compare with cities like Jerusalem, Antioch, even Corinth, where both Pauline and Petrine traditions are attested in the canonical texts. Rome needed political capital, and that capital came in the form of claims that not one, but two of the apostles had died in Rome as martyrs. And these were not just any two apostles: Peter, the apostle to the Jews, and Paul, the apostle to the nations. In these two apostles, then, the entire Christian world was symbolically placed under Rome. Advocates of the Roman story point to 1 Clement as the earliest evidence that Peter and Paul died in Rome at the hands of Nero. However, this is the result of inferences and implicit dependence on later sources. 1 Clement does not actually tell us when or where Peter and Paul died. Rome may be the correction inference, so I am not necessarily arguing for a radical re-reading of 1 Clement. However, I am arguing for a closer reading of 1 Clement, because we need to be precise about what is actually in the text. The tradition of Roman martyrdom was not clearly articulated until the final decades of the second century in the Acts of Peter, the Acts of Paul, and authors like Irenaeus. By the turn of the third century—according to Papias—Rome claimed to have the apostolic “trophies” (τρόπαια), which most scholars agree were their tombs.5 Thereafter the numerous martyrdom accounts of Peter and Paul, of which we have more than a dozen, along with patristic commentators and historians, perpetuated the Roman story. Apart from a possible Philippian claim as the site of Paul’s death, as Helmut Koester and Allen Callahan have suggested,6 the Roman account has been unchallenged. Yet a careful reading of the various accounts 5 Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 2,25,7 (GCS Eusebius 2,1, 178,3−6 Schwartz/Mommsen/Winkelmann). See also Eastman, Paul the Martyr (see note 3), 21−24. 6 Helmut Koester, “Paul and Philippi: The Evidence from Early Christian Literature,” in Philippi at the Time of Paul and after His Death (ed. Charalambos Bakirtzis and Helmut Koester; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), (49−65) 63−65; Allen D. Callahan, “Dead Paul: The Apostle as Martyr in Philippi,” in Bakirtzis and Koester, Philippi at the Time of Paul (see above), (67−84) 77−80. Callahan refers specifically to the fact that the author of 1 Clement fails to identify Rome Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 37 quickly reveals that even if every author seemed to agree that Peter and Paul died in Rome, beyond that there was great variety. Did Peter die alone, as in the Acts of Peter, after a conflict with Simon Magus involving a talking dog and a rejuvenated herring, but where his death sentence was actually the result of the fact that his teaching led aristocratic wives to refuse to have sex with their husbands? Did Paul die alone, as in the Acts of Paul, because he raised one of Nero’s servants from the dead and gathered unwanted attention as the servant of another king, Jesus? Or, as other texts claim, did Peter and Paul die together in Rome because they struck down Simon Magus, Nero’s favorite sorcerer? And did they therefore die on the exact same day, as Jerome, Maximus of Turin, and probably Dionysius of Corinth suggest?7 Or did they die on the same date but a year apart, as Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, Prudentius, Gregory of Tours, and Arator all claim?8 And where did Paul die, on the Ostian Road or at the Three Fountains on the Laurentinian Road?9 And were they buried together or apart? And were these burials on the Ostian Road and the Vatican hill, or were they on the Appian Road?10 And was Paul’s head buried with his body, or was it found later by a shepherd and reattached to his body? And when did the apostles die? Did they die in the year 64, 68, 69, or 57? I raise all these questions to illustrate the point that although Rome was considered the place of the martyrdoms, there was still significant variety as to the circumstances and causes of these martyrdoms, even among texts seemingly of Roman provenance. There was no single Roman story about the deaths of Peter and Paul.11 as the location of Paul’s death, calling this “a curious silence on the part of a Roman Christian writing no more than a generation after the apostle’s death” (citation at 77). 7 Jerome, De viris illustribus 5 (ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Gerolamo: Gli Uomini Illustri [Biblioteca Patristica 12; Firenze: Nardini Editore, 1988], 80−86); Jerome, Tractatus in psalmos 96,10 (CSEL 78, 445,179−181 Morin); Maximus of Turin, Sermones 1,2 (CChr.SL 23, 2,30 Mutzenbecher); 2,1 (6,1−30 M.); 9,2 (32,44 M.); Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 2,25,8 (179,10−14 S./M./W.). The ascription of this same idea to Damasus of Rome is spurious, as shown by Cuthbert H. Turner, ed., Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima, Vol. 1,1,2 (Oxford: Clarendon: 1804), 157, 245−246. 8 Ambrose of Milan, De virginitate 19,124 (PL 16:299 A-B); Augustine, Sermones 295,7 (PL 38:1352); 381,1 (PL 39:1683); Prudentius, De coronis martyrum 12,5,21−22 (CChr.SL 126, 379 Cunningham); Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum 28 (MGH Gregorii Turonensis Opera 1,2, 54,17−18 Krusch); Arator, De actibus apostolorum 2,1247−1249 (CSEL 72, 149 McKinlay). 9 On this debate see Eastman, Paul the Martyr (see note 3), 62−69. 10 Eastman, Paul the Martyr (see note 3), 94−114. 11 The project that I am currently completing will provide translations and notes for the various martyrdom accounts and will explore the divergences in the tradition mentioned in this list: Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 38 David L. Eastman To summarize, then, it may be reasonable to infer from 1 Clement that Peter and Paul died in Rome, but this claim is made explicit only in later traditions—and among these traditions there are different renditions of why, where, and when the apostles died, and of what happened to their bodies after their deaths. Cullmann observed that 1 Clement may have more information to yield on the circumstances of the deaths of Peter and Paul. He first articulates this in his 1930 article “Les causes de la mort de Pierre et de Paul d’après le témoignage de Clément Romain” and then restates it in an expanded form in Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr.12 Cullmann summarizes 1 Clement 3−6 as “La jalousie engendre le malheur” (1930) and “Concerning the Results of Jealousy” (1962). As he notes, each of the examples given by the author of 1 Clement is introduced by a reference to jealousy using the terms ζῆλος, φθόνος, and ἔρις. Cullmann is careful to argue: 1) that all of these words denote jealousy, not hatred,13 and 2) that all these terms presuppose discord among members of the same community.14 Because the deaths of Peter and Paul also result from this same jealousy, “This in the context of our letter can only mean that they were victims of jealousy from persons who counted themselves members of the Christian Church [his emphasis].”15 Cullmann goes on to clarify that he is not implying that Christians did the actual killing, but that Roman authorities may have had to intervene in disputes among Roman Christians, and even may have done so as a result of some Christians informing on others. The Christians in Rome, Cullmann postulates, were actually too weak to earn the attention of the Roman authorities and provoke jealousy from them, but they may have posed a perceived threat to the peace if they were having internal turmoil. This possibility is actually mentioned in 1 Clement with reference to the Corinthian situation at the time the letter was written. This community had a long tradition of internal division, and the author reminds them of Paul’s letter to them: ἐπ’ ἀληθείας πνευματικῶς ἐπέστειλεν ὑμῖν περὶ ἑαυτοῦ τε καὶ Κηφᾶ τε καὶ ’Απολλώ, διὰ τὸ καὶ τότε προσκλίσεις ὑμᾶς πεποιῆσθαι.16 In their current circumstance, the David L. Eastman, The Deaths of the Apostles: Ancient Accounts of the Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul (Writings from the Greco-Roman World; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming). 12 Oscar Cullmann, “Les causes de la mort de Pierre et de Paul d’après le témoignage de Clément Romain,” Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 10 (1930): 294−300; idem, Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr: A Historical and Theological Study (2d ed.; transl. Floyd V. Filson; London: SCM, 1962), 91−110. 13 Cullmann, “Les causes” (see note 12), 295−296; idem, Peter (see note 12), 100−101. 14 Cullmann, “Les causes” (see note 12), 296−300; idem, Peter (see note 12), 102−110. 15 Cullmann, Peter (see note 12), 102. 16 1 Clement 47,3 (84,6−8 F.): “In truth he wrote to you in a spiritual sense about himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even then you had formed factions.” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 39 author warns, they have created danger for themselves by their dispute—ἑαυτοῖς δὲ κίνδυνον ἐπεξεργάζεσθαι.17 The implication for Cullmann is that Clement fears that there could be bloodshed in Corinth, as there was in Rome, if Roman authorities have to insert themselves into an intramural Christian dispute. Cullmann argues that his theory about 1 Clement also helps us interpret several other New Testament texts. (1) In a letter to the Corinthians themselves, Paul had listed his many trials, including κινδύνοις ἐν ψευδαδέλφοις.18 Cullmann mentions this example only in passing, but I would build upon this to highlight that the apostle compares these “false brothers” to dangers to his very life, such as being beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and attacked by robbers.19 Perhaps Paul understood that internal strife could be lethal, because it nearly had been for him already on more than one occasion. (2) Cullmann suggests that if Christian disputes had led to the deaths of Peter and Paul, then this would explain the silence at the end of Acts. Luke is certainly not going to end a work on the expansion of the early church, with Peter and Paul as the two pillars of that expansion, with the story of how internal disputes provoked their deaths: “les événements qui se produisirent alors n’étaient pas dignes d’être mentionnés dans un écrit qui visait à prouver l’unité de l’Église chrétienne.”20 (3) Cullmann points out that in Phil 1:15−18 Paul writes—perhaps from prison in Rome21—about those who preach διὰ φθόνον καὶ ἔριν, two of the terms in 1 Clement. Cullmann reads the objects of Paul’s polemic as Jewish-Christians, the “dogs” against whom the apostle rails in Phil 3:1−7.22 They are not outsiders but are scandalizing the community of Jesus followers from within, and Cullmann suggests that a similar dynamic could have been at work in the deaths of the apostles. (4) Paul’s letter to the Romans as a whole, 17 1 Clement 47,7 (84,17−18 F.). 18 2 Cor 11:26: “dangers among false brothers.” See Cullmann, Peter (see note 12), 103. 19 He opens the list by specifying in 2 Cor 11:23 that he had been ἐν θανάτοις πολλάκις (“often near death”). 20 Cullmann, “Les causes” (see note 12), 298: “The events that occurred were not worthy to be mentioned in a writing that was meant to prove the unity of the Christian church.” See idem, Peter (see note 12), 104. 21 Scholarly opinion on the provenance of this letter remains quite divided, with some favoring Ephesus, Caesarea Maritima, or Corinth against the traditional view placing it in Rome. For a summary of the positions with select bibliography, see John Reumann, Philippians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible 33B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 13−15. 22 Cullmann, Peter (see note 12), 105−106. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 40 David L. Eastman in Cullmann’s view, suggests significant friction between Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian factions.23 Moreover, Cullmann points to Tacitus’ account of the persecution of Christians after the fire in Rome and the manner in which this persecution spread: Igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt.24 The initial arrests were of those who confessed to being Christians, but based on their information (indicio eorum) the net grew wider to include a “great multitude” (multitudo ingens). In other words, those who were first arrested informed on other Christians, who were arrested and convicted as a result. Cullmann speculates that Peter and Paul may have died as a result of this very series of events during the reign of Nero.25 Cullmann’s work has received less scholarly attention than it deserves, and the primary response has been a critique by Harry Tajra in his book on Paul’s martyrdom.26 Tajra’s work as a whole suffers from its overtly apologetic tone, and in this case the author argues that the jealousy of 1 Clement should read as the jealousy of the Jewish community in Rome—“official Judaism,” as he calls it—resulting from the success of Paul and Peter’s mission in the city. Cullmann, Tajra asserts, “is inexplicably silent on the jealousy and envy which the Roman Jewish leadership certainly entertained with regards to Paul and his mission. This jealousy and envy sprang from the very success of the Pauline mission, a success which quite seriously threatened the organized Jewish community, its hierarchy and its vested interests.”27 Tajra attempts to bolster his case by alleging a generally negative view of the Ioudaioi in Acts, and then by citing Tertullian’s statement that 23 Cullmann, Peter (see note 12), 106−107. These tensions are certainly discernible in the text, but Cullmann goes beyond the evidence in stating, “Even Peter, who as the responsible organizer of the Jewish Christian mission had come at this time to the capital city, perhaps for the very purpose of removing internal difficulties, was apparently singled out for attack and was deserted by some of his own group. . . . Now he was made the object of unusually strong hostility by the extremists of the Jewish Christian party.” We actually have no idea who founded the Roman church, and stories about Peter’s presence in the city and conflicts with other Jewish Christians in Rome are the products of later traditions. Thus, Cullmann’s general observations about Romans are more accurate than the scenario he constructs to explain them. 24 Tacitus, Annales 15,44 (SCBO, n.p., 15−18 Fisher): “Therefore, at first those who confessed were arrested. Then based on their testimony, a great multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of the fire as for hatred of the human race.” 25 Cullmann, Peter (see note 12), 107−108. 26 Harry W. Tajra, The Martyrdom of St. Paul: Historical and Judicial Context, Traditions, and Legends (WUNT II 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 79−84. 27 Tajra, The Martyrdom of St. Paul (see note 26), 82. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 41 the synagogues of the Jews were the fonts of persecutions and Commodian’s thirdcentury charge that the Jewish leadership sparked the Neronian persecution.28 Tajra’s critique of Cullmann rests most heavily on his assumption that Jewish leaders in Rome “certainly entertained” animosity toward Paul and his mission. But the sources do not support this assumption. Luke’s account in Acts 28:17−28, if anything, contradicts Tajra’s presupposition. When Paul is in Rome, leaders from the Jewish community report that they had received no letters or heard anything negative about him, so they have nothing against him. Their subsequent interaction with the apostle may have led to more of a rift among the Jews themselves than it did between Paul and the Jewish leaders,29 because there is no indication of anger directed at Paul or that certain Jewish leaders then attempted to inhibit Paul’s unhindered (ἀκωλύτως) preaching. Luke is quite comfortable elsewhere in Acts recounting negative reactions by the Jews to the preaching of Peter and Paul, so there is no reason why he would suppress such a reaction here if it had occurred. Yet even if we grant that some Jewish leaders were against Paul, it is still unlikely that they would have had much influence in the city. The apparent deportation, or at least suppression, of the Jewish populace resulting from the edict of Claudius in 41 or 49 C.E., as recorded by Suetonius and Dio Cassius,30 significantly weakened the Jewish presence in the city. The lifting of the ban probably allowed something of a Jewish resurgence, but this is a far cry from Tajra’s bold suggestion: “The Jews at Rome formed a politically powerful unit. The community was large and influential, and its leadership had always maintained good relations with and direct access to the successive caesars.”31 The situation presented by Suetonius and Dio Cassius—and Acts if we assume Luke is referring to the same event—simply does not support Tajra’s proposal that the Jewish leaders were both organized enough to resist Paul and influential enough to provoke an imperial response. 28 Tertullian, Scorpiace 10,10 (CSEL 20, 168,12−15 Reifferscheid/Wissowa); Commodian, Carmen apologeticum 845−859 (CChr.SL 128, 104 Martin). 29 The seemingly later interpolation at Acts 28:29 would only strengthen this case. 30 Suetonius, Vita divi Claudii 25,4 (BSGRT, 209,7−8 Ihm); Dio Cassius, Historiae romanae 60,6,6 (ed. Ursulus P. Boissevain, Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiarum Romanarum quae supersunt 2 [Berlin: Weidmann, 1955], 669,16−19); and perhaps Acts 18:1−2. Most scholars favor the 49 C.E. date. I will return below to these important passages in Suetonius and Dio. The fifth-century Christian author Orosius also mentions this event and claims that his source is Josephus, but the latter makes no mention of this in his known works. See David L. Eastman, “Paul: An Outline of His Life,” in All Things to All Cultures: Paul among Jews, Greeks and Romans (ed. Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 34−56. 31 Tajra, The Martyrdom of St. Paul (see note 26), 83. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 42 David L. Eastman Tajra’s citation of Tertullian is equally problematic. He lifts this single phrase out of its context and insinuates, “Tertullian wrote that all the persecution suffered hitherto by the Christians was prepared in the synagogue.”32 In fact, at this point in the text Tertullian is engaging an imagined, heretical interlocutor: Illic constitues et synagogas Iudaeorum, fontes persecutionum, apud quas apostoli flagella perpessi sunt, et populos nationum cum suo quidem circo, ubi facile conclamant: usque quo genus tertium?33 There are two sources of potential persecution, synagogues and the arena. The reference to “their circus” may refer specifically to the Roman Circus, but Tertullian appeals to it as a famous symbol of imperial persecution. He makes no mention of the martyrdom of the apostles, and there is no reason to conclude that the synagogues in question must also be in Rome. As for persecution in synagogues, Luke recounts such events at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:45−50, where the Jews were aroused by ζῆλος), and Iconium (Acts 14:1−7).34 Tertullian is likely extrapolating from these examples to assert that synagogues had been dangerous places for the apostles. However, there is no reason to conclude, as Tajra does, that Tertullian’s passing reference to synagogues is providing historical details about the death of, in this case, Paul. Commodian does place the blame for Nero’s persecution of Christians at the feet of the Jews: Exorant Neronem precibus et donis iniquis.35 However, Commodian’s text is dated to around 250, so he is certainly pulling some details from earlier martyrdom accounts. We might imagine that the Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul would be among these, yet the poet’s only seeming reference to the apostles does not follow either of these narratives: Rapit ab oriente prophetas . . . immolat hos primum,36 before proceeding to kill a total of some 7000. Commodian seems to know little beyond a general story about the apostles dying under Nero and a stereotypical charge that the Iudaei had somehow been involved. This is far from conclusive evidence. Thus, Tajra is on very shaky ground in using Commodian to counter Cullmann’s reading of the textual evidence of 1 Clement. 32 Tajra, The Martyrdom of St. Paul (see note 26), 82. 33 Tertullian, Scorpiace 10,10 (168,12−15 R./W.): “Will you establish both synagogues of the Jews, which were fonts of persecutions and in which the apostles suffered scourging, and throngs of unbelievers in their circus, where they readily cry out, ‘Death to the third race’?” 34 A crowd stirred up by Jews from these two cities later stoned Paul at Lystra (Acts 14:19), but it is unclear if this mob was connected to a synagogue. 35 Commodian, Carmen apologeticum 845 (104 M.): “They persuaded Nero with costly and improper gifts.” 36 Commodian, Carmen apologeticum 849−851 (104 M.): “He seized the prophets from the East. . . . He killed these men first.” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 43 Tajra’s critiques of Cullmann are not convincing, but they did prompt my reconsideration of Cullmann’s suggestion. This inquiry led me to discover further evidence in favor of the argument that internal dissent may have contributed to the deaths of Peter and Paul, at least according to the author of 1 Clement. A more thorough treatment of the broader literary context of the Peter and Paul passage in 1 Clement confirms the trajectory of Cullmann’s proposal. The internal division of the Corinthian community is the presenting issue for 1 Clement, so the most effective arguments from a rhetorical perspective will center on other examples of the calamities that result from internal problems, not external persecutions. Indeed, this is exactly what the author provides in the list leading up to Peter and Paul. First, the author repeats the story of Cain and Abel from Gen 4:3−8, ending at the death of Abel and not including God’s question to Cain about what had happened to his brother. He then adds, ὁρᾶτε, ἀδελφοί, ζηλο͂ς καὶ φθόνος ἀδελφοκτονίαν κατειργάσατο.37 Second is the story of Jacob and Esau from Gen 27:1−45, in which Jacob steals his brother’s birthright and has to flee for his life: διὰ ζῆλος ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν Ἰακὼβ ἀπέδρα ἀπὸ προσώπου Ἠσαῦ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ.38 Third is the story of Joseph, who was thrown into a pit and then sold to some passing Midianites by his brothers in Gen 37:1−28: ζῆλος ἐποίησεν Ἰωσὴφ μέχρι θανάτου διωχθῆναι καὶ μέχρι δουλείας εἰσελθεῖν.39 These first three examples all specifically involve brothers turning against their own brothers,40 revealing the disastrous effects of jealousy within the same family. Moses is the focus of the next triad of examples. The first of these is taken from Exod 2:11−15 and is the story of Moses’ departure from Egypt after killing an Egyptian that was beating an Israelite slave: ζῆλος φυγεῖν ἠνάγκασεν Μωϋσῆν ἀπὸ προσώπου Φαραὼ βασιλέως Αἰγύπτου ἐν τῷ ἀκοῦσαι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὁμοφύλου· τίς σε κατέστησεν κριτὴν ἢ δικαστὴν ἐφ’ ἡμῶν; μὴ ἀνελεῖν μέ συ θέλεις, ὃν τρόπον ἀνεῖλες ἐχθὲς τὸν Αἰγύπτιον;41 37 1 Clement 4,7 (28,18−19 F.): “You see, brothers, that jealousy and envy brought about fratricide.” 38 1 Clement 4,8 (28,19−20 F.): “Because of jealousy our father Jacob fled from the presence of his brother Esau.” 39 1 Clement 4,9 (28,20−21 F.): “Jealousy caused Joseph to be persecuted nearly to death and to go into slavery.” 40 Cullmann notes this fraternal element in passing in idem, Peter (see note 12), 101. 41 1 Clement 4,10 (28,22−25 F.): “Jealousy forced Moses to flee from the presence of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, when he heard from his kinsman, ‘Who established you as a judge or ruler over us? Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 44 David L. Eastman In Clement’s retelling Moses is the object of jealousy not from Pharaoh, but from his fellow Israelite, his ὁμόφυλος, who challenges Moses with this question because he rejects his authority. Next is another story in which Moses is the object of jealousy: διὰ ζῆλος Ἀαρὼν καὶ Μαριὰμ ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς ηὐλίσθησαν.42 This is a reference to Num 12:1−15, where Aaron and Miriam slander their brother Moses, because he had married a Cushite woman. They go on to claim that they possess as much divine authority as Moses does. God calls the three of them outside the camp to the tent of meeting and chastises Aaron and Miriam. Miriam is struck leprous and forced to stay outside the camp for seven days, while Aaron’s appeal for mercy from God, repeated by Moses, goes unheeded. Thus, this reference in 1 Clement is not completely accurate to the biblical text, yet the rhetorical point remains the same. The story of Aaron and Miriam provides yet another example of family schism caused by jealousy.43 The unfortunate Moses is also the object of jealousy in the sixth example in the series, taken from Num 16:1−33: ζῆλος Δαθὰν καὶ Ἀβειρὼν ζῶντας κατήγαγεν εἰς ᾅδου διὰ τὸ στασιάσαι αὐτοὺς πρὸς τὸν θεράποντα τοῦ θεοῦ Μωϋσῆν.44 Dathan and Abiram were only two among a large group of leaders that led a rebellion against Moses and his claim to have special authority from God.45 After they refused to recant and recognize Moses, the earth opened up and swallowed them and their households. This judgment from God was provoked by jealousy within the camp of God’s people. The seventh and final example from the Hebrew scriptures is David, who was envied more than once: διὰ ζῆλος Δαυὶδ φθόνον ἔσχεν οὐ μόνον ὑπὸ τῶν 42 1 Clement 4,11 (28,25−26 F.): “Because of jealousy Aaron and Miriam lived outside the camp.” 43 Herbert L. Kessler has argued that the fresco cycle in the old Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls rehabilitated the story of Moses and Aaron to highlight fraternal harmony that was a model for the concordia apostolorum between Peter and Paul. See Herbert L. Kessler, “The Meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome: An Emblematic Narrative of Spiritual Brotherhood,” in Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (ed. William Tronzo and Irving Lavin; Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987), (265−275) 268−272. 44 1 Clement 4,12 (28,26−30,1 F.): “Jealousy brought Dathan and Abiram down into Hades alive, because they rebelled against the servant of God, Moses.” 45 According to Num 16:1, Korah was the primary instigator of this revolt, and Dathan and Abiram were among his close associates, along with a fourth collaborator named On. However, in Deut 11:6 and Ps 106:16−18, only Dathan and Abiram are mentioned, and some scholars theorize that the mention of Korah in Num 16 may be a later interpolation. In any event, the author of 1 Clement refers only to Dathan and Abiram, as does his near contemporary Josephus, cf. Antiquitates Judaicae 4,35−58 (ed. Benedictus Niese, Flavii Josephi Opera 1 [2d ed.; Berlin: Weidmann, 1955], 230,10−235,11). Philo does not cite any specific names in De vita Moysis 2,275−287 (ed. Roger Arnaldez et al., Les œuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 22: De Vita Mosis I−II [Paris: Cerf, 1967], 314−318). Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 45 ἀλλοφύλων, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπὸ Σαοὺλ βασιλέως Ἰσραὴλ ἐδιώχθη.46 It is not clear what the author has in mind when he writes that David was envied by foreigners, but the allusion to Saul comes from passages like 1 Sam 18:5−11. After the defeat of Goliath, the women of Israel meet Saul with a song that honors him as the killer of thousands, but David as the killer of tens of thousands. Saul becomes angry and suspicious of David from that day onward and tries to kill him on multiple occasions. The author interprets this as jealousy. In this series of seven examples from the Hebrew Bible, then, there are four instances of conflict within families and three of conflict within the Israelite community. All are examples of intramural disputes. They all also share a particular characteristic that I would argue leads the author of this text to call them jealousy: In every example one party is the recipient of special favor or claims special authority and therefore becomes the object of jealousy. The other parties—the jealous ones—see this favoritism as unfair and unwarranted, whether it comes from God or from other family members. The author, therefore, seems to have something very specific in mind when he lists these as disastrous examples of jealousy. In this regard the author reflects a definition that goes back to Greek philosophy and resonates in a particular way with the writings of Aristotle.47 In his Ars rhetorica Aristotle describes a number of circumstances that may provoke jealousy, noting that the good fortune of those most like us is often the cause: φθονήσουσι μὲν γὰρ οἱ τοιοῦτοι οἷς εἰσὶ τινες ὅμοιοι ἢ φαίνουνται· ὁμοίους δὲ λέγω κατὰ γένος, κατὰ συγγένειαν, καθ’ ἡλικίας, κατὰ ἕξεις, κατὰ δόξαν, κατὰ τὰ 46 1 Clement 4,13 (30,1−2 F.): “Because of jealousy not only was David the target of envy from foreigners, but he was also persecuted by Saul, the king of Israel.” 47 Aristotle was not the first philosopher to address the subject. Suzanne Saïd has shown that Isocrates, for example, argued that φθόνος and ζῆλος were opposites, the former being an emotion of lower-minded people, and the latter being a source of striving for self-improvement among the more noble. See “Envy and Emulation in Isocrates,” in Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece (ed. David Konstan and Keith Rutter; Edinburgh Leventis Studies 2; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 217−234. In a departure from this classical distinction, the author of 1 Clement uses these terms interchangeably. In this same volume Christopher Gill argues that while Aristotle saw the “rivalrous” emotions as potentially either positive or negative, Plato, Epicurus, and the Stoics saw them as necessarily defective (“Is Rivalry a Virtue or a Vice?,” in Konstan and Rutter, Envy, Spite and Jealousy [see above], 29−51). Fritz-Gregor Herrmann follows with a chapter that seems to support Gill’s broad summary of Plato, for he argues that in the Timaeus Plato proposes that any truly good being, such as the Demiurge, would be completely devoid of φθόνος and would display only generosity (“φθόνος in the World of Plato’s Timaeus,” in Konstan and Rutter, Envy, Spite and Jealousy [see above], 53−83). Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 46 David L. Eastman ὑπάρχοντα.48 He later restates this same principle and its impact on envy among close relations: φανερὸν δὲ καὶ οἷς φθονοῦσιν· ἅμα γὰρ εἴρηται· τοῖς γὰρ ἐγγὺς καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ τόπῳ καὶ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ δόξῃ φθονοῦσιν· ὅθεν εἴρηται τὸ συγγενὲς γὰρ καὶ φθονεῖν ἐπίσταται.49 Aristotle therefore restates his emphasis on the familiar, even familial, ties that bind the envier and the envied. He also suggests that feelings of desire and entitlement can intensify jealous responses, for social equals or family members may believe that they should all enjoy similar honors and wealth. Plutarch, writing close to the time of 1 Clement, reiterates Aristotle’s notion that envy very often occurs among close relations: πολλοὺς γὰρ οἱ φθονοῦντες τῶν συνήθων καὶ οἰκείων ἀπολέσθαι μὲν οὐκ ἂν ἐθέλοιεν οὐδὲ δυστυχῆσαι, βαρύνονται δ’ εὐτυχοῦντας· καὶ κολούουσι μὲν, εἰ δύνανται, τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν καὶ λαμπρότητα, συμφορὰς δ’ ἀνηκέστους οὐχ ἂν προσβάλοιεν· ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ οἰκίας ὑπερεχούσης τὸ ἐπισκοτοῦν αὐτοῖς καθελόντες ἀρκοῦνται.50 The envious typically do not want any real harm to come to the objects of their envy; they simply want to receive the same honor and recognition as those they consider their equals. Plutarch does not rule out, however, that such harm can and does occur, for envy is the basest of all human passions.51 The author of 1 Clement certainly shares this perspective, for the examples under discussion follow the Aristotelian model closely. Jealousy between family members and/or members of the same community is present in all cases.52 Thus, the author is particularly concerned with the devastating effects of internal divisions that result from jealousy, and indeed the very point of the letter is to 48 Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 2,10 (SCBO, 97,25−28 Ross): “Such people will feel jealousy toward those who are like them, or seem to be like them. And when I say ‘like them’ I mean according to birth, according to kinship, according to age, according to moral habit, according to reputation, and according to possessions.” 49 Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 2,10 (SCBO, 97,5−8 R.): “It is clear whom they envy, as it was already said, for they envy those who are near in time and place and age and reputation. Thus it is said, ‘For even kinship knows how to be jealous.’ ” 50 Plutarch, De invidia et odio 8 (BSGRT Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia 3, 393,13−19 Bernardakis): “For the envious would not want many of their acquaintances or family members to be destroyed or suffer misfortunes, even though they are grieved by their good fortunes. If they can, they do undercut their glory and fame, yet they would not afflict them with irreparable harms. But just as if a house were towering above their own, they are content to tear down the part that overshadows them.” 51 Plutarch, De invidia et odio 5−8 (390,2−393,19 B.) 52 Social equality is also a dynamic, for even the nameless Israelite who challenges Moses in Exod 2:14 does so because he rejects Moses’ apparent feelings of superiority. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 47 address the divisions present within the Corinthian church at that time. It must be noted that these effects could include the death of one of the parties involved, for in six of the seven examples, death or the threat of death is a central element of the story. The lone exception is the case of Aaron and Miriam, yet even there Miriam is described as appearing like a dead person because she is leprous.53 We must keep these emphases on internal division and death in mind when we return to the passage on Peter and Paul, for the author identifies the fates of the apostles as recent cases of the same dynamic illustrated by these narratives from the Hebrew Bible. The author of 1 Clement then shifts the attention at 5:1 from past exemplars to more recent ones: Ἀλλ’ ἵνα τῶν ἀρχαίων ὑποδειγμάτων παυσώμεθα, ἔλθωμεν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἔγγιστα γενομένους ἀθλητάς· λάβωμεν τῆς γενεᾶς ἡμῶν τὰ γενναῖα ὐποδείγματα. διὰ ζῆλον καὶ φθόνον οἱ μέγιστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι στῦλοι ἐδιώχθησαν καὶ ἕως θανάτου ἤθλησαν. λάβωμεν πρὸ ὀφθαλῶν ἡμῶν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἀποστόλους.54 Clement assumes a clear thematic parallel between the ancient examples and the recent ones, with jealousy as the overarching theme. But is the kind of jealousy seen in the ancient examples attested anywhere in relation to the apostles? Are Peter and Paul ever challenged by those within their community who question the apostles’ claims to special privilege or authority? In the case of Paul, at least, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Cullmann correctly points to relevant passages in Philippians, as we have seen, but this is no isolated case. In Galatians Paul immediately goes on the offensive against those questioning him, for he claims his apostleship not on human but divine authority. He introduces himself in the greeting as Παῦλος ἀπόστολος οὐκ ἀπ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι’ ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ Θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν.55 After berating the Galatians for abandoning the gospel that he had preached to them, he reiterates, γνωρίζω γάρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ 53 Num 12:12. 54 1 Clement 5,1−3 (30,3−7 F.): “But so that we may cease with the ancient examples, let us come to the athletes who are nearest to us, and let us take up the examples from our time. Because of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars were persecuted and fought to the death. Let us place before our eyes the noble apostles.” 55 Gal 1:1: “Paul, an apostle not from human authority nor through a human source [literally, “not from men nor through a man”], but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 48 David L. Eastman παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτὸ οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.56 Paul then recounts the story of his vision on the road to Damascus and restates that the source of his authority is Jesus himself. The problem for Paul is that other preachers have come and taught something different, yet he cautions the Galatians against listening to them: ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εὐαγγελίζηται ὑμῖν παρ’ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα ὑμῖν, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. ὡς προειρήκαμεν καὶ ἄρτι πάλιν λέγω· εἴ τις ὑμᾶς εὐαγγελίζεται παρ’ ὃ παρελάβετε, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω.57 Paul’s hyperbolic warning suggests that his rivals must have been perceived as people of significant stature, even equaling that of Paul himself. He never names them specifically, but they probably came from Jerusalem, for circumcision is a major issue in the letter, and Paul goes out of his way to specify that he is in no way dependent on the Jerusalem leaders for his gospel. Indeed, even when he goes to Jerusalem to present his gospel to those who were supposed to have some kind of authority, they do not impress him and add nothing to what he had to say. James and Peter simply approve his message and glorify God because of him.58 Later, when Peter undermines Paul’s message through his actions in Antioch, Paul opposes him to his face and rebukes him, thus demonstrating his at least equality, if not superiority, to one of the apostles from Jerusalem.59 The situation in the Galatian churches is clear: other prominent teachers have openly challenged Paul’s authority, seeing themselves as his equals or better. The term φθόνος is not used by Paul in Galatians, but this is the very dynamic being implied in 1 Clement. To Galatians we may add challenges to Paul’s authority reflected in 1 Cor 9:1−12, 2 Cor 10−12, 1 Thess 2, and implicitly in Rom 1:1−5. Thus, five of the seven undisputed epistles include counter-attacks against those questioning Paul’s authority. The apostle was indeed the target of the very kind of jealousy described in 1 Clement. Paul’s career was not one long victory tour of apostolic authority. He was challenged—vehemently and violently—to the extent that he even called down condemnation on his opponents. 56 Gal 1:11−12: “For I declare to you, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not according to human wisdom, for I did not receive it from a human source [literally, “not according to man, for I did not receive it from a man”], nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation from Jesus Christ.” 57 Gal 1:8−9: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you something against what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said I say now again: If anyone preaches to you against what you have received, let him be accursed.” 58 Gal 1:16−24. 59 Gal 2:11−14. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 49 None of these conflicts, however, seems to connect directly with Clement’s story about Paul’s death in Rome, but another text in the Pauline corpus may suggest such a connection. In 2 Tim the author states that the insidious Alexander the coppersmith had harmed Paul greatly and opposed his teaching: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ χαλκεὺς πολλά μοι κακὰ ἐνεδείξατο· ἀποδώσει αὐτῷ ὁ κύριος κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ· ὃν καὶ σὺ φυλάσσου, λίαν γὰρ ἀντέστη τοῖς ἡμετέροις λόγοις.60 According to 2 Tim 1:17, Paul is in Rome at this point, so is this a reference to the betrayal of the apostle in Rome by those within the Christian community? There are several variables at play here, beginning with our uncertainty about the date and authorship of 2 Tim. Beyond that, who is Alexander the coppersmith? Is he the Alexander mentioned in Acts 19:33−34, an ethnically Jewish companion of Paul who bravely stood up in front of the Ephesian mob to offer a defense on behalf of the apostle and his companions? Or is he the Alexander of 1 Tim 1:20, apparently located in Macedonia, whom Paul is preparing to hand over to Satan so that he will learn not to blaspheme? Besides the fact that they share a very common Greek name, there is nothing linking these different Alexanders to each other. Thus, we need not necessarily place Alexander the coppersmith in Asia or Macedonia. Could 2 Tim be preserving a tradition that at a critical point in Paul’s Roman sojourn, he was opposed and even betrayed by another prominent Christian leader named Alexander (who may or may not have had any connection to the other Alexanders mentioned above)? The evidence does not allow us to speak definitively on this point, but the broader context of 2 Tim 4:6−16 strongly suggests a connection between a betrayal of Paul, his current state of abandonment and imprisonment, and his impending execution in Rome.61 This text may well reflect a tradition in which the φθόνος of a certain Alexander had contributed to the apostle’s demise, as 1 Clement suggests. The plausibility of such a scenario is supported by a famous passage in Suetonius that Cullmann fails to mention: Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.62 Most scholars agree that Chrestus is a variant of Christus 60 2 Tim 4:14−15: “Alexander the coppersmith did many evil things to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. You also watch out for him, for he strongly opposed our words.” 61 I follow Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann in reading the “first defense” of 2 Tim 4:16 as the initial part of a longer legal process, not the defense during a first Roman imprisonment, as opposed to an alleged second imprisonment implied by 2 Tim. They are correct that “the Pastorals themselves know of only one imprisonment.” See Martin Dibelius and Hans Concelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (ed. Helmut Koester; trans. Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro; Hermeneia; 7th ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994), 16, 124 (quoted). 62 Suetonius, Vita divi Claudii 25,4 (BSGRT De vita Caesarum, 209,7−8 Ihm): “He expelled the Jews from Rome, because they were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 50 David L. Eastman and that the “disturbances” in question surrounded missionary activities in the synagogues of Rome.63 Claudius took action because the upheaval surrounding the Christians became significant enough to catch his attention as a source of civil unrest. The exact date of this expulsion is debated—probably either 41 or 49 C.E.—although most scholars support the latter date. Dio Cassius, writing at the beginning of the third century, corroborates that Claudius had conflict with some Jews in the city: τοὺς τε Ἰουδαίους πλεονάσαντας αὖθις, ὥστε χαλεπῶς ἂν ἄνευ ταραχῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου σφῶν τῆς πόλεως εἰρχθῆναι, οὐκ ἐξήλασε μέν, τῷ δὲ δὴ πατρίῳ βίῳ χρωμένους ἐκέλευσε μὴ συναθροίζεσθαι.64 Claudius thus forbade them from holding meetings, and Tajra reads this as support for a Jewish versus Christian conflict that led to problems.65 However, we have already seen that Tajra’s views on this issue are predetermined by his assumptions. There is simply no indication that Roman officials at this early date would have been able to distinguish (or would have had any interest in distinguishing) Jesus believers from non-Jesus believers within Jewish communities in Rome or elsewhere. In fact, even the Jewish communities themselves seem to have been wrestling with this. Thus, if debates over following the Jewish law had turned violent—or even very disruptive—among Christians in Rome (many of them Jewish), then it would not at all be surprising for Roman authors and authorities to interpret this as a problem among “the Jews” that could require imperial intervention. Here we must keep in mind that “the Jews” were a group many Romans already held in contempt because of their superstitio, as Tacitus calls it.66 In fact, Tacitus may be a perfect example of Roman confusion over the fine distinctions among Jewish messianic movements, for in his later Annales he explicitly states that the abominable race of people targeted by Nero—and called Christians by the populace—promoted an exitiabilis superstitio (“destructive superstition”) that had its origin in Judea.67 Even at the end of the first century, was Tacitus able to distinguish this “mischievous superstition” from Judea from the “superstition” 63 Cf. Dixon H. Slingerland, Claudian Policymaking and the Early Imperial Repression of Judaism at Rome (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 160; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 151−217. 64 Dio Cassius, Historiae romanae 60,6,6 (669,16−19 B.): “But the Jews multiplied again so much that it would have been difficult without turmoil to put them out of the city because they were so numerous. He did not drive them out but ordered that they should observe their traditional way of life but not gather together.” 65 Tajra, Martyrdom (see note 26), 77−79. 66 Tacitus, Historiae 5,8 (SCBO, n.p.,7−8 Fisher): On the overall situation of Rome’s Jewish community in this period, see Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (ed. Eldon J. Epp; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 55−58, including his extensive bibliography. 67 Tacitus, Annales 15,44 (n.p., 12 F.). Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 51 from Judea that he had criticized in his earlier Historiae? It is not clear that he could or did. Indeed, Roman authors such as Suetonius and Tacitus seem comfortable dismissing purveyors of such disruptive superstitions in stereotypical terms. The evidence from Suetonius and these other Roman authors does not permit us to say definitively that Claudius was responding to intra-Christian conflicts based in the synagogues or elsewhere. But this is certainly a possibility given the overall context, and attributing these problems to the “Jews” is exactly what we would expect from a Roman author in this period. To this point I have sought to advance Cullmann’s suggested reading of 1 Clement through appeals to the literary context, to Clement’s dependence on classical concepts of jealousy, to passages in the Pauline corpus, and to the writings of Roman historians. There is one final form of evidence that I would like to highlight, namely apocryphal martyrdom accounts. These texts are of course later and cannot be used to prove anything about events in the first century. However, several of these texts preserve the memory of significant strife within the Christian community of Rome at the arrival of Peter and Paul, and this strife occurred along the Jewish-Gentile fault line. The Latin Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (Ps.-Marcellus) is a fourth-century text probably of Roman origin that recounts the deaths of Peter and Paul at the hands of Nero, in this case as a result of their victory over Simon Magus.68 What is most interesting for our purposes is the situation at the beginning of the account. When Paul arrives at Rome, he is accosted by Iudaioi, who beg him to set Peter straight, quia omnem observationem nostrae legis evacuavit, exclusit sabbatismum et neomenias et legitimas ferias exinanivit.69 It quickly becomes clear that these are not Jews outside the Christian community; rather, these are Jewish Christ-believers (Iudaei Christiani). A great disturbance (infinita conturbatio) then breaks out between Jewish and Gentile believers. The former 68 The various ancient martyrdom accounts for the apostles give several different explanations for their deaths. These will be addressed in my forthcoming volume, The Deaths of the Apostles (see note 11). 69 Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli 1 (ed. Richard A. Lipsius and Maximilian Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha: post Constantinum Tischendorf 1 [Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1959], 119,7−9): “because [Peter] has nullified all observance of our law, has eliminated our Sabbath and new moons, and has decimated our lawful feasts.” I have written on the inversion of apostolic roles, with Peter as the enemy of the law and Paul as its defender, in David L. Eastman, “Confused Traditions? Peter and Paul in the Apocryphal Acts” (paper presented at Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives; Toronto, 28 September, 2013). This paper is due to be published in the conference proceedings. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM 52 David L. Eastman claim their rights as the elect and special people of God and condemn the Gentiles for being tainted by idols. The Gentiles respond that they had believed as soon as the truth was revealed to them, but the Jews had consistently ignored repeated signs and abandoned God.70 At last Paul and Peter must quell this conturbatio. Paul speaks first and attempts to appease both sides by appealing to Genesis and quoting his own letter to the Romans: Dixit apostolus Paulus non debere eos has contentiones inter se suscipere, sed hoc magis adtendere, quia complesset deus promissa sua, quae iuravit ad Abraham patrem nostrum, quod ‘in semine eius hereditarentur omnes gentes’: ‘non est enim personarum acceptio apud deum. quicumque enim in lege peccassent, secundum legem iudicarentur; qui vero sine lege deliquissent, sine lege perirent.’71 This works momentarily, but then resistance flares up again among some leaders of the Jews. It is not entirely clear if these are leaders within the Christian community or not, but Peter speaks to them of Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures. Of special note is Peter’s charge concerning Jesus’s death that hunc crucifixerunt per invidiam principes sacerdotum,72 for invidia is a common Latin translation of φθόνος and ζῆλος. Peter is making a clear reference to a case of internal jealousy ending in the unjustified death of Jesus at the hands of Roman officials. At this point the leaders of the synagogues and the priests of the city’s pagans temples stir up the crowds, and this provokes imperial intervention through the person of Simon Magus and eventually Nero. This opening series of events is notable. The author of this text presents a situation in which there is a violent disagreement within the community of believers in Rome. Peter and Paul insert themselves into the situation and attempt to bring peace, yet this does not work. The emperor gets involved, and Peter and Paul are ultimately killed. Again, this later martyrdom account does not prove anything about the apostles’ deaths. However, this is exactly the kind of situation that would explain the passage in 70 Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli 5−6 (123,5−125,8 L.). 71 Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli 7 (125,9−15 L.), citing Gen 22:18, 26:4, 28:14; Rom 2:11−12: “The apostle Paul said that they should not take up these quarrels among themselves. Rather, they should consider that God had fulfilled his promises, which he had sworn to Abraham our father, that in his seed all nations would have an inheritance. There is no partiality with God. Whoever has sinned with the law is judged according to the law. And those who transgress without the law perish without the law.” Cf. Acts 3:25, 10:34−35; Gal 3:8. 72 Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli 8 (127,9−10 L.): “The leaders of the priests crucified him [Jesus] out of envy.” Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM Jealousy, Internal Strife, and the Deaths of Peter and Paul 53 1 Clement, where the internal dynamics of ζῆλος and φθόνος provokes Roman attention and lead to the executions of Peter and Paul. A closer analysis of 1 Clement, then, strengthens the argument that internal jealousy could have been at play in the deaths of Peter and Paul. The evidence from the text itself, buttressed by information from scriptural, historical, and apocryphal texts, points strongly in that direction. This is certainly a story that authors like Luke (at the end of Acts) and Clement would not want to highlight, for it would directly undermine the desired image of Peter and Paul standing together as symbols of apostolic and ecclesiastical unity in Rome and elsewhere. And yet, Clement seems to be reminding his audience of a terrible truth, that the deaths of the apostles were part of a shameful legacy provoked by jealousy—a legacy that included internal strife among the people of God, even among family members. The results were always disastrous. Peter and Paul were victims closer to their own time of that same jealousy that was lethal for Abel, nearly lethal for Joseph, and could possibly, if unchecked, be lethal for the members of the Corinthian community, as well. Authenticated | dleastma@owu.edu author's copy Download Date | 9/14/14 5:25 AM