Come, hidden Mother: Spirit epicleses in the ''Acts of Thomas''

“COME, HIDDEN MOTHER”: SPIRIT EPICLESES IN THE ACTS OF THOMAS

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

by

Susan E. Myers, B. A., M. A., M. A.

______________________________ Harold W. Attridge, Director

______________________________ Mary Rose D’Angelo, Director

Graduate Program in Theology Notre Dame, Indiana December 2003

UMI Number: 3189259

Copyright 2005 by Myers, Susan E. All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 3189259 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

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“COME, HIDDEN MOTHER”: SPIRIT EPICLESES IN THE ACTS OF THOMAS Abstract by Susan E. Myers

This dissertation is a study of the strikingly similar prayers found in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas. These distinctive prayers give evidence of an understanding of Spirit that did not survive in the dominant Christian church. The prayers in question address the Spirit, being feminine in Syriac (probably the original language of the work), as “Mother,” “fellowship of the male,” and “dove.” The epicleses appeal to the Spirit with a series of appellations describing her as one who reveals hidden mysteries, who is a compassionate Mother, and who provides joy and rest to her adherents. The prayers ask her to “come” and be present in the ritual actions of initiatory anointing and Eucharist. The dissertation seeks to place these prayers within their historical, literary, and liturgical contexts. The composite nature of the Acts of Thomas is emphasized, and it is suggested that the author of the unified second half of the work also edited the discrete tales that appear in the first half. In contrast to earlier scholarship, this study suggests that Acts of Thomas stems from the middle of the third century and has been brought together in its completed form by someone with ties to the northern Mesopotamian city of

Susan E. Myers Nisibis. The redactor has inserted prayers and speeches into the narrative; some of the prayers were apparently composed for the occasion, but others, including the epicleses of interest to the study, were most likely in use in and adapted from liturgical contexts. The Acts of Thomas includes several initiation rituals, including those in which the epicleses appear. Although there is variety in the rituals, they point to a prominence accorded the oil of anointing, to a Eucharist of bread and water, and to a practice of water baptism that is tertiary in significance, if present at all. Finally, the dissertation compares the epicleses in form and content with other prayers from the ancient world, and discusses their emphasis on a revelatory figure who is present in ritual action and who provides her adherents with a glimpse of an otherworldly reality.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION...........................................................................1 Purpose of the Study and Method Employed.................................................4 Review of Literature .........................................................................................6 Editions .........................................................................................................7 Critical scholarship .....................................................................................11 Technical matters............................................................................................18 Manuscripts.................................................................................................18 Language of the Epicleses...........................................................................21 Citations ......................................................................................................23 Stylistic Analysis of the Epicleses ..................................................................28 Conclusion........................................................................................................35 CHAPTER 2 PRELIMINARY ISSUES IN SCHOLARSHIP: AUTHORSHIP, PROVENANCE, AND DATING OF THE ACTS OF THOMAS ............................................................37 Authorship .......................................................................................................38 Provenance.......................................................................................................43 Date ..............................................................................................................54 Conclusion........................................................................................................66 CHAPTER 3

THE LITERARY CONTEXT OF THE EPICLESES........68

Textual Evidence of Redaction in the Acts of Thomas.................................71 Chapters 33–34: The Story of the serpent who killed a man...............72 Scriptural quotes or allusions................................................................74 Liturgical ..............................................................................................80 Internal Evidence of Redaction in the Acts of Thomas................................84 Interruptions in the Narrative......................................................................85 The Hymn of the Pearl ..........................................................................85 Chapters 144–148.................................................................................89 Authorial Redaction/Composition of Prayers and Speeches ......................92 The Bridal couple..................................................................................92 Mygdonia and Carish............................................................................94 Prayers with anaphora..........................................................................95 Use of traditional prayer types .............................................................99 “Pre-existent” Prayers and Speeches ........................................................100 Chapter 39...........................................................................................100 Chapter 80...........................................................................................101 Chapters 47–48...................................................................................103 ii

Chapter 34...........................................................................................104 The Epicleses.......................................................................................104 Come (ejlqev) ..................................................................................108 Holy name (to; a{gion o[noma).....................................................112 Revealer of hidden mysteries (hJ ta; musthvria ajpokaluvptousa ta; ajpovkrufa; hJ ta; ajpovkrufa ejkfaivnousa kai; ta; ajpovrrhta fanera; kaqistw'sa) ..........................................................................112 Compassionate mother (hJ mhvthr hJ eu[splagcno")................................................114 Rest, quiet, joy (ajnavpausi"; hJsuciva; carav) .................................116 Athlete (ajqlhthv")..........................................................................118 Communion (koinwniva; koinwnevw) ...............................................118 Power (duvnami") ...........................................................................121 Understand (ejpivstamai) ..............................................................123 Conclusion concerning the epiclesis.............................................123 Conclusion......................................................................................................131 CHAPTER 4 THE LITURGICAL CONTEXT OF THE EPICLESES........133 The “Seal” (or the “Sign”)............................................................................135 Anointing 139 Anointing in the Acts of Thomas...............................................................141 The Prominence of Anointing in Other Sources.......................................153 The Syriac History of John..................................................................153 The Gospel of Philip ...........................................................................156 Eucharist .......................................................................................................160 Baptism .......................................................................................................168 Conclusion......................................................................................................171 Excursus: The Development of Anointing Rituals in Syriac-Speaking Christianity .............................................................................................172 CHAPTER 5 PRAYER IN ANTIQUITY AND THE EPICLESES IN THE ACTS OF THOMAS ......................................................................................177 The Addressee of the Prayers in Chapters 27 and 50................................178 Ancient Prayers ............................................................................................186 Hebrew Prayers.........................................................................................186 Early Christian Prayers .............................................................................190 Prayers from the Greco-Roman World .....................................................193 Multiple descriptive epithets ...............................................................194 “Come”: Making an appeal to the divine...........................................204 Magical Appeals .......................................................................................213 Conclusion......................................................................................................216

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CHAPTER 6 THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPICLESES...............................218 Analysis of the Epicleses...............................................................................222 “Come, holy name of the Anointed which is above every name”............222 “Come, power of the Most High and perfect compassion”......................225 “Come, compassionate Mother”...............................................................228 “Holy dove which bears twin nestlings”...................................................234 “Come, fellowship of the male” ...............................................................238 “Come, one who is older than the five members— mind, conception, thought, reflection, reason”...................................242 “Come, one who communes in all the contests of noble athlete” ............245 “Come, revealer of hidden mysteries” ......................................................247 “Come, the one visible in her actions, and the one who gives joy and rest to those who cling to her”......................................254 “Come, Mother of the seven houses, so that your rest might be in the eighth house”.............................................................................263 Conclusion......................................................................................................265 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................274 APPENDIX..........................................................................................................281 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................284

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Acts of Thomas is generally regarded as an early third-century work1 probably composed in Syriac.2 It is a valuable witness to a type of Christianity that is also reflected in other apocryphal acts and apparently thrived in the region of Syria in the early centuries of Christianity. Founded on evangelization by itinerant preachers, this distinct Christian formulation professed to require celibacy of all Christians and in many ways remained closer to the Jewish roots of Christianity than did that Christianity which existed among the Gentiles to the west. The Acts of Thomas shares with the other apocryphal acts a high value given to ascetic practices, including celibacy, the placement of women in prominent roles,

1Richard A. Lipsius dates the Acts of Thomas before the middle of the third century (Die apocryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden [2 vols. in 3; Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1883–1887], 1.4), an opinion with which G. Bornkamm (“The Acts of Thomas,” in New Testament Apocrypha [ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher; English ed. R. McL. Wilson; 2 vols.; London: Lutterworth; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965], 2.440) concurs; likewise, A. F. J. Klijn settles on a date in the early third century, provided that the relationship between the Acts of Peter (perhaps datable to about 175 C.E.) and the Acts of Thomas can be taken to suggest dependence of the Acts of Thomas on the Acts of Peter (The Acts of Thomas: IntroductionText-Commentary [NovTSup 5; Leiden: Brill, 1962], 23); Gilles Quispel declares that the Acts of Thomas was written ca. 225 (Makarius, das Thomasevangelium und das Lied von der Perle [Leiden: Brill, 1967], 39). The question of dating the work is one which requires an examination of its dependency on other apocryphal acts, and thus raises the problem of relative dating. The Acts of Thomas is generally considered to be later than the Acts of Paul, Peter, John, and Andrew and probably dependent, directly or indirectly, on several of them. The exact relationship, as well as the precise dates of other apocryphal acts, is debated. 2The principal witnesses to the work are in Syriac and Greek; the surviving manuscripts in both languages bear marks of revision, a fact which has led to extensive debate on the original language. For a discussion of the debate and for the view that the Syriac takes precedence, although the surviving Greek is in many cases closer to the original than the extant Syriac, see Harold W. Attridge, “The Original Language of the Acts of Thomas,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins (ed. Harold W. Attridge, John J. Collins, and Thomas H. Tobin; College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 241–50.

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and many characteristics of the ancient novel,3 including travels, talking animals, and miraculous deeds. The work was popular in antiquity with gnostic and Manichaean Christians, as is attested by Epiphanius (Pan. 47.1) and Augustine (Faust. 22.79), while Manichaean redaction of the text is apparent in the addition of the poetic Hymn of the Pearl.4 An account of the mission of the apostle Judas Thomas in the lands of the east, the Acts of Thomas contains the well-known poems, the Hymn of the Bride (chaps. 6–7) and the much-discussed Hymn of the Pearl (chaps. 108–113). It also contains early evidence of Syrian liturgical traditions, including five initiation accounts. The accounts differ from one another in the rite they describe, and the Syriac and Greek accounts of individual passages sometimes differ considerably. The fullest form of the initiation ritual seems to have consisted of an anointing with olive oil, either of the head alone or of the entire body (or perhaps both), followed by an immersion in water, and a celebration of the Eucharist using bread and water.5 The sacramental actions are accompanied by various prayers, including addresses to Jesus (or the “physician”; see chap. 156), a prayer to the oil (chap. 121) and an invocation over the oil (chap. 157), and two epicleses of the Spirit, found in chaps. 27

3On the ancient novel and its reproduction in Christian compositions, especially the various acts of apostles, both canonical and noncanonical, see the study of Richard I. Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 86–135, esp. 121–35. Rosa Söder earlier had considered the relationship between the apocryphal acts and ancient novels in her Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und die romanhafte Literatur der Antike (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932). 4See the study by Paul-Hubert Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle des Actes de Thomas: Introduction, TextTraduction, Commentaire (Homo Religiosus 8; Louvain-la-Neuve: Poirier, 1981). 5The avoidance of wine for the Eucharist is probably in keeping with the encratite tendencies of the document. On ascetic forms of Eucharist, see Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). For a more extensive discussion of the various forms of initiation in the Acts of Thomas, see A. F. J. Klijn, “Baptism in the Acts of Thomas,” in Studies on Syrian Baptismal Rites (ed. Jacob Vellian; The Syrian Church Series 6; Kottayam: C.M.S. Press, 1973), 57–62. On encratism in the apocryphal acts, see Yves Tissot, “Encratisme et actes apocryphes,” in Les actes apocryphes des apôtres: Christianisme et monde païen (ed. François Bovon; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 109–19, and Virginia Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal Acts (Studies in Women and Religion 23; Lewiston: Edward Mellen, 1987).

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and 50. It is these prayer passages found in ritual contexts, and especially the epicleses with their various epithets for the Spirit, which this study seeks to explicate. The epicleses in chapters 27 (over the oil) and 50 (over the Eucharist) evidence a common structure and imagery, employing many of the same terms and phrases, thus demonstrating a close relationship with one another and probable composition by the same author. These prayers addressed to the Holy Spirit reflect themes, such as naming (chap. 27), which are here and elsewhere associated with Christ (see Acts of Thomas 132 and 163 and Ode 42). Much of the language of the epicleses, however, reflects an understanding of the Spirit best preserved in literature from Syriac-speaking Christianity, with affinities to that found in gnostic texts. The one addressed is always referred to in the feminine, specifically called “Mother” in the Greek of both chaps. 27 and 50 (the Syriac, here and elsewhere, evidences some alteration apparently intended to render the text more palatable to an emerging orthodoxy), as also in the Greek of chaps. 7 (the Hymn of the Bride), 39, and 133. The Spirit is that which reveals mysteries, and is “Mother of the seven houses” (Greek chap. 27);6 she is “perfect compassion” and “rest,” as well as “fellowship of the male,”7 and the “holy dove” (Greek chap. 50). 6Cf. Greek chap. 7 regarding seven groomsmen. The “seven houses” of this female figure, as well as her exalted state, recall similar imagery (“seven pillars”) applied in a different context to the figure of Wisdom in Prov 9:1. 7On this final concept, and especially the relationship between it and the understanding of “femininity” and “masculinity” in Gnostic texts, see the discussion of Harold W. Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (ed. Birger A. Pearson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 406–13. This concept is probably related to the notion of a bridal chamber, a heavenly union of the individual with a heavenly counterpart, thus restoring an original (often androgynous) state of harmony; this union can be proleptically entered into on earth. The imagery is found in chap. 124 of the Acts of Thomas and in the Hymn of the Bride (chaps. 6 and 7). The bridal chamber appears to be part of the Valentinian sacramental system, either as a separate sacrament or as another name for one indicated elsewhere, if statements about it in the Gospel of Philip can be taken to refer to a particular ritual. Even if the bridal chamber does not appear as a liturgical ceremony, the concept of the Christian life as a marriage is well attested. It is found in the words of Mygdonia in Acts of Thomas 124; in later Syrian tradition, the “robe of glory” in which one is clothed at baptism is also a wedding robe, for “at baptism the soul is betrothed to the Son of God” (Jacob of Serugh, Homily 1). This is the wedding garment which one wears for the eschatological banquet (Matt 22:12; see Sebastian Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter [ed. M. Schmidt; Eichstätter Beiträge 4; Regensburg: Pustet, 1982], 13); see also Ode 42.

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Purpose of the Study and Method Employed The goal of this study is to shed light on the colorful language employed in the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50 and to situate them in their proper historical and theological milieu. In order to do this, I begin by asking foundational questions regarding authorship, provenance, and date. My conclusions differ somewhat from those of previous scholars. Although the author is anonymous, and several persons contributed to the completed work, a close examination of the redactional activity in the Acts of Thomas reveals that the author of the unified second half of the work was also the compiler and redactor of the discrete tales in the first half. This author/redactor may have hailed from the city of Nisibis or its environs. Although the tales found in the first half of the Acts of Thomas may stem from early in the third century, the redaction of the completed work may have occurred later in the century. The epicleses of central interest to this essay are found in the only two initiatory settings that appear in the first half of the work. The first epiclesis, in chapter 27, occurs in the context of an initiation ceremony for King Gundaphar, who had previously opposed Thomas and threatened to kill him, and his brother Gad. In the context of an anointing, the apostle speaks the prayer over the oil. The epiclesis of chapter 50 is set as well in the context of initiation; the prayer is spoken over the bread of an initiatory Eucharist. This second initiation involves several people, but the principal figure is a woman who had been harrassed for five years by a demon until Thomas exorcised it. She requests and receives the “seal” (sfragiv" in Greek; in Syriac rushma, “sign”). Several adventures of the apostle intervene between the two scenes. The prayers themselves display a marked similarity with one another. I examine these texts in the light of the other prayers and liturgical texts in the Acts of Thomas as well as with regard to the work as a whole. The epicleses, like so many of the prayers in the Acts of Thomas, antedate the work and are likely to have been used in an earlier liturgical setting. They share images and vocabulary

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with other prayers in the Acts of Thomas which also give evidence of an earlier and independent origin. Since the epicleses are employed in liturgical contexts in the work, and themselves seem to have originated in the liturgy, I next analyze the presence of liturgical elements, especially regarding initiation, that appear in the Acts of Thomas. Although there is variety in the liturgical rites described (even in the five initiation accounts in the Greek text, but especially when Greek and Syriac are compared), the chief element in initiation throughout the work is the anointing. An initiatory Eucharist is second in importance; its distinctive nature is the use of a cup of water rather than wine. Finally, baptism brings up the rear. Indeed, in the accounts of initiation surrounding the epicleses in the Greek version, baptism is entirely absent. At an early stage in the tradition, initiation in this region seems to have consisted of an anointing followed by a bread and water Eucharist. In order to place the epicleses in their correct historical context, I examine prayers from various traditions and regions, attempting to isolate forms, terms, or images that agree with what is found in the prayers of chapters 27 and 50. With respect to form, the prayers evidence similarity to the adjurations of a deity found in popular (often called "magical") prayers, and especially to the so-called Orphic Hymns. The terminology of the epicleses most often corresponds with that found in sources (sometimes called “heretical”) that were rejected by leaders of the dominant churches. The study concludes with an exegesis of the prayers themselves. The epicleses represent the unique spirituality of the northern Mesopotamian region, a colorful, earthy Semitic spirituality unconcerned with philosophical precision and ignorant of such developments in the west. In some ways, it resembles that found in Valentinian gnostic texts. Since my goal is to situate the prayers in their proper context, I employ primarily a traditional historical approach to the material, comparing the epicleses with other known prayers from antiquity, in the hope of elucidating their meaning. The chapters treating of the Acts of Thomas as a whole and the prayers themselves in their literary context involve, of 5

necessity, the use of some literary critical categories as well as attentiveness to issues of textual transmission. Since the prayers appear in liturgical contexts, the study also employs findings from the history of Christian prayer and ritual. Review of Literature Use of the Acts of Thomas is attested in antiquity by several authors, but it is connected with individuals or groups maligned for their misguided doctrines or practices. Although Egeria, writing of her trip to Edessa in the late fourth century, indicates that Thomas is buried in Edessa and knows the legend of the correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar Uchama,8 she makes no mention of anything that could be construed as the Acts of Thomas. The earliest external attestations9 of the Acts of Thomas are by Epiphanius10 and Augustine;11 both authors mention it in the context of polemical attacks against heretical movements. The Acts of Thomas was known even in the far western regions of the Roman Empire. The mid-fifth-century bishop of Spanish Asturica, Turribius, complained about its use among the Priscillianists.12 The Acts of Thomas remains an

8Itin. Eger. 19.1–19. 9Origen, apud Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.1), knows the tradition that the various regions of the world were divided up among the apostles and mentions by name the five whose acts survive; these five apocryphal acts would later come to be attributed to the same author, Leucius Charinus. Since Origen claims that the region of Parthia, not India, was given to Thomas, it is unlikely that he has in mind the text as we know it. It is not impossible, however, that he knew an earlier version of our work, perhaps comprising simple forms of the early tales in the Acts of Thomas. The earliest mention of the collection of the apocryphal acts (and their association with the Manichaeans) comes from the pen of Philaster of Brescia, writing in the late fourth century. But, although, he refers to the Acts of Andrew, John, Peter, and Paul, the person of Thomas is conspicuously absent. 10Pan. 47.1 and 61.1. 11Faust. 22.79; Adim. 17; Serm. Dom. 1.20.65. 12PL 54.711–14. Turribius wrote to his neighboring bishops, but also sent materials complaining about the Priscillianists to Leo the Great. Leo responded by ordering that the apocryphal writings associated with the names of the apostles were to be burned, and any bishop who allowed them to be owned was to be considered a heretic.

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anonymous work until it is attributed by the ninth-century Photius to Leucius Charinus (together with the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, and Paul).13 Although the early references to it are critical of its use among heretical groups, the Acts of Thomas must have enjoyed a following in self-styled orthodox circles as well, perhaps especially on a popular level. Translations were made into Greek and from Greek into Latin14 and Ethiopic. From the Syriac were produced versions in Armenian and apparently Arabic. A Coptic rewritten story gave rise to another version in Arabic, as well as an Ethiopic translation and a later Greek translation.15 All of this textual activity, as well as the fact that the Syriac itself was redacted to bring it in line with a western understanding of orthodoxy, suggests to Günther Bornkamm16 that the Acts of Thomas enjoyed great favor in orthodox circles. Editions The first extended presentation of the text of the Acts of Thomas in Greek is the edition of Joannes Carolus Thilo, in 1823.17 Working from four Paris manuscripts,18 Thilo presents a critical edition, with extensive notes, of the first six acts of the work, with the absence of Act 4.19 Thilo’s edition, which, indeed, spurred critical interest in the apocryphal

13In his Bibliotheca codex 114. 14At least two separate Latin translations must have been produced. The extant Latin is essentially a rewritten work and does not correspond with that used by the Priscillianists. No claim could be made from it that the work teaches a “baptism” with oil. 15See the discussion of the various versions in Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 4–13. 16Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.427. 17Acta S. Thomae Apostoli (Leipzig: Vogel, 1823). 18Thilo was aware, however, of others found in the “library of the king” that he was not able to include. 19Act 4 is found in only three of the Greek manuscripts edited by Bonnet (see note 22 below), i.e., the three most extensive mss., including the relatively complete P (missing only the Hymn of the Pearl) and

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acts in general, was most valuable for its analysis of the Acts of Thomas, providing extensive parallels, especially from Gnosticism (as gleaned from the heresiologists), to the motifs apparent in the work. Thilo’s edition was followed by that of Constantin Tischendorf in 1851.20 Based on the four manuscripts edited by Thilo with the addition of one more Paris manuscript,21 Tischendorf’s edition provides a few minor corrections to that of Thilo. The most significant contribution of Tischendorf is the inclusion of the martyrdom of Thomas, known to Thilo but absent from his edition. Although earlier scholars laid the foundation, it was the work of Max Bonnet that brought the complete Acts of Thomas into the hands of scholars. Bonnet, together with Richard Lipsius, sought to complete and expand Tischendorf's edition of the apocryphal acts; the volume in which the Acts of Thomas appears was first published in 1903.22 Bonnet makes use of twenty-one Greek manuscripts and includes significant variants found in Acts 1 and 2 (an epitome), as well as in Acts 9 and the Martyrdom (and brief passages elsewhere). The edition of Bonnet continues to serve as the standard edition of the Greek Acts of Thomas.

the complete U. Bonnet follows Thilo’s chapter numbering for the first three acts, but diverges in Acts 5 and 6 (due to the addition of the intervening three chapters that make up Act 4), providing Thilo’s chapter references in parentheses. 20Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig: Avenarius et Mendelssohn, 1851). Tischendorf’s edition, unlike that of Thilo, includes the martyrdom of Thomas. 21This last manuscript, ms. E, might since have been lost. It parallels the mss. known to Thilo by containing Acts 1–3 and 5–6, but is absent from Bonnet’s 1903 edition. Bonnet acknowledges that some previously edited mss. are not included, but provides no information regarding their identity or their fate. See further discussion of available mss. in notes 35 and 64 below. 22Following a preliminary edition of nine mss. of the Acts of Thomas by Bonnet in 1883 (Acta Thomae [Supplementum Codicis Apocryphi 1; Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1883]). For the critical edition, see Maximilianus Bonnet, Acta Philippi et Acta Thomae accedunt Acta Barnabae (vol. 2.2 of Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha; ed. Ricardus Adelbertus Lipsius and Maximilianus Bonnet; Leipzig: Teubner, 1903; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959), 99–291. The two parts of the Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (in 3 vols.) were published 1883–1903.

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There exists no critical edition of the various Syriac witnesses to the text. Several individual manuscripts have, however, been edited. The first scholar to offer the Acts of Judas Thomas (as it is known in the Syriac) to the public was William Wright, who published an edition of several apocryphal acts from Syriac manuscripts, including the manuscript of the Acts of Judas Thomas found in the British Museum (now the British Library).23 Because the London manuscript is the most complete of the extant Syriac manuscripts24 and because of the convenience of Wright's edition and translation, it remains the standard edition of the Syriac version of the work. In 1904, Agnes Smith Lewis published the text of the Acts of Judas Thomas found in the Sinai palimpsest from the Monastery of St. Catherine.25 Although fragmentary, the manuscript is extremely valuable, being the oldest extant manuscript of the work in any language. In most cases, the Sinai palimpsest supports the text as found in the London manuscript, but in some key passages (generally fragmentary), there are tantalizing hints at the majority Greek reading. The only other Syriac manuscript of the Acts of Judas Thomas to be edited to date is that from the Sachau collection in Berlin. Paul Bedjan produced an edition of it26 in 1892, with an eye toward the edition of Wright. Although the shorter Berlin text is not a direct descendant of either the London or Sinai manuscripts and therefore potentially of interest, Bedjan's edition is less than helpful. Bedjan provides a heavily edited version of the Sachau

23William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1871; reprinted in one vol. Amsterdam: Philo, 1968), Syriac, 1.[181]–333; ET, 2.146–298. 24And constituting, in Wright's words (p. xiii), the “gem” of his collection. 25Agnes Smith Lewis, Acta Mythologica Apostolorum (HSem 3; London: Clay, 1904); ET as The Mythological Acts of the Apostles (HSem 4; London: Clay, 1904). Parts of the Acts of Judas Thomas from the Sinai palimpsest were already published by F. C. Burkitt in Agnes Smith Lewis, Select Narratives of Holy Women (2 vols.; StSin 9–10; London: Clay, 1900). 26Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum Syriace 3 (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1892; reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1968).

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manuscript, sometimes giving the reading of the London manuscript and including the Sachau reading only in the apparatus. Unfortunately, Bedjan does not indicate which manuscript he is following at any given point, making it a painstaking task to decipher the contents of Sachau. Taeke Jansma attempted to incorporate the readings from these three manuscripts in his edition of 1952.27 Jansma gives the text of the London manuscript, but notes the variants from Sinai and Sachau. Jansma’s selection is brief (parts of the first, second, fourth, and eighth acts) and, for the most part, it provides the text found already in Wright. English translations of the Syriac text, in addition to those found in Wright and Lewis, include an edition by A. F. J. Klijn,28 which gives the translation of Wright divided into chapters according to the Greek of Bonnet's edition, as well as extensive and valuable commentary. An early English translation of the five ancient apocryphal acts is that of Bernhard Pick,29 while the German translations of Günther Bornkamm and of Han J. W. Drijvers are readily available in English re-translation.30 The English edition of The Apocryphal New Testament by James31 and its revision by Elliott32 have provided English-

27T. Jansma, A Selection from the Acts of Judas Thomas (SSS n.s. 1; Leiden: Brill, 1952). 28See note 1 above for bibliographical information. 29Bernhard Pick, The Apocryphal acts of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and Thomas (Chicago: Open Court, 1909). A small portion of the Acts of Thomas, based on Tischendorf's edition, was earlier translated into English by Alexander Walker in ANF 8. 30Both are found in the collection of New Testament Apocrypha initiated by Edgar Hennecke and completed by Wilhelm Schneemelcher. German editions: G. Bornkamm, "Thomasakten," Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, hrsg. Wilhelm Scheemelcher (2 Bände; 3. Aufl.; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1959–1964), 2.297–372; Han J. W. Drijvers, "Thomasakten," Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, hrsg. Wilhelm Scheemelcher (2 Bände; 5. Aufl.; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1987–1989), 2.289–367. English translations: G. Bornkamm, "The Acts of Thomas," in NTA (1963–1965), 2.425–531; Han J. W. Drijvers, "The Acts of Thomas," in New Testament Apocrypha (ed. W. Schneemelcher; 2 vols.; English ed. R. McL. Wilson; Cambridge: James Clark & Co.; Louisvile, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1991–1992), 2.322–411. 31Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1924).

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speaking readers easy access to the Acts of Thomas and other Christian apocryphal literature. Recently, Harold W. Attridge has translated both the Syriac and the Greek versions of the Acts of Thomas for a new English edition of the apocryphal acts which, I am told, will yet be published during my lifetime. Paul-Hubert Poirier and Yves Tissot are currently working on a critical edition of the work, making use of recent manuscript discoveries. They have also recently published a French translation of the Syriac.33 Critical scholarship The first modern discussion of the Acts of Thomas can be found in a work of the seventeenth-century French biblical scholar, Richard Simon.34 Simon quotes from a Greek manuscript in the “library of the king,”35 saying it is clearly the same work that was used by the Manichaeans. Although Simon’s longest quotation is from the introductory scene of

32J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). 33“Actes de Thomas,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens 1 (ed. François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain; Paris: Gallimard, 1997), 1321–1470. 34Nouvelles observations sur le texte et les versions du nouveau testament (Paris: Boudot, 1695), 7–9. 35He identifies the manuscript as no. 1832. This number does not correspond with that of any manuscript included in the critical edition of Bonnet, nor does the text provided by Simon represent that of any of the Paris manuscripts (or, for that matter, any other ms.) known to Bonnet. Prior to the 1903 critical edition of Bonnet, Joannes Carolus Thilo, in his edition of the Acts of Thomas (Acta S. Thomae Apostoli, lxxii), comments that the Paris ms. 1176 (identified in Bonnet as D) is that known to Simon. I cannot see how this is possible. In the first quotation Simon provides, that of the introductory verses in Act 1, some of the peculiar readings of D (e.g., dieilavmeqa [Bonnet, p. 100, line 1] and e[stai [Bonnet, p. 100, line 11]) can be found but, more significantly, in three places Simon’s text disagrees with that of D. Simon’s text is missing the pavnte" of the first line of the work; D omits ejkei' (Bonnet, p. 100, line 10) which Simon’s text includes; and Simon’s text omits the ajllacou' and has a different word order than that found in D for the final line of the first chapter. Thilo notes that there are several other manuscripts in the library of the king that he was not able to include in his edition, due to lack of time; perhaps he noted another ms. that agreed with that of Simon. Yves Tissot, who together with Paul-Hubert Poirier is currently producing a new critical edition of the Acts of Thomas, did not include any new Paris mss. in the materials regarding the prayers in chapters 27 and 50 that he kindly forwarded to me. The manuscript known to Simon, therefore, seems to have been lost, destroyed, or perhaps moved to a different location and now identified by its current residence. From the few quotes that Simon provides, it is possible to determine that the ms. he knew represents the majority tradition in the sections quoted, but is not among those mss. edited by Bonnet.

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the Acts of Thomas, he provides fairly extensive commentary, with short quotes, from the first initiatory scene and the prayer in chapter 27. The king and his brother Gad receive “la Confirmation”36 and Eucharist, thus evidencing to Simon the spirit of the gnostics and Manichaeans. Perhaps because of this association, Simon considers the work to be the “prétendu Livre de saint Thomas.”37 Citing the closing line of the prayer in chapter 27, Simon indicates that the heretics to whom he attributes the work invoke the three persons of the Trinity, just as do Catholics. He provides as well the Greek of the opening lines of the prayer and the description of the anointing. His most interesting quotation from the prayer, however, is one that he provides only in translation; it is intriguing precisely because of what it does not say. The prayer skips from “come, merciful mother” to “come, you who reveal hidden mysteries,” thus ignoring the line, “come, fellowship of the male.” It is impossible to say if Simon’s manuscript lacked this line, although it seems likely that he would have included it, and indeed commented on it, if it had in fact been part of the text as he found it. Unfortunately, Simon’s treatment is so brief that it provides little information about his critical assessment of the text, except his association of it with heretics known to him from the early heresiologists. In the eighteenth century, Johann Albert Fabricius responded to the censorship of non-canonical works by members of the reformed traditions, and the attempted rescue of patristic authors by Catholics, with a corresponding rejection of “frivolous” works,

36Nouvelles observations, 8. Thilo (Acta S. Thomae Apostoli, 164ff.), citing numerous instances in Greek authors of the use of sfragiv" for baptism, insists against Simon that the seal here includes the water rite. 37Nouvelles observations, 8.

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including the apocryphal acts.38 Fabricius produced a collection of New Testament apocrypha39 in order to make the materials available to a growing audience, thinking that their availability would lessen their attractiveness and prove the wisdom of the patristic authors. His near contemporary, Isaac de Beausobre, adopts the approach of an historian of religions and examines the texts free of theological concerns. In general Beausobre distances himself from pejorative statements regarding practices and beliefs attested in the apocryphal materials and suspects that they represent ancient alternative practices. Beausobre's Histoire de Manichée40 considers and dismisses the suggestion that the Manichaeans altered the books of the New Testament, and declares the same to be true regarding Manichaean use of various apocryphal acts. He demonstrates that Leucius, to whom the apocryphal acts were attributed, was not a Manichaean but preceded the Manichaeans by 150 years.41 Regarding the Acts of Thomas itself, Beausobre claims that the Greek and Latin manuscripts with which he was familiar must have been translated from Syriac;42 he discusses the claim of the fifth-century Turribius that the Manichaeans baptized in oil and finds the origin of the claim in the apostle’s prayer over the oil in chapter 27 of

38See the discussion of this period in Gérard Poupon, “Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres de Lefèvre a Fabricius,” in Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres: christianisme et monde païen (ed. François Bovon et al.; Publications de la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université de Genève 4; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 25–47. 39Johann Albert Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti Collectus, Castigatus, Testimoniisque, Censuris et Animadversionibus illustratus (2 vols.; Hamburg: Schiller, 1703; enlarged with third vol., 1719). Vol. 3 bears the title Codicis apocryphi Novi Testamenti and was published by Schiller and Kisner. 40Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manicheisme (2 vols.; Amsterdam: Bernard, 1734–1739; repr. Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1970). Vol. 2 bears the title Histoire de Manichée et du Manicheisme. 41Beausobre does not seem to question the claim that the apocryphal acts were written by Leucius Charinus, but recognizes that they must antedate the Manichaeans. Believing them to stem from a single author, he includes the Acts of Thomas in this assessment. 42Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manicheisme, 1.405.

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the Acts of Thomas, which ends in a threefold initiatory formula.43 The prayer itself, he claims, stems from the Marcosians. Thilo, who produced the first Greek edition of the Acts of Thomas, discusses in detail the first two initiatory scenes in the work and the prayers associated with them. He addresses the issue raised by Turribius and decides that Turribius was wrong to find the Acts of Thomas supportive of baptism in oil. Thilo concludes that the appearance of an anointing with oil only is misleading and decides that, in fact, the language of “sealing” must indicate a rite of water baptism. Thilo addresses at length the language of the epicleses, and provides extensive parallels from other ancient sources, especially the accounts of Gnosticism as found in the heresiologists. He also finds evidence of parallels with Bardaisan and notes Manichaean links with motifs found in the prayers, making special use of Augustine in this regard. In general, Thilo considers the prayers to incorporate gnostic language, although he seems to stop short of declaring the epicleses to be themselves of gnostic origin. Other scholars have been less cautious. In a lengthy journal article, Karl Macke44 attempts to tackle the epicleses, concentrating especially on the first prayer (as well as the Hymn of the Pearl). After trying to restore the original meter of the prayer by comparing the Greek and Syriac versions, Macke argues that it has been composed from two separate prayers, one orthodox and one gnostic. The feminine figure addressed in the prayer is a saving and redeeming principle (an early gnostic understanding of sophia), and is identified as the spirit of holiness who descended on Jesus and is invoked throughout the prayer.

43De Beausobre thinks that the prayer is misleading in this respect, and suspects that water baptism is to be understood in this passage. He criticizes Simon's “ridicule” of the prayer. See his discussion in Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manicheisme, 1.414–21. De Beausobre recognizes the superiority of the Greek version of this prayer and here claims that Leucius must have written in Greek rather than in Syriac, and that the Acts of Thomas was translated into Syriac from Greek and then back again at a later date. 44Karl Macke, “Syrische Lieder gnostischen Ursprungs,” TQ 56 (1874): 1–70.

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The earliest figure who most forcefully advances the idea of the gnostic character of the Acts of Thomas is Richard Adelbert Lipsius.45 Lipsius begins by noting the parallels to the epicleses in “gnostic” literature (included in this category is the person of Bardaisan, as well as those works and authors deemed gnostic by ancient Christian heresiologists). He then extends his treatment to other prayers and speeches in the work. Following Thilo, Lipsius addresses the question of the sacramental actions found in the Acts of Thomas and notes parallels to known gnostic groups. Wilhelm Bousset, in his massive study of gnostic motifs,46 follows the lead of Lipsius and is unabashed in calling the Acts of Thomas gnostic. Against Lipsius, however, he does not believe that the first two initiation accounts of the Acts of Thomas, in which the prayers under consideration in this study occur, include water baptism. In an extended discussion on the subject,47 Bousset declares that these liturgical materials must have arisen in a sect in which an anointing with oil constituted the sacrament of initiation.48 He then turns to the heresiologists, and especially their treatment of gnostic groups, for the identity of the sect. Bousset's great contribution lies in the sheer volume of material he brings together with respect to the characteristics of the movement(s) he calls “gnosis”; several of these characteristics are indeed present in the Acts of Thomas, especially in the two prayers under consideration here.49 In a separate study,50 Bousset addresses the issue of Manichaean

45Richard Adelbert Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden, 1.225–347. 46Wilhelm Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907). 47Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 297–305. 48Bousset is followed in this by Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.438. 49E.g., the association of a “Mother” figure with a seven-fold cosmic reality. Although Bousset considers the Acts of Thomas to be gnostic in origin, he does treat of the Hymn of the Pearl as a distinct representative of gnosis.

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influence on the Acts of Thomas, deciding the question of Manichaean authorship in the negative, but concluding that the extant work includes several Manichaean interpolations.51 Following in the same tradition as Thilo, Lipsius, and Bousset, Günther Bornkamm52 addresses the question of the unity of the Acts of Thomas narrative, the origins of various motifs, and the underlying myth of a redeemer figure that he believes informs the composition of the work. Bornkamm notes the independent nature of the liturgical materials and the various adventures of the apostle, but claims that they are woven together in such a way as to give the impression of continuous movement. The entire Acts of Thomas is an example of Christian syncretism, a union of specifically Christian thought and gnostic thought. It is, then, an important source of the pre-history of Manichaeism. With respect to the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50, Bornkamm sees a relationship between gnostic mythology and the figure of a Mother goddess. The prayers are intended to bring about an epiphany of the goddess; the same feminine concept addressed in the prayers is known as well from Valentinian texts. The goddess will bring about a heavenly gnosis in the adherent. This concept is christianized in its current context, so that the Mother figure becomes the Holy Spirit. Some elements of the prayers (e.g., the dove that gives birth to twins) give evidence of gnostic mythology shifting toward Manichaeism. Bornkamm sees, as well, limited Manichaean redaction of the text. In the end, however, Bornkamm believes that the gnosis of the Acts of Thomas destroys the Manichaean system and is therefore able to survive even when the work was incorporated by the Manichaeans into their sacred texts.

50“Manichäisches in den Thomasakten,” ZNW 18 (1917–1918): 1–39. 51Of greatest interest to this study is Bousset’s opinion that the line regarding the “messenger of the five parts” in chap. 27 is a Manichaean interpolation, while he also comments extensively on the gnostic character of both epicleses.

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Writing at about the same time as Bornkamm, Rosa Söder53 examines the apocrphal acts of the apostles from a different perspective, making note of the various motifs in the stories, and concluding that the Christian apocryphal acts follow the artistic conventions of the writing of ancient novels. The elements isolated by Söder as representative of the ancient novel are the motif of wandering and the elements of aretalogy, teratology, tendentious presentation, and erotica, all of which are indeed found in some sense54 in the Acts of Thomas. A. F. J. Klijn provides, in his edition of the Acts of Thomas in English,55 valuable introductory material on the extant versions of the Acts of Thomas, its relationship to India and Edessa, and the doctrinal and practical tendencies of the work. Although the translation is of the Syriac, the commentary ably compares the Greek and Syriac versions. Notable in Klijn’s treatment is an absence of reference to the “gnostic” character of the work, although he occasionally notes terms that have parallels in gnostic texts as known from the heresiologists. Klijn’s most significant contribution lies in the ancient parallels he provides in his commentary. A relatively recent examination of the epicleses themselves was attempted by Heinz Kruse,56 who takes seriously the Syriac version of the prayers and sometimes views the Syriac as closer to the original text than the Greek. Kruse questions the claims of others that the prayers are gnostic in origin, but does believe that there have been gnostic and

52Günther Bornkamm, Mythos und Legende in den apokryphen Thomas-Akten: Beitrage zur Geschichte der Gnosis und zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus (FRLANT 49; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933). 53Rosa Söder, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und die romanhafte Literatur der Antike. 54If only in a negative sense, as in the case of the erotic, which is seen in the attentiveness shown the apostle by women who follow him to hear his gospel of sexual renunciation, and their subsequent refusal of intimacy to their husbands. 55See note 1 above for bibliographical information.

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Manichaean additions made to them. One of his strengths is the thorough examination of biblical parallels to the ideas found in the prayers. Throughout, Kruse views the prayers as thoroughly baptismal: they are baptismal epicleses that stem from an era older than their present context and are intended to give sense to the sacrament of baptism. The most recent treatment of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas is that of Caroline Johnson,57 who examines the structure of the Greek epicleses and attempts to find a similar style in Christian liturgical materials. In the end, Johnson turns to magical incantations to find similar invocations of the divine in ritual contexts. Technical matters Manuscripts The Acts of Thomas survives in two primary versions, the Syriac and the Greek. Although the oldest manuscript of the work appears in Syriac, and the Syriac is of great value in textual analysis of the Acts of Thomas, the work has been best preserved in Greek manuscripts. Bonnet knew of twenty-two Greek manuscripts, and included twenty-one in his 1903 critical edition.58 The Greek manuscripts range in age from the ninth to the fifteenth century and range greatly as well in the amount of text preserved. The most valuable Greek manuscripts are those identified in Bonnet by the sigla U (Romanus Vallicellanus B 35, from the eleventh century) and P (Parisiacus graecus 1510, from the eleventh or twelfth century). Although the texts differ considerably, especially in the final sections of the work, both U and P contain the entire work, and essentially the same

56Heinz Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” OrChr 69 (1985): 33–53. 57Caroline Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Harvard Divinity School Studies (ed. François Bovon, Ann Graham Brock, and Christopher R. Matthews; Religions of the World; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 171–204. 58See the discussion of textual witnesses in Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, XV–XXVII and in Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 1–4 (Syriac) and 4–7 (Greek) (there are, however, numerous printing errors in Klijn, some significant). See also the discussion by Harold W. Attridge in his introduction to unpublished translations of the Greek and Syriac versions of the Acts of Thomas.

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work, with one notable exception. While U is the only Greek manuscript to contain the Hymn of the Pearl, P is missing this section and only this section. Most of the Greek manuscripts contain significantly shorter portions of the Acts of Thomas; most include only the first two acts or these two acts plus various small sections from elsewhere in the work.59 An epitome of the first two acts circulated,60 as well as a longer recension of these acts.61 The long prayer of Thomas in prison (in ms. U) moves to the martyrdom in several manuscripts,62 where it replaces the prayer found in chapter 167. In addition to the placement of the prayer in these manuscripts, their style of Greek in the martyrdom differs significantly from that in the majority of manuscripts.63 There are only six manuscripts of the Acts of Thomas in Syriac,64 of which three have been separately edited. Probably the most significant Syriac manuscript is that in the

59Specifically, BCHTX have the first two acts (although the exact place in which the text drops off varies), while G contains only the first act. A and S give the first two acts plus the martyrdom; F adds to this the long prayer in prison (chapters 144–149), while R has the first two acts and the long prayer in prison with the addition of other material. DQY give the first two acts as well as distinct additional material. KLOVZ present varied selections. There is a helpful summary in Attridge’s unpublished introduction, p. 1. 60Mss. GHZ and, to a certain extent, B. The summarizing effect is especially noticeable in the first liturgical section of the Acts of Thomas, that of chaps. 25–27. The first epiclesis of interest to this study (in chap. 27) is lacking in the epitome. 61Grouped by Bonnet as A. CD. FTX. PUY. QR. SV. See Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, XIX. 62PFSLZ. The contents of Q in this section agree with this latter group of manuscripts, although the prayer in Q appears independently of any context, so that it is not clear if it, too, was located in the martyrdom. 63AOKRUV. 64In the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, there were also six extant manuscripts, but for most of the twentieth century, only five were known. The 1885 copy of the Sinai palimpsest, listed as N-Dsém 112 (the manuscript of the Chaldean monastery of Notre-Dame des Sémences; numbered 214 in J. Vosté, Catalogue de la bibliothèque syro-chaldéenne du couvent de Notre-Dame des Semences [Rome and Paris, 1929], 82), mentioned in Anton Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte (Bonn: Marcus und Webers Verlag, 1922; photoreprint Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968), 14, n. 11, was destroyed by the time Klijn wrote his commentary, published in 1962. See Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 1, n. 1. More recently, in the introduction to their French translation of the Acts of Thomas, Paul-Hubert Poirier and Yves Tissot list as well a Vatican Syriac

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British Library in London (Add. 14.645, dated 936). It contains the entire work, and provides the only Syriac witness to the Hymn of the Pearl. Following the hymn is a lengthy prayer of praise, unique, at least in its entirety, to this manuscript. Of great importance for textual analysis of the Acts of Thomas is the oldest surviving manuscript of the work, the Sinai palimpsest (Sinai 30, from the fifth or sixth century). Sinai is, unfortunately, incomplete and quite fragmentary. Neither of the epicleses of interest to this study appears in it. Only one of the four remaining Syriac manuscripts, that of Sachau 222 (in Berlin, dated 1881), has been edited. It is complete (but lacking the Hymn of the Pearl), although it appears to have been abbreviated, especially in prayers and liturgical passages, in the second half. The Cambridge manuscript (Add. 2822, dated 1883) seems to be similar to Sachau, also displaying abbreviated sections. Although detailed analysis of the manuscripts is wanting, a preliminary assessment suggests that their principal contribution is the inclusion of an abbreviated form of the prayer of praise spoken by the apostle in prison. Where the British Library manuscript includes the Hymn of the Pearl and the prayer of praise (or teshbuhta), these manuscripts contain only the shortened version of the prayer.65 The manuscript of Harvard University’s Houghton Library (Syriac 38) is dated to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The last Syriac manuscript is that of Mosul (No. 86, dated 1711/12).66 It may be similar to Cambridge and Sachau.67

manuscript of the seventeenth century (apparently that formerly owned by the Chaldean Patriarchate in Mosul) and a recently discovered manuscript owned by Harvard University. 65See the discussion in Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 171–84. 66Now apparently housed at the Vatican Library (Syriac 597). 67Since neither Cambridge nor Mosul has been edited, I have not had access to their contents. Poirier’s comments (see above) regarding the similarity of Cambridge and Sachau are enlightening. The contents of Mosul remain shrouded in mystery.

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Language of the Epicleses Although the epicleses in both the Greek (see Bonnet) and Syriac (see Wright) are strikingly similar, there are also significant differences between the two versions. There are clear signs of efforts to conform with orthodox tendencies in the Syriac, but there are also places in which the Syriac appears to represent the more ancient text. A brief analysis of the evidence will illustrate the difficulties inherent in choosing one version over the other;68 more detailed commentary will be provided throughout the study. In chapter 27, the Syriac leaves off entirely the appeal to the “compassionate Mother,” a practice that corresponds with a tendency elsewhere as well to excise references to “Mother” (in passages corresponding to chapters 7, 39, and 110 in the Greek, as well as here and in chap. 50). This discomfort with feminine imagery for the divine or with the idea of the Spirit as Mother is probably the most striking feature of the tendency of the Syriac to move in the direction of later orthodoxy.69 Similarly, the abstruse hJ koinwniva tou' a[rreno" is deleted from both prayers in the Syriac version; in chapter 27, it is changed to “fellowship of blessing,” while the phrase is completely sanitized in chapter 50 by the replacement line, “Come, Holy Spirit.” In addition to Greek priority as evidenced in these lines, the simpler surrounding narratives in the Greek suggest that the Greek is superior in these sections. The prayers themselves correspond more closely with one another in the Greek, in which there is a ninefold appeal to “come” in each prayer, than in the Syriac, which repeats “come” nine times in the first prayer and thirteen times in the second.

68In an extended examination of these prayers independent of the rest of the Acts of Thomas, Heinz Kruse (“Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten”) acknowledges that the Greek is generally superior to the Syriac, but sometimes prefers the Syriac rendering. 69Ephrem is also uncomfortable with this concept and ridicules Bardaisan for employing it (e.g., HcHaer. 55), but Aphrahat, without apology, calls the Spirit “Mother” (Dem. 18.10).

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But in some individual lines, the Syriac appears to be superior to the Greek. Although only the Greek contains the similar references to “Mother” and “fellowship of the male,” the Syriac shows greater similarity in corresponding references to an exalted gift.70 Even more significant, the first line of the prayer in chapter 27 is shorter in the Syriac than in the Greek, which shows signs of expansion. The mention of the “name” must have led an early copyist or redactor to recall and insert the words of Phil 2:9.71 The argument that the Greek is superior in general but the Syriac superior in specific instances corresponds with what is evident throughout the work, in which the Syriac shows signs of alteration or expansion in order to render it more acceptable to an audience becoming sensitive to issues of proper belief and expression of that belief. At the same time, the Greek has sometimes been altered as well,72 making it essential to compare both versions. Although the feminine form of the epithets for the Spirit in the prayers suggests an origin in a Semitic milieu and probably in a Semitic language, the Greek prayers are themselves careful compositions and some stylistic features work better in Greek than in Syriac. The most striking characteristic of these prayers, the initial “come” in each line, stands out more in the uniform Greek than it does in Syriac, in which there are, in the first prayer, masculine, feminine, and plural forms of the imperative. Neither the Greek nor the Syriac text is completely reliable and it may be impossible to determine precisely what is the original form of the prayers in question. Each of these versions of the Acts of Thomas as a whole and the epicleses in particular was read and contributed to the theology and practice of its audience. Each witnesses to the particular

70Both Greek and Syriac have a reference to “perfect compassion” in each prayer. 71So argues Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 37. Kruse also contends that the Syriac is superior in this prayer in the separate appeal offered to “perfect compassion” and in the absence of a purpose clause following the phrase “Mother of the seven houses.” 72Some specific examples are provided in chapters 3 and 4 below.

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theological propensities of a redactor or redactors. But because the Greek text of the epicleses gives evidence in general of greater antiquity than does the Syriac, I limit my critical examination to the Greek, referring to the Syriac of the Acts of Thomas only when it sheds light on the development of the work. Citations Although several manuscripts of the Acts of Thomas contain divisions within the text, there exists a great variety in the manuscript tradition.73 I follow the designations found in the greater number of Greek manuscripts and indicated in Bonnet’s edition. I follow Bonnet also in chapter divisions and numbers, and use these to indicate corresponding material in the Syriac.74 Since the earliest edition of the Greek Acts of Thomas, that of Thilo, did not include Act 4, Bonnet’s edition necessarily involves alternate chapter numbers for Acts 5 and 6;75 Bonnet supplies the older number in parentheses. For the epicleses themselves, however, I supply my own line numbering. These divisions mark thematic and stylistic units within the prayers. These line numbers will be

73Titular and numeric designations vary considerably. The Greek title of the work is variously given as pravxei" or perivodoi (of the holy apostle Thomas). The martyrdom is sometimes independently titled, and several very brief versions of it exist. Individual acts are designated by their content and are often provided with a numeric designation. But the titles of the acts differ between Greek and Syriac, and even within a language tradition, although the differences in the Greek manuscripts are slight. In the Syriac, however, the British Library manuscript provides titles and colophons to the first three acts and, inexplicably, closes the sixth act and opens the ninth with such designations (i.e., sixth and ninth), despite the absence of intervening act numbers. The ninth act forms the entire second half of the work until the martyrdom. Sachau, on the other hand, not only provides act numbers (with the exception of the eighth act), but even increases the quantity, including a total of sixteen acts. Act divisions in Sachau, after the ninth act, do not correspond to those in the Greek, and rarely occur at chapter divisions as established in the Greek. The titles given the acts are equally distinct and often lengthy in Sachau. 74In this final respect, I adopt the practice of Klijn, The Acts of Thomas. The translation used by Klijn is that of Wright (Klijn’s text is, unfortunately, marred by frequent error). Klijn provides insightful notes, but with regard to the translation, his only real contribution is to assign chapter numbers to correspond with those in the Greek edition of Bonnet. 75A similar problem occurs in the martyrdom, which was numbered independently of the rest of the work in Tischendorf’s edition.

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used throughout this study, except where I make explicit reference to the page and line numbers of Bonnet. The epicleses, arranged according to lines and clauses within individual lines, follow:

Prayer in chapter 2776 1)

jElqe; to; a{gion o[noma tou' Cristou' to; uJpe;r pa'n o[noma:77

2)

ejlqe; hJ duvnami" tou' uJyivstou kai; hJ eujsplagcniva hJ teleiva:78

3)

ejlqe; to; cavrisma to; u{yiston:79

4)

ejlqe; hJ mhvthr hJ eu[splagcno":80

5)

ejlqe; hJ koinwniva tou' a[rreno":81

76The text is represented by Greek manuscripts ACDFPRSTUXY and Q (beginning in line 4). An abbreviated version of the first two chapters of the Acts of Thomas is found in a few manuscripts; this section is represented in BHZ, but has been drastically shortened from that account found in the majority of the mss. Regarding the initiation ritual recounted here, these epitomized manuscripts have only, “And the apostle, pouring down (water), baptized them in the bath of grace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; the epiclesis in question is absent. It is interesting to note that, in the longer recension, baptism in water is never explicitly mentioned. It is, however, the only initiatory element present in the short recension. Although the longer Greek recension generally follows the outline of the Syriac, in this detail the shorter recension follows the Syriac by mentioning the bath and the threefold baptismal formula, as well as the phrase “And when they came up from the water …” 77No Greek variants. 78tou' is replaced by hJ in mss. CD.FTX.PUY.S; uJyivstou then becomes u{yisto" in C and uJyivsth in D.FT. UY.S, while P has uJyhlh;; hJ eujsplagcniva hJ teleiva is altered to read hJ teleiva eujsplagcniva in R, while hJ teleiva is omitted in S (probably due to homoioteleuton with eujsplagcniva). 79to; cavrisma to; u{yiston is changed to to; u{yiston cavrisma in P, to to; cavrisma tou' uJyivstou in Y (probably parablepsis from line 2), and to to; cavrisma tw'n uJyivstwn in S. S therefore reads ejlqe; hJ duvnami" hJ uJyivsth kai; hJ eujsplagcniva: ejlqe; to; cavrisma tw'n uJyivstwn. The first line of this sounds somewhat like the Syriac. But S then goes on to omit lines 4 through 8B. 80Q, which had broken off with the first word (kaiv) in chap. 21, here resumes with eu[splagcno". 81A has oijkonomiva for koinwniva.

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6)

ejlqe; hJ ta; musthvria ajpokaluvptousa ta; ajpovkrufa:82

7A)

ejlqe; hJ mhvthr tw'n eJpta; oi[kwn, B)

i{na hJ ajnavpausiv" sou eij" to;n o[gdoon oi\kon gevnhtai.83

8A)

9A)

ejlqe; oJ presbuvtero" tw'n pevnte melw'n,84 B)

noo;" ejnnoiva" fronhvsew" ejnqumhvsew" logismou',85

C)

koinwvnhson meta; touvtwn tw'n newtevrwn:86

ejlqe; to; a{gion pneu'ma kai; kaqavrison tou;" nefrou;" aujtw'n kai; th;n kardivan,87 B)

kai; ejpisfravgison aujtou;" eij" o[noma patro;" kai; uiJou' kai; ajgivou pneuvmato".88

82C and D omit the hJ. 83C and D have soi for sou. 84C has aijsqhvsewn for melw'n, an obvious attempt to define more fully the elements of 8B. 85A omits ejnqumhvsew", surely due to homoioteleuton with fronhvsew". 86For touvtwn tw'n newtevrwn, S substitutes tw'n douvlwn sou touvtwn. 87Mss. F and S change the confusing tou;" nefrou;" aujtw'n kai; th;n kardivan to the simpler aujtw'n th;n kardivan. 88The kaiv which precedes uiJou' is omitted by X and P.

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English translation: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7A) 8A) 9A)

Come, holy name of the Anointed which is above every name;89 Come, power of the Most High and perfect compassion; Come, highest charism; Come, compassionate mother; Come, fellowship of the male; Come, revealer of hidden mysteries; Come, mother of the seven houses, B) so that your rest might be in the eighth house; Come, one who is older than the five members— B) mind, conception, thought, reflection, reason— C) commune with these youths; Come, holy spirit and cleanse their kidneys and heart, B) and seal them in the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.

Prayer in chapter 5090 1)

E j lqe; ta; splavgcna ta; tevleia:91

2)

ejlqe; hJ koinwniva tou' a[rreno":92

3)

ejlqe; hJ ejpistamevnh ta; musthvria tou' ejpilevktou:93

4)

ejlqe; hJ koivwnou'sa ejn pa'si toi'" a[qloi" tou' gennaivou ajqlhtou':94

5)

ejlqe; hJ hJsuciva hJ ajpokaluvptousa ta; megalei'a tou' panto;" megevqou":95

89The translations provided here are my own, but dependent on those of Harold W. Atrridge. Unless otherwise specified, all quotations of the Acts of Thomas are taken from his unpublished translations of the Greek and Syriac texts. 90The text is represented by mss. DPRUVY. 91No Greek variants. Here and often throughout, the Syriac differs considerably. 92Line 2 is identical with line 5 of the prayer in chapter 27. 93No variants. 94R and V omit this line, surely due to homoioteleuton with ejpilevktou.

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6A)

ejlqe; hJ ta; ajpovkrufa ejkfaivnousa96 B)

kai; ta; ajpovrrhta fanera; kaqistw'sa:97

7)

hJ iJera; peristera; hJ tou;" diduvmou" neossou;" gennw'sa:98

8)

ejlqe; hJ ajpovkrufo" mhvthr:

9A)

ejlqe; hJ fanera; ejn tai'" pravxesin aujth'" B)

kai; parevcousa cara;n kai; ajnavpausin toi'" sunhmmevnoi" aujth/':

10A) ejlqe; kai; koinwvnhson hJmi'n ejn tauvth/ th'/ eujcaristiva99 / B)

h}n poiou'men ejpi; tw'/ ojnovmativ sou,100

C)

kai; th'/ ajgavph/ h|/ sunhvgmeqa ejpi; th'/ klhvsei sou.101

95U (as well as the Syriac, interestingly) subsitutes musthvria for ta; megalei'a. 96No variants. 97P has poiou'sa for kaqistw'sa. 98V is lacking this line and the next two, resuming again with line 10. 99For ejn tauvth/ th'/ eujcaristiva/, P substitutes ejntau'qa kata; th;n eujcaristiva. 100Y has h} for h}n, perhaps intended as h|/, adopting the case of eujcaristiva/. RUVY omit the article before ojnovmativ sou and elide ejpiv. Against Bonnet’s critical edition, I am inclined to think that RUVY represent a superior text. For ojnovmativ sou, P has sw' ojnomavti. 101P has sh' klhvsei for klhvsei sou.

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English translation: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6A)

Come, perfect compassion; Come, fellowship of the male; Come, one who understands the mysteries of the chosen one; Come, one who communes in all the contests of the noble athlete; Come, rest which reveals the great things of every greatness; Come, revealer of secrets B) and make visible what is hidden; 7) Holy dove which bears twin nestlings; 8) Come, hidden mother; 9A) Come, the one visible in her actions, B) and the one who gives joy and rest to those who cling to her; 10A) Come and join us in this eucharist B) which we make in your name, C) and in the love in which we are united at your calling. Stylistic Analysis of the Epicleses The prayers in chapters 27 (over the initiatory oil) and 50 (over the eucharistic bread) stand out in the Acts of Thomas for several reasons. The Greek and Syriac versions have several tantalizing differences, suggesting that the distinct traditions did not develop by accident or error. Set in the context of Christian initiation, these prayers and the stories which surround them offer a glimpse into early initatory practices in the Syriac-speaking Christian church, practices which are altered in order to reflect a growing orthodoxy. At the same time, the language and images deployed, most notably those in the Greek, hint at a spirituality and style of theological reflection which did not survive beyond the early centuries of Christianity. Neither the prayer in chapter 27 nor that in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas gives evidence of any formal metrical system, although there are stylistic elements in the prayers that give them a rhythmic quality, making them especially suitable for liturgical use. The primary device that lends a rhythmic quality to these invocations is the use of anaphora, the repetition of the same word at the beginning of several successive clauses.102

102For a discussion of the rhetorical flourish known as anaphora and the other rhetorical devices discussed here, see the section on Greek grammatical and rhetorical figures in Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. by Gordon M. Messing; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 671–83.

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By far the most striking element in these prayers is the repetitive “come” that begins most103 lines in both Greek and Syriac. This use of the imperative structures the prayers and provides for the intriguing list of addressees whose presence is invoked. The Greek text always uses the singular ejlqev, whereas the Syriac uses both singular and plural, both masculine and feminine imperatives. Since only one imperative form is used in the Greek, the stylized effect is even more striking here than in the Syriac. The addressee of the Greek ejlqev is usually feminine (six times in chapter 27104), sometimes neuter (three times in chapter 27; one of these is to the Spirit), and once in chapter 27 is masculine. In chapter 50, the addressee is once a neuter plural,105 and seven times106 a feminine singular noun. Presumably the ejlqev in the last line is addressing a feminine figure as well, given the predominance of the feminine in the prayer, despite the absence of a named addressee.107 Chapters 27 and 50 have similar features that mark them as stylized compositions. Both exhibit a buildup of ideas or terms as well as similar-sounding words within single

103The notable exception is the seventh line in the Greek of chapter 50: “Holy dove which bears twin nestlings.” Exactly how this line is to be incorporated into the text is an issue discussed below. 104Line 2 has two elements that are invoked. The five elements listed in line 8 are in a hypotactic relationship to melw'n and are not themselves addressed. 105The Greek term ta; splavgcna is employed where the Syriac has rachme, similarly a plural noun with a singular sense and the same range of meaning as ta; splavgcna. Since ta; splavgcna is neuter, the singular imperative can be retained. 106Eight if hJ peristerav in line 7 is understood as the addressee of a missing ejlqev. 107The prayer in chapter 27 closes with an invocation of the Holy Spirit (or “Spirit of holiness”) in both Greek and Syriac. In chapter 50, the third line of the Syriac is addressed to the Holy Spirit, providing a clear referent for the rest of the epiclesis. The Greek of chap. 50, however, gives no clear indication of the identity of the one addressed; it is only by comparison with the Syriac that one is led to conclude that the author has the Spirit in mind. The almost exclusive use of feminine terms and participles also suggests the Spirit, but again only when the Greek reader is cognizant of either the Syriac version or the origin of the Acts of Thomas in a Semitic milieu. Perhaps the fact that the prayer is a eucharistic epiclesis would be enough to suggest the identity of the Spirit to the Greek reader, who would surely draw to mind other liturgical epicleses. The text itself is somewhat ambiguous. But perhaps it is so precisely because mention of the Spirit (neuter) in Greek would not clarify the issue and might even confuse the reader. The use of the feminine in this passage provides a reason for assuming the priority of Syriac for the composition of this prayer. That is not to say that the extant Syriac represents the original more faithfully than does the Greek.

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lines or between lines. Such is, of course, not surprising in an inflected language, but its presence enhances the delivery of the content. There are also several differences in the rhetorical figures present in the prayers. Chapter 27 seems to display parisosis (if not isocolon), the use of lines with equal numbers of syllables.108 The first two lines both contain nineteen syllables, followed by three shorter lines of eight or ten syllables. The following six lines alternate between a longer syllable count and a shorter one. The final two lines are long, containing twenty-four syllables each. This rhythmic presentation would have accorded well with a liturgical setting, granting the prayers an added measure of solemnity. Adding to the stylized character of the passage is the use of similar-sounding words. Lines 1 and 2 both contain the similarly pronounced tou; Cristou' and tou; uJyivstou. The same can be said of lines 4 and 5, which end respectively with eu[splagcno" and tou' a[rreno". Perhaps the beginning of line 5, hJ koinwniva, and of line 6, hJ to; musthvria, reflect the same phenomenon. This paromoiosis, the use of similar sounds in parallel clauses of somewhat equal length, may also be present in the final words of the first phrases of lines 7 and 8 (oi[kwn and melw'n), while the end of line 8 (tw'n newtevrwn) rhymes as well. Finally, the lines 9A and 9B contain similar-sounding imperative constructions: kai; kaqavrison tou;" nefrou;" in 9A and kai; ejpisfravgison aujtou" in 9B. Likeness of sound within a single line adds to the flow of the passage as well. Examples of this phenomenon include eujsplagcniva hJ teleiva in line 2; ta; musthvria ajpokaluvptousa ta; ajpovkrufa in line 6 (note also the alliteration); tw'n eJpta; oi[kwn and to;n o[gdoon oi\kon of line 7, especially together with tw'n pevnte melw'n of line 8. Finally, the doxology in the last line of the prayer contains the chiasmic parechesis (use of the same sound in successive words) patro;" kai; uiJou' kai; aJgivou pneuvmato". Certainly

108During the classical era in the Syriac-speaking Christian church (spanning much of the fourth and fifth centuries), iso-syllabic composition becomes a marked feature of Syriac religious writing. See, for example, Ephrem’s Sermo de domino nostro.

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any inflected language, by its nature, lends itself to a stylized presentation. It is not clear if all of the examples presented above were intended by the author/translator, and they are clearly not of equal significance, but, nonetheless, they do give the prayer a semi-poetic quality. The parenthetical list of the “five members” in line 9 is an example of asyndeton or the absence of conjunctions in a list of words; the clause is set off from the rest and breaks the flow of the prayer. Within it, however, are some examples of parechesis: noo;" with ejnnoiva" and especially fronhvsew" ejnqumhvsew". In line 6, by use of hyperbaton, the separation of words one would expect to find together, attention is drawn both to the “mysteries” which the invoked one reveals, and the assertion that they are ajpovkrufa. There are several recurring terms in this prayer, although there is not, strictly speaking, a climactic buildup of thought, word, or phrase. The various elements seem to be of parallel importance, although the final clause, in which the Holy Spirit is mentioned and which contains the concluding doxology, is the climax to the whole prayer. It also identifies the one addressed throughout (or at least in much of) the prayer. The repetition of certain terms, however, does add to the effect of the passage. “Name” appears twice in line 1; as the last word of the line, it points back to the first addressee of the imperative ejlqev, the “holy name.” The u{yiston of the third line recalls the uJyivstou of the second, while eu[splagcno" in the fourth line hearkens back to the eujsplagcniva of the second.

H J mhvthr from line 4 is repeated in line 7, although the second clause of the seventh

line breaks the pattern thus far established by introducing a purpose clause. The change in rhythm continues in the eighth and ninth lines, despite initial repetition of the standard ejlqev. A list of five “parts” is inserted into the eighth line, and the thought continues with an imperative other than ejlqev. Although the ninth line begins again with ejlqev, it continues with two other imperatives and ends with the concluding doxology. The doxology itself makes use of a polysyndeton, repeating the conjunction between each element and thus drawing attention to each coordinate element, while enhancing the rhythmic effect of the passage. In the final clause, within the doxology, is found ajgivou pneuvmato", which draws the reader back to the a[gion of 31

the first line, as does the use of o[noma, which appears twice in line 1. That these lines frame the prayer and that both speak of the “name” suggests that the holy name of line 1 is identified in the doxology of line 9. In a similar vein, the ejpisfravgison of the final line recalls the ejpisfravgisen, ejpisfravgisma, and th'" sfragivdo" of the introductory narrative which sets the stage for this prayer. The emphasis on “sealing” draws attention to the fact that the epiclesis here is over oil (and over people), not over water or the bread of the Eucharist.109 Chapter 50 contains an epiclesis over the Eucharist that follows a “sealing.” The seal is an apotropaic means of warding off a demon who had been sexually abusing a young woman. Because the woman had renounced sexual expression prior to the demon’s advances on her, the story suggests that she had heeded the apostle’s call, but had apparently not been fully initiated. The emphasis in this prayer is on revelation, with the help of the feminine figure who is invoked,110 of truths that are ordinarily hidden. As in chapter 27, there is no formal meter here, but the use of anaphora gives a stylized quality to the prayer. And, again as in chapter 27, the length of the lines helps structure the prayer, although strict isocolon is absent. The first two lines are short, followed by two longer lines, while the longest pair of phrases, made up of lines that have twenty-five syllables each, is set almost in the center of the prayer. Following the long lines 5 and 6, the structure changes. It is possible that there is intended a pattern of alternation of longer lines with shorter lines, and a conclusion with a relatively long line of 16 syllables. This, however, does not follow the pattern of beginning all lines (except line 7, which is awkward and, without ejlqev, breaks the flow of the 109Although the Syriac account also begins with an anointing, followed immediately by the prayer, the prayer itself ends prior to the doxology, a doxology that becomes part of a baptismal ritual. The shift in emphasis, from oil in the Greek to water in the Syriac, renders ambiguous the purpose of the invocations in the Syriac text. Although it seems more reasonable to understand that the prayer remains spoken over the oil, the context is not entirely clear. Although the Greek text clearly describes an initiation ceremony, it is never called a baptism. Only in the preceding narrative, in chapter 25, is it claimed that the king and his brother, here anointed, had already been baptized in water. The order of elements in initiation is thus reversed from the usual order of the Syrian baptismal tradition, an order that is retained in the Syriac of this passage. The mention of “bath” in chap. 5 does not, however, seem to be original. 110As noted above, the Syriac makes it clear that the reference is to the Holy Spirit.

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prayer) with the imperative. If each line in this section is considered to begin with ejlqev, the pattern begun in the first half of the prayer is lost. Lines 5 and 6 are then followed by the unusual line 7 and the very short line 8, then by two very long lines of 32 and 46 syllables respectively. There appears, then, to be no consistent pattern in composition or length of lines. As in the prayer in chapter 27, there are several areas in the prayer in chapter 50 in which repetition of similar vowel sounds gives the prayer a semi-poetic, stylized quality. Despite commonalities of ordinary Greek language, there also appear to be some deliberate rhetorical flourishes used here. Paromoiosis is employed in such similar-sounding words as the tou' ejpilevktou and tou' gennaivou ajqlhtou' of lines 3 and 4; ajpokaluvptousa and ejkfaivnousa in lines 4 and 5; kaqistw'sa and gennw'sa in lines 6 and 7; and perhaps the pravxesin and ajnavpausin in line 9, as well as aujth'/ in line 9 together with tauvth/ th'/ in line 10, and the repetition of ejpi; in the final two phrases of line 10. Several phrases contain words with common initial sounds: in line 1 is found ta; tevleia, while hJ hJsuciva hJ in line 5 and tauvth/ th'/ fit this description as well. Two lines employ alliteration together with parechesis: ta; ajpovkrufa (ejk)faivnousa and ta; ajpovrrhta fanera; kaqistw'sa appear in line 6, while line 7 contains the poetic hJ iJera; peristera;. By the use of homoioteleuton, lines 3 and 4 rhyme (ejpilevktou and ajqlhtou'), as do lines 6 and 7 (kaqistw'sa and gennw'sa). Finally, the use of antistrophe or the presence of the same word or phrase at the end of clauses (sou at the ends of lines 9 and 10, and perhaps aujth'" and aujth'/ ending the first and second clauses, respectively, of line 9) contributes to the notion that the elements of the prayer are employed intentionally, at least in part. Within individual lines, there are several examples of repetition of sound. Many of these can easily be attributed to inflection in the Greek language, but they still contribute to the overall rhythmic effect of the prayer. In line 1 we find ta; splavgcna ta; tevleia, while line 3 provides three examples of parechesis: hJ ejpistamevnh, ta; musthvria, and tou' ejpilevktou. In addition, line 4 contains the rhyming toi'" a[qloi" and tou' gennaivou ajqlhtou' while line 5 may display parechesis in hJ hJsuciva hJ ajpokaluvptousa ta; megalei'a. More noticeable than this last 33

example are those in line 7 (tou;" diduvmou" neossou;"), line 9 (toi'" sunhmmevnoi"), and line 10 (tauvth/ th',/ and, in the final phrase, th'/ ajgavph h|/ and th'/ klhvsei). The examples mentioned earlier, in lines 6 and 7, are the most striking and, therefore, seem most likely to be deliberate. As in chapter 27, there cannot be said to be a buildup of ideas in this prayer. It is striking, however, how many words and ideas are repeated. In particular there is a cognitive repetition; numerous synonyms are employed, especially with regard to things that are “revealed” and “hidden,” as well as the one who reveals them. The same words in different forms are frequently used as well. koinwniva in line 1 becomes hJ koinwnou'sa in line 3 and koinwvnhson in line 10. Corresponding terms occur often in the same clause: toi'" a[qloi" tou' ... ajqlhtou' in line 4 and ta; megalei'a tou' ... megevqou" in line 5. The fanera; in line 6 reappears in line 9, while the ajpovkrufa of line 6 becomes ajpovkrufo" in line 8. It is likely, as well, that the ajgavph in the last clause is used as a technical term and therefore the equivalent of eujcaristiva, also in line 10. In addition to the use of corresponding terms, there are also antithetical terms employed which appear deliberate and which heighten the sense of awe evoked by the passage. They are, without exception, references to the revealing nature of the one invoked. The most striking are found in line 3 (hJ ejpistamevnh ta; musthvria) and line 6 (ta; ajpovkrufa ejkfaivnousa and ta; ajpovrrhta fanera;). A final word needs to be said concerning the striking line 7 of chapter 50. Lacking an initial ejlqev, this line interrupts the flow and breaks the anaphoral pattern that has been established. It is possible that an initial ejlqev has dropped from the text, but I suggest instead that the line has been displaced from its original location. Since the content of the “sacred dove” line appears to be appropriate in a prayer to the Spirit who is called Mother, I think it originally followed rather than preceded line eight (thus, “Come, hidden Mother, sacred dove that bears twin nestlings”). Such a reading would not only make better sense (thus explicating what is meant by “Mother”), but this would bring the form of the prayer in line with that in chapter 27. Each of the epicleses 34

would continue to feature the anaphoral “come” nine times. The seventh line of each prayer would then be addressed to the “Mother,” followed by some comment on her activity. In both prayers, the eighth and ninth lines are lengthier than the earlier lines, appearing to be a stylistic feature of the prayer itself, prior to its insertion into this work. Redactional activity or simple error in transmission (probably before incorporation into this work) would account for the change. Conclusion The prefatory material of this chapter seeks to introduce the reader to the Acts of Thomas and to this essay, by providing a brief summary of the work in its principal versions and the scholarly attempts that have been made to understand it. I have tried to anticipate technical issues that may arise in the course of my examination and to give the reader a sense of the complexity of the textual witness. Since my main interest is in the epicleses of chaps. 27 and 50, I have examined those prayers as they survive in Greek and Syriac, the most important witnesses to the work. No attempt was made her to reconstruct the original form of the prayers, although evidence of redaction is noted. In general, I accept the standard thesis that the Greek version presents prayers of greater antiquity than does the Syriac version, but this in no way means that in the Greek we find an “original” text or that the Syriac is of no value. I examine the prayers in Greek because of their more intriguing and, I believe, more ancient language, but always with an eye toward the Syriac version. As a result of this decision, I have provided the Greek text of the prayers with my own line numbering and divisions of clauses. I have closed the chapter with an examination of the style of the Greek epicleses and the rhetorical figures that appear in them, whether or not these were intended by an author or redactor. Having given the reader an introduction to the epicleses themselves, I turn, in the next several chapters, to issues of a more general nature in order to situate the epicleses within their proper context. I begin by examining the standard questions of authorship, provenance, and dating of the Acts of Thomas, questions that, not surprising in a work that 35

suffered from the baneful ire of ecclesiastics and the subsequent suppression of the text, are not easily answered.

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CHAPTER 2 PRELIMINARY ISSUES IN SCHOLARSHIP: AUTHORSHIP, PROVENANCE, AND DATING OF THE ACTS OF THOMAS The preliminary questions of authorship, place of origin, and date of the Acts of Thomas generate little discussion among scholars. Although there have been some refinements made to the generally accepted theses,1 the work has usually been assigned to the early third century2 and is considered to have been written in the region of Edessa3 by an anonymous author. While the standard assumptions rest on some firm evidence, there is a tendency to draw conclusions that go beyond the available evidence. I believe that the questions need to be addressed again, and that close attention to the composite nature of the work will assist in clarifying some of the issues.

1See, most recently, the work of Jan Bremmer, “Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria,” in All those Nations ... Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East (Groningen: STYX Publications, 1999), 21–29, and especially “The Acts of Thomas” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston, November 22, 1999). Bremmer assigns the date to the 220s or 230s and specifies Edessa as the place of composition. 2

So A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 26; Han J. W. Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.323; PaulHubert Poirier and Yves Tissot, “Actes de Thomas,”1323; and several others. 3

It appears that all commentators agree that the work, whatever its original language, stems from eastern Syria. Most begin, then, to discuss the city of Edessa and its (fourth-century) traditions regarding its famous son, Bardaisan. Poirier and Tissot confidently assert that it was written “sans doute” in Edessa (“Actes de Thomas,” 1323).

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Authorship The Acts of Thomas, like the other four ancient apocryphal acts of apostles, was attributed by Photius to a certain Leucius Charinus.4 Photius knew a collection of journeys of five apostles, poorly written and containing foolishness, in his opinion, but claiming to have been written by one author. Even a cursory reading of the apocryphal acts reveals a variety of writing styles and theological positions so that the attribution to a single author cannot be maintained.5 Scholars agree that the author of the Acts of Thomas is anonymous, but seek to identify this author further by theological school and native region and language. Although there are theological positions that are clearly espoused in the Acts of Thomas, I suggest that they are not as fully represented by the entire work as is often assumed. The text has been heavily redacted, as is evident both internally and from examining the texual evidence.6 A brief synopsis of the evidence will suffice, followed by my suggestions for interpreting it. The Acts of Thomas can be divided roughly into two large sections (Acts 1–8 and Act 9 through the end). The early acts are discrete units, each telling a tale largely independent of the rest of the acts. Only in the second half of the work, set in the court of King Mizdai, does a coherent, extended story appear. Throughout the work, prayers and speeches are found on the lips of the apostle and other significant figures. The content of the sometimes lengthy speeches does not always correspond with the context in which they

4

Photius, Bibliotheca 114. The name of Leucius is, however, attached in the west to some or all of the five apocryphal acts at a much earlier date and appears to have been of Manichaean origin. The name is mentioned for the first time in 404 by Augustine (“in Actis conscriptis a Leutio”), Fel. 2.6 (CSEL 25, 833.8–17); see also Evodius, De fide contra Manicheos 38 (CSEL 25, 968.24ff.); Innocent I, Ep. 6.7 (ed. Hubert Wurm in Apollinaris 12 [1939]: 77–78, lines 34–37); Turribius, Ep. ad Idac. et Cipon. 5 (PL 54.711–14). See further discussion in Knut Schäferdiek, “The Manichean Collection of apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius Charinus,” in NTA (ET, 1992), 2.87–100. 5

See the discussion in Eric Junod, “Actes apocryphes et hérésie: le jugement de Photius,” in Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres: christianisme et monde païen (ed. François Bovon et al.; Publications de la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université de Genève 4; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 11–24, esp. 16–18. Leucius and Charinus were the two heroes in a Latin recension of the tour of Christ’s descent into hell which follows the Acts of Pilate (the two works together known as the Gospel of Nicodemus). 6

Support for this contention will be provided in chapter 3 below.

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are found, although the prayers themselves evidence similarities in theme and vocabulary with one another. The final, coherent story involving the royal family of King Mizdai was certainly written in Syriac,7 in the northern Mesopotamian region. The second half of the work is tied to the first half by the figure of the general in Acts 7 and 8; he becomes Siphor, the general of King Mizdai, in the second half.8 The latter half of the work presumes that readers know the story of Siphor’s wife and daughter, and references to them are integrated into the narrative. Indeed, the entire narrative of the tale featuring the female convert Mygdonia is integrated; only some prayers and the poetic Hymn of the Pearl interrupt its flow. The tale in the second half of the Acts of Thomas must have been composed with knowledge of the tales in the first half, or at least those regarding the general and his family. It seems likely, then, that the author of the second half is also the initial redactor of the entire work, pulling together disparate stories of the apostle’s adventures and providing transitions to form a relatively coherent account of the missionary peregrinations of the apostle Judas Thomas.9 The second half of the Acts of Thomas is also tied to the first by the theme of sexual renunciation. A leitmotif in the Mygdonia story,10 it appears in a few places in the first half. It is central to the story of the bridal couple in the first act and occasionally informs the words of the apostle, in speeches and prayers which probably antedate the

7

The most extensive and convincing philological evidence for authorship in Syriac can be found in this section, although the evidence is not confined to this section. See Attridge, “The Original Language of the Acts of Thomas.” 8

And in the Greek of chapter 62.

9

It is possible, of course, that the tales in the first half were already gathered together before they were integrated with the second half, but the redactor has loosely inserted personal values, such as asceticism, into the early tales. 10 See, for example, the emphasis on “holiness” (i.e., chastity) in the apostle’s prayer in chapters 85 and 86, in the beatitudes of chapter 94 (in which a form of a{gio" is employed), in Mygdonia’s prayer in chapter 97, in Siphor’s speeches in chapters 104 and 131 and that of Tertia in chapter 137 (a{gion), and the speech of Judas in chapter 139. Mygdonia’s insistence on renouncing sexual activity is, of course, the basis for the conflict between her and her husband (see especially Mygdonia’s words in chapter 103). In addition, intercourse is “filthy” (chapter 88), leads to destruction (chapter 124), and is too horrible even to mention (chapter 130).

39

complete edition of the Acts of Thomas.11 Two acts, Acts 5 and 6, are centered around the theme of sexual transgression, but in neither case are the sexual sins those of marital intercourse. The woman in Act 5 is possessed by a demon through the act of intercourse, but there is no suggestion that sex itself is forbidden. Although the youth who murdered the woman in Act 6 says he did so because he had accepted the apostle’s preaching against sex and did not want to see the woman he loved involved in intercourse with another man, this may have been a contribution of the redactor of the tales, who was incorporating them with the highly ascetic Mygdonia story.12 In the infernal punishments witnessed by the woman, sexual punishments are limited to those who have “exchanged the intercourse of man and woman” (perhaps homosexual activity) and and those who have committed adultery,13 and the apostle’s speech in chapter 58 likewise condemns sexual immorality and adultery.14 Standard sexual sins are renounced as well in the speech of the ass in chapter 79. When read together with the second half of the Acts of Thomas and Act 1, the intervening acts

11

The speech in chapter 28, in which sexual immorality is condemned, could easily be excised. And the short prayer denouncing intercourse in chapter 52 again interrupts the flow of the narrative and appears to have been inserted. Finally, the prayer of chapter 61 has most likely been appended to conclude Act 6. 12

The youth’s logic, of course, fails to be convincing as well. The apostle had, presumably, not condemned sex while condoning murder. In addition, the woman’s sexual life would not affect the youth’s commitment to sexual purity. It appears that the original tale told the story of a young man who fell in love with a woman, asked her to be his “companion” and was rebuffed, and then killed her to prevent her from joining with anyone else. Changing such a story to the present one would involve only a few insertions of material into the speech of the youth in chapter 51, and the prayer of the apostle in chapter 52. The woman’s tour of hell includes punishments for standard sexual sins; the condemnation of marital sexual activity is notably lacking. 13

The Syriac version does appear to condemn ordinary sexual activity in this section, as well as sex with prostitutes. Poirier and Tissot, however (“Actes de Thomas,” 1325), note that the woman cannot be condemning marital intercourse, for she refers to violation of the intercourse “ordained by God.” This phrase appears only in the Syriac. 14

It would be convenient to claim that the reference to “holiness” (which in Syriac refers to chastity) at the end of the prayer was added by the redactor and this may, in fact, be the case. (This chapter includes the only occurrence of aJgiwsuvnh in the first half of the work.) But it is found in both the Greek and the Syriac and, while it does not figure into the rest of the prayer, it may have been original. It is difficult to say, however, whether it originally connoted anything other than its simple meaning. The term definitely bears a technical sense when it is employed, several times, in the Mygdonia story.

40

appear to be highly ascetic.15 But, when Acts 2–8 are taken by themselves, that ascetic quality, at least regarding sexual renunciation, recedes into the background.16 The rare instances of sexual renunciation that remain in Acts 2–8, found primarily in chapter 61, appear to have been supplied by the redactor of the entire work, most likely the author of the Mygdonia story.17 The martyrdom poses its own distinct problems and was probably written and circulated separately from the rest of the Acts of Thomas.18 The main characters in the martyrdom are Thomas, the guards, Mizdai, and the “crowds.” Other names are added superficially,19 as is evident by the remark in chapter 164 that “many people believed in him, including some prominent nobles,” mentioned here as though we are meeting them for the first time. The women who have been at the center of much of the narrative in the second half of the work are named at the beginning of the martyrdom and not again until after the apostle’s death and burial. The mention of the leadership roles bestowed on Siphor and Vizan appears to be an afterthought. Indeed, several appendices seem to close the martyrdom: the appearance of the apostle to Siphor and Vizan in chapter 169; the apostle’s appearance to Tertia and Mygdonia in the same chapter (perhaps the two appearance scenes

15

Several times in Act 1, and repeatedly in the Mygdonia story, the apostle is said to be a “foreigner.” The motif appears nowhere else in the early tales of the Acts of Thomas except in the prayer of chapter 61, which was appended to an earlier prayer. See the discussion of this prayer in chapter 3 below. 16

It is, of course, in Act 1 that the apostle refrains from eating at the wedding banquet. But he also prepared a simple meal of bread, oil, an herb, and salt in chapter 29, a meal from which he abstains in the Greek. The apparent lack of wine in the Eucharist will be discussed in chapter 4 below. 17 The recognition of the ascetic character of Act 1 and its relationship to the second half of the work has already been noted by Yves Tissot, “Les actes de Thomas, exemple de recueil composite,” in Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres: christianisme et monde païen (ed. François Bovon et al.; Publications de la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université de Genève 4; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 223. See also Poirier and Tissot, “Actes de Thomas,” 1324. Tissot maintains that the encratite author actually composed Act 1. This may indeed be the case, but this author certainly makes use of traditional material (the opening scene, the Hymn of the Bride). It is clear that this person, if not actually responsible for the composition of Act 1, extensively edited the section. 18 Certainly in its Nachleben this was true, as its presence in the markedly distinct Arabic Acts of Thomas demonstrates. 19

Vizan is the most fully integrated, but still not necessary for the progression of events.

41

fit together); the mention of the community and the designation of Siphor as a presbyter and Vizan as a deacon (chapter 169); the exorcism of Mizdai’s son and the king’s change of heart (chapter 170). Each could be easily removed without loss of coherence. The entire story of the martyrdom has, however, been incorporated with the Mygdonia story by mention, especially in the final paragraghs, of the central characters from that story. One cannot, therefore, speak simply of the author of the Acts of Thomas. Although the early tales may have come from the same pen, even they could have been produced20 independently and drawn together at a later date. What is clear is that one author produced the story in the second half of the work in essentially the form in which we find it in the manuscripts.21 That author must also have been the redactor of the tales in the first half, as evidence from Act 1 makes clear. This same redactor is also responsible for inserting prayers and speeches into the tales in the first half of the work.22 Although some prayers and speeches throughout the work may have been written for the occasion by this author/redactor, the consistent themes linking several prayers (detailed in chapter 3 below) suggest a prior, independent origin. The prayers must have been inserted into the narrative at a fairly early date, although they continued to grow over time, as the manuscipt evidence illustrates. The redactor seems to have been drawing on liturgical material for some of the prayers. In the final analysis, there were several authors whose work contributed to the Acts of Thomas as a whole. An author or authors composed the prayers and speeches. Someone especially talented wrote the beautiful Hymn of the Pearl (chapters 108–113). The early tales were composed and perhaps already embellished and drawn together before their

20

Perhaps originally as oral tales.

21

A notable exception is, of course, the presence of the Hymn of the Pearl. As we shall see in chapter 3, the lengthy prayer in chaps. 144–147 is also problematic and shifts location. In addition, the martyrdom and perhaps Act 13 are not as integrally related to the story as one might wish. The tale involving the conversions of Mygdonia and Tertia is, on the other hand, coherent. 22

The prayer in chapter 61 is the most obvious example. This prayer concludes an already existing prayer but is clearly independent. See also below, note 37.

42

incorporation into the work as we know it. Finally, even after the Acts of Thomas was completed in essentially the form we now have it, it continued to change due to literary efforts of various editors, redactors, and abbreviators. In general, references to the “author” of the work must refer to the author of the second half and redactor of the whole. Provenance The author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas is anonymous. Despite theories that the work was written by a woman or group of women,23 the identity of the author/redactor is unknown. But one datum regarding this Christian figure can be known with some certainty: the author hailed from eastern Syria, in the region of northern Mesopotamia. I suggest further that the author most likely has links to Nisibis,24 a fortified market city on the border between the Roman and Parthian, and later Persian, empires. The Acts of Thomas has traditionally been assigned to the region of Edessa and the Osrhoene. There is good (but inconclusive) reason for this supposition. Edessa was a cultural and educational center—the “Athens of the east”25 —and a bilingual city in antiquity.26 Christianity must have arrived there by the late second century. The Chronicle of Edessa includes an eyewitness account of the flooding of the city of Edessa in the year

23

The attribution of the work, and the apocryphal acts in general, to a woman or group of women (widows) is put forth by Stevan L. Davies, The Revolt of the Widows: The Social World of the Apocryphal Acts (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980); Davies is followed by such scholars as Virginia Burrus, “Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal Acts,” in Dennis Ronald MacDonald, ed., The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Semeia 38; Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1986), 101–17. 24

The suggestion that Nisibis was the place of authorship of the Acts of Thomas, based primarily on the name of Mygdonia in the work, was made already, but not developed, by George Huxley, “Geography in the Acts of Thomas,” GRBS 24 (1983): 71–80. 25

Han J. W. Drijvers, “Apocryphal Literature in the Cultural Milieu of Osrhoëne,” Apocrypha 1 (1990), 246. 26 It appears that Greek and Syriac were equally well known in the city and that documents were sometimes produced in both languages or immediately translated from one language to the other. But the evidence for this is relatively late.

43

201.27 Notable in the account is the observation that the flood had damaged the “church of the Christians,” the earliest mention of a building set aside solely for the purpose of Christian worship. By the fourth century, Edessa was known in the west for its Christian character. Eusebius claims that the whole city was Christian from the first century,28 the period of the correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar and the subsequent visit of Thaddeus to evangelize the city; he is able to quote directly from the city’s archives to bolster his claim.29 Both Ephrem and Egeria attest that Thomas’s tomb could be found in the city of Edessa. He was revered there30 and Edessa seems to be the city that best preserved traditions about him, including the Acts of Thomas. The “writings of holy Thomas himself,”31 to which Egeria refers, probably indicate the Acts of Thomas, since the Gospel of Thomas had long before been condemned in the west,32 home to the Spanish pilgrim. Further, the presence of Greek and Syriac witnesses to the work, and the historical uncertainty in scholarly circles regarding its original language, could perhaps suggest a locale in which documents were

27

A convenient English translation of the Chronicle regarding this event, with discussion, can be found in J. B. Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), 24–26. The Chronicle itself is dated to the sixth century, but contains much older material. The graphic account of the flood, as well as elaborate details regarding the date and scribes who recorded it, suggest that the account is genuine. 28

Hist. eccl. 2.1.7.

29

Hist. eccl. 1.13.5. Egeria, too, is thrilled to have access to the archives and to be given a copy of Jesus’ letter to Abgar. 30

Ephrem, Hymni dispersi 6 and Carm. Nis. 42.1; Itin. Eger. 19.2.

31

Itin. Eger. 19.2. Egeria, who visited Edessa in approximately 384, knows nothing about the tradition of Thaddeus (or Addai) evangelizing the city, although she is given a copy of the Jesus-Abgar correspondence. This material from the Edessene archives is quoted by Eusebius, with the addition of material “in Syriac” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.13.11) designating Thaddeus as the apostle sent to Edessa by Thomas. It is possible that, by the time of Egeria, the archives no longer contained the Thaddeus document (if they ever did). I suspect, however, that the tradition of Thomas’s involvement with the city had grown by Egeria’s time, so that any legend of Thaddeus had faded. The bones of Thomas must have been located in Edessa sometime after Eusebius, writing in the early fourth century (who knows of no direct connection between Thomas and Edessa) but before Ephrem, who moved to Edessa in 363. This might have implications for dating the Martyrdom of Thomas, in which the comment is made that Thomas’s bones were taken “west.” 32

Origen, Hom. 1 in Luc., PG 13.1803. See the brief notice in John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels (London: SPCK, 1971), 225.

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quickly translated from Syriac into Greek and vice versa. Edessa appears to be a likely candidate. A prominent figure in second- and third-century Edessene Christianity is the court philosopher Bardaisan. Bardaisan had an intellectual curiosity and was interested in astrology, philosophy, the practices of various countries,33 and history. He is remembered for the hymns he composed, although the fourth-century Ephrem strongly reviles him and his religious teachings. Bardaisan was an aristocrat, completely comfortable with the luxury and education that attend a life of royalty. What little we know of his life provides valuable witness to the type of Christianity that existed in Edessa in the late second and early third centuries. But the Acts of Thomas34 presents an understanding of the Christian life quite distinct from that associated with Bardaisan.35 In the second half of the work, in which the action is centered in the royal court, the apostle appears as “a stranger and outsider in that milieu.”36 Indeed, the word xevno" is used repeatedly of the apostle by the redactor of the work.37 Where Bardaisan has an essentially positive view of the world, sexuality, and

33

Bardaisan’s own writings survive only in fragments. But his student, Philippus, composed a treatise on fate that reads much like a Socratic dialogue and presumably represents accurately Bardaisan’s views. In that treatise (the Book of the Laws of the Countries), Bardaisan reveals his fascination with foreign practices. 34

At least in its completed form. It is possible that the early tales were composed in the region of Edessa, but evidence for such an assertion is wanting. 35 One area of possible agreement is a denial of the resurrection of the body. The Acts of Thomas is largely silent on the issue, and mentions Jesus’ resurrection only once (chap. 80), while Ephrem declares that Bardaisan denies the resurrection of the body (HcHaer. 53.4). It is difficult to know if this was actually the position of Bardaisan, however; Ephrem also attributes to him an apparently erroneous view of the body as evil. 36

Drijvers, “Apocryphal Literature in the Cultural Milieu of Osrhoëne,” 238.

37

Interestingly, all references, with one exception, to the apostle as xevno" appear in Act 1 or the Mygdonia story. The sole exception occurs in the “Look upon us” prayer of chapter 61, a prayer appended to a separate and earlier prayer, as is evident on other grounds, in which the apostle speaks in the plural of followers of Christ becoming “strangers” on his account. That prayer also advocates rejection of earthly possessions and spouses.

45

human nature,38 the Acts of Thomas views the human person in a constant struggle with evil powers, a struggle in which Christ serves as a divine helper and protector. By living a life of “holiness” or sexual renunciation, the Christian remains pure and is worthy to partake in the goods of a heavenly kingdom.39 An inversion of social roles takes place in the Acts of Thomas. The members of the court in the Mygdonia story forsake their royal status, but participation in the kingdom of God is available to everyone who will live a life of dedication to Christ. There is, then, circumstantial evidence pointing to Edessa as the place of origin of the Acts of Thomas, but the theological positions found within the work (or at least within the second half) do not correspond with what we know of Edessene Christianity in the era. It is certainly possible that an Edessene Christian unconnected with the royal court produced the work, but, despite the author/redactor’s distrust of aristocratic trappings, the Acts of Thomas does give evidence of careful composition and the use of symbolism in the areas of the work composed by this hand.40 The author must have been well educated, but not in the thoughtworld of Bardaisan. Although Christianity certainly arrived in Edessa by the late second or early third century, there is evidence for Christianity elsewhere in the region at an even earlier date, as we shall see below. But Edessa seems to have been singled out by later authors, such as Eusebius, in part because of Bardaisan’s activity there. There are, however, other reasons to doubt an Edessene provenance for the Acts of Thomas.

38

Bardaisan’s emphasis on human liberty and essential goodness pervade the Book of the Laws of Countries: “For good is natural to man, so that he is glad when he acts rightly” (BLC 555; translation by H. J. W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws of Countries [Assen: van Gorcum, 1965). Sexual behavior is part of a person’s natural constitution; it can be used for good or for ill because of human free will (BLC 559–64; also 575). Later Bardesanites became more dualistic, viewing matter itself as evil. 39

See, for example, the speech of Thomas to Tertia at her conversion (chap. 136).

40 See Michael LaFargue, Language and Gnosis: The Opening Scenes of the Acts of Thomas (HDR 18; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) on the motifs in the first act; see also the discussion in Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 326.

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The assumption that Edessa was the Christian center in Mesopotamia at such an early date may be anachronistic.41 J. B. Segal argues that Christianity arrived in Edessa, not from Antioch or other western regions, but from the east, suggesting that the center of the earliest Christian evangelization in the eastern lands was the region of Adiabene,42 with its fertile ground in the Jewish populace, or Nisibis itself.43 The view that Edessa was connected with Antiochene Christianity comes only from the late44 Doctrina Addai, which indicates a change in direction in the allegiance of the church of Edessa, from east to west. The strongest argument for assigning the Acts of Thomas to Edessa is the memory of the apostle preserved there in the fourth century. But we must be cautious about assigning validity to later traditions which may have originated out of pilgrimage concerns or other non-historical factors. In the words of Sebastian Brock, “Even though the Acts of Thomas may have been well known in Edessa in the fourth century, there is no real evidence that they were written there (Edessa certainly does not figure in its contents).”45 Edessa does not seem to be the most likely site to have produced the author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas.

41

A. F. J. Klijn has recently admitted this, acknowledging that “the situation is much more complicated than is usually assumed” (Klijn, “The Acts of Thomas Revisited,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 1–10. The discussion of provenance of the Acts of Thomas and the quotation cited are found on p. 7. 42

J. B. Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” 81. Segal may be relying too heavily on the sixth-century, often unreliable Chronicle of Arbela. In the end, we cannot know precisely how or when Christianity arrived in northern Mesopotamia. 43 Segal, “When did Christianity come to Edessa?” in Middle East Studies and Libraries: A Felicitation Volume for Professor J. D. Pearson (ed. Barry Bloomfield; London: Mansell, 1980), 179–91), esp. p. 189). Although some of Segal’s conclusions are not convincing, his general thesis is attractive. Segal suggests that the legend of Addai arose in Edessa, rather than in Nisibis, because of the former’s secure position and its reputation for healing. But Nisibis, too, was a strong city later known for its healing arts. Ephrem, it should be remembered, who lived most of his life in Nisibis, took charge of famine relief work in Edessa when no one else would. I suspect that Edessa’s safe position within the Roman Empire led to its acquisition of the bones of Thomas, which, in turn, stimulated the legends, so popular in the west in the fourth century, of Edessa as an early Christian center. 44

Ca. 400.

45

Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 225.

47

There are, however, hints within the work that suggest another important locale in eastern Syria, the city of Nisibis. Nisibis, like Edessa,46 was a major Mesopotamian commercial and political center; it was known as the “meeting place.”47 It was inhabited by a mix of peoples who brought their cultural identities and religions to the city.48 Situated on the border between warring states, Nisibis was sought by Rome as well as by its enemies and the city was often besieged.49 Known for its strong fortifications, Nisibis was a prize in

46

These were the two great “Antiochs” of Mesopotamia, so called by the Macedonians who entered the region with conquest of Alexander (although the name of Antioch does not appear on coins from these cities until the second century B.C.E.). See A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 216. 47

Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” 10, and “The Jews of North Mesopotamia Before the Rise of Islam,” in Studies in the Bible Presented to Professor M. H. Segal (ed. J. M. Grintz and J. Liver; Jerusalem: Israel Society for Biblical Research, 1964), 38. Tsobha, or “meeting place,” is, in fact, the Syriac name of the city. 48

Kathleen E. McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (The CWS; New York: Paulist, 1989), 5–6.

49 Nisibis was founded by the Greeks in 331 B.C.E., but when the Seleucids under Antiochus IV took control of the region, it was renamed Antiocheia. When the Parthians defeated the Seleucids, they took control of the city: “Tigranes of the Parthians took it [Nisibis] away [from the Seleucids]” (Cassius Dio 36.6.2). But the Armenians held control of Nisibis at the time of the Parthian king Artabanus III, who captured it and gave it to Izates of Adiabene as a reward for helping Artabanus regain his throne (Josephus, Ant. 20.3). It is unclear how long Nisibis remained part of Adiabene, but during Trajan’s eastern campaign, the city came under Roman control, while Adiabene perhaps became the short-lived Roman province of Assyria. After a Parthian revolt, Trajan returned in 116, burned Edessa and again captured Nisibis. After Trajan’s death, Rome’s Mesopotamian conquests were abandoned. Nisibis again came under control of Rome during the Parthian/Roman struggles of 162–167 when a Roman garrison was fixed in the city, but it is not until Septimius Severus gained control of the region in the 190s and made Nisibis the center of his operations that it was decisively under Roman control. By 199, Nisibis, a Roman colonia, was the capital of the Roman province of Mesopotamia. See the discussions in J. Sturm, “Nisibis,” RE 17.1, cols. 714–57 and Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 99–111. See also W. Stewart McCullough, A Short History of Syriac Christianity to the Rise of Islam (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 3–6, and Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” 6–15. It is difficult to know if the allegiance of the Nisibenes would have been emphatically directed toward Rome once it was declared a colonia. Certainly by the time of its fall in 363, this was true, at least by the Christian majority in Nisibis, as Ephrem makes clear. But by that time, the Roman Empire was Christian, while the Persian king was persecuting the Christians. In third-century political history, the region of Nisibis figures as the site of the last battle between the Romans and the Parthians in 217, which battle Rome lost decisively. In 230, the Persian Ardashir unsuccessfully besieged Nisibis, but apparently took it in 237/238, although it was quickly recovered by Rome. In 256, Shapur I captured Nisibis. With Shapur's conquests in western Syria in that year and again in 260, he deported to Mesopotamia many residents, presumably at least some Christians, of Antioch and surrounding areas. In 263, Palmyra took control of Nisibis, but Palmyra was destroyed by the Romans in 273. In the peace terms between Diocletian and Narseh in 298, Nisibis was again given to Rome and remained in Roman hands, the official trading post between Roman and Persian lands, until 363, although Shapur II forcefully but unsuccessfully attacked Nisibis three times before it was given to him in the peace established with Jovian. J. B. Segal suggests that all of Mesopotamia, including the north, was, for the most part, hostile to Rome (Segal, “The Jews of North Mesopotamia Before the Rise of Islam,” 33).

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any conflict. At the foot of the mountains of Armenia (just south of the Tur ‘Abdin or Mons Masius) where the mountain passes open onto the upper Syrian plains, Nisibis was located on the ancient trade route to the east. Unfortunately, sources concerning the history of Nisibis, especially local sources, are decidedly lacking, a situation quite different from the one in Edessa. While the Edessene archives were famous,50 information regarding Nisibis stems mainly from its captors. Nisibis had a large Jewish population, as can be seen from the fact that it, together with Nehardea to the south, was chosen as an official center for the collection of the diaspora Temple tax prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.51 In addition, students of Rabbi Akiva fled first to Nisibis, before reorganizing themselves in Palestine.52 Since so little of certainty can be known regarding the origins of Christianity in Mesopotamia, it is impossible to claim with assurance that it flourished first among the Jewish population of the region, but such an explanation certainly holds some credence.53

50

See the comment by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 1.13.5) and the documents he quotes. While the evidence from Eusebius makes it clear that the archives contained spurious materials, they were also a source for valuable historical information. 51

Josephus, Ant. 18.9.1. See also the discussion in Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” 41.

52

Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia (5 vols.; University of South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 217–21; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999; originally published Leiden: Brill, 1966–1969), 1.134. Neusner provides no support for his comment (A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 1.180 and elsewhere) that, between the first century and 226, Christianity was based in Edessa while Tannaitic Judaism flourished in Nisibis. Although his evidence for Tannaitic Judaism may be accurate, the comments regarding Christianity flowering or floundering are simply anachronistic. To assume that Nisibis lacked Christians or that Edessa had a larger Christian community cannot be supported by any firm evidence. Thus we must reject, without more information, Neusner’s further conclusion that, “We may reasonably infer that Tannaitic Judaism effectively halted the spread of Christianity among the earliest audience for the Christian gospel, Tannaitic Jews” (Neusner, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia (BJS 204; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990; reprint of Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986), 18. 53

Indeed, the Semitic character of Christianity in the region, even in the fourth century, might support such an argument. In addition, similarities in lifestyle and outlook have often been noted between the Syriac-speaking Christians and the desert sectarians of Qumran. Both Ephrem and Aphrahat inveigh against “the Jews,” with whom members of their Christian communities have close contact. Finally, Aphrahat preserves a quartodeciman understanding for determining the dating of the paschal celebration. Only if, says Aphrahat, the pasch is scheduled to fall on a Sunday should it be changed. He also indicates that every Friday is a day of mourning and the fourteenth of every month is revered, since Jesus was crucified on Friday, the fourteenth of Nisan. Perhaps every Sunday is also celebrated as a day of resurrection, but Aphrahat, whose interest in his twelfth Demonstration is the paschal sacrifice, does not indicate this.

49

We can know that Christianity came to Nisibis at some time prior to the late second century.54 Bishop Abercius of Hieropolis in Phrygia, who died ca. 200, records his travels among the Christians in Syria and mentions by name the city of Nisibis. Significantly, he does not mention Edessa. We cannot know the cause of his silence, but it is clear that he considers Nisibis an important location for a flourishing Christian faith.55 Concentrating on the story in the second half of the Acts of Thomas may assist us in determining the place of origin of the work. The story in the second half tells of the eventual conversion of the entire house of Mizdai (including, in the martyrdom, even the king himself), providing a transparent account of the Christian perspective on the resistance of traditional religion to its message, as well as Christianity’s inevitable triumph. King Mizdai represents the Persian god Ahura Mazda,56 who resents the intrusion of the “new God” in his territory. This identification is supported by the test of fire to which the apostle is subjected, at the order of the king, in chapter 140. The apostle is made to stand on hot slabs

54

The first bishop, according to the generally unreliable Chronicle of Arbela, was not installed until 308. Ephrem was an assistant to this bishop, Jacob, known for his holiness and asceticism and about whom a tradition arose that he defended the city from an assault of the Persians by praying on the city’s walls, causing insects to attack and confound the Persian cavalry. The story was later transferred to Ephrem. Although there may have been earlier bishops before Jacob, it is also possible that the church in Nisibis was in disarray and reorganized only in the early fourth century or, more likely, that there was simply an ecclesiastical structure there unrecognizable to Christians in the west. The various attempts to account for the succession of bishops of Edessa (the Doctrina Addai, or the story of Thaddeus, as Eusebius tells it, and the tradition that Palut had to travel to Antioch to be ordained by the bishop there) suggest that later authors felt the need to account for the development of Christianity in Mesopotamia and to link it to the west. The story of Palut defies the first-century setting of the Doctrina Addai. See the discussion in F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London: Murray, 1904), 17–19. Burkitt’s decision that there is a kernel of truth to the legend—namely, that the conversion of the king of Edessa should be transferred from the first-century Abgar V to the late second-century Abgar VIII—assumes that Abgar VIII did indeed convert to Christianity, a claim lacking certainty. See the discussion in Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity.” The actual history of Christian origins in the region, including its ecclesiastical structure, is almost completely obscure. 55

See the quotation of the inscription in McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 6. The late fourthcentury Vita of Abercius states that Abercius met with Bardaisan at a location between Edessa and Nisibis. The anonymous author apparently could not assign to Abercius a visit to Edessa which he himself did not claim. Unfortunately, the Vita holds little, if any, historical value. 56

Huxley provides two (contradictory) understandings of this figure: he is an Ethiopian from Aksum, or his name is a corruption of the Persian Hormizdas. See Huxley, “Geography in the Acts of Thomas,” 76–78. See Thilo’s discussion of Chrysostom’s claim that Thomas “whitened” the Ethiopians by baptism (Acta S. Thomae Apostoli, 97–98); Thilo notes that “Ethiopians” is a designation of skin color and that the terms India and Ethiopia were elsewhere exchanged.

50

that had the appearance of fire, but streams of water flow in to save him. In Zoroastrianism, there were said to be thirty-three different types of judicial ordeal by fire;57 one of the most severe involved forcing the accused to walk through fire. Additionally, Mygdonia’s husband, Carish, swears (in chapter 115) that he will no longer worship the “gods of the east,” suggesting prior adherence to the Persian gods. This identification points to a locale in which Mazdaism flourished. Edessa shows no evidence of allegiance to Ahura Mazda.58 The principal female character in the second half of the Acts of Thomas, Mygdonia, takes her name from the Mygdon River, which flows past Nisibis. Indeed, as Strabo tells us, the inhabitants of the entire region were known as Mygdonians and the city itself called Mygdonian Antioch: the country is “occupied by the Mygdones, who were so named by the Macedonians. In their country lies Nisibis, which is also called Mygdonian Antiocheia.”59 The choice of such an unusual name60 for the principal Christian convert in the work suggests again that the author is making a statement about the openness of the inhabitants of the region (as opposed to the religious establishment) to the new religion. Interestingly, Edessa for a time bore the title of Marcia, the name of Mygdonia’s servant in the Greek Acts of Thomas.61 Especially unsatisfying are attempts to locate the origin of the Acts of Thomas in Edessa based on the presence of the character Mygdonia. Jan Bremmer argues that the 57

See the Denkard 7, chap. 5. The Denkard is a huge collection of various Zoroastrian materials, many very ancient. The Denkard itself is a product of the ninth and tenth centuries. For an English translation of relevant passages, see Mary Boyce, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1984), esp. 64 and 76–77. 58

H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 177: “It is of particular interest in this context that there is no evidence of Iranian religious influence at Edessa.” 59

Strabo, Geography 16.1.23 and 16.1.1. Translation is that of Horace Leonard Jones, in the Loeb Classical Library. Polybius, too, has a passing reference to “Antioch in Mygdonia” (5.51.1). The inhabitants of the region around Nisibis were known as the Mardani locally (and to Pliny) and as Mygdones by the Greeks; in contrast, Pliny refers also to an Arab tribe of the Orrhoei, certainly the Osrhoeni of Edessa. Edessa was known as the Antioch upon the Callihroe to the Greeks while Nisibis was the Antioch of Mygdonia. See A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 215–16. 60

Bremmer, “The Acts of Thomas,” 1.

61

On Edessa as Marcia, see A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 221.

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presence of the name “does seem to point to the area of Osrhoene.”62 This is highly unlikely.63 Strabo makes clear that the city of importance in the region of the Mygdonians is Nisibis. Pliny64 uses the term in an administrative, not simply geographic, sense,65 but if anything he extends the region to the east rather than to the west: “The Macedonians have given to the whole of Adiabene the name of Mygdonia, from its likeness to Mygdonia in Macedon. Its towns are Alexandria and Antiochia, the native name for which is Nesibis.”66 If the use of the name Mygdonia in the Acts of Thomas is of any significance, and I think that it is, it points to Nisibis, rather than to Edessa, as the place of origin of the work. The usual arguments naming Edessa as the place of composition for the Acts of Thomas—the arrival there of Christianity by the early third century, the preservation of Thomas’s memory there in the fourth century, and the presence in Edessa of the important

62

Bremmer, “The Acts of Thomas,” 1. The same phrase, together with the same argument, is also found in his “Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria,” 24. Bremmer’s other arguments for the origin of the Acts of Thomas in the city of Edessa are equally unsatisfying. He notes the use of the unusual term pasgriba (of Persian origin and employed in the Syriac Hymn of the Pearl) regarding a member of the ruling family in Edessa. While Bremmer acknowledges that the Hymn of the Pearl probably antedates and is surely independent of the Acts of Thomas, he does not seem to recognize that any argument regarding this hapax legomenon in the Acts of Thomas would suggest something only about the origin of the Hymn of the Pearl, rather than the work as a whole. Yet even assigning the Hymn of the Pearl to the city of Edessa on the basis of this term is highly questionable. The term is, after all, Persian, and, if anything, its use would seem to point further to the east or the south. What is remarkable about its use in Edessa in about the year 240 is precisely the fact that such a term is used in a Syriac milieu and suggests the importance of the royal family in a city that had been made a Roman colonia in 212/213. See the discussion in Millar, The Roman Near East, 476–77. See also the discussion of the term with special attention to its Manichaean implications in Paul-Hubert Poirier, L'Hymne de la Perle des Actes de Thomas, 263–90, esp. 283–85. 63

I have counted no fewer than seven rivers between the Mygdon and the Daisan, any of which (especially the large Khabur, into which the Mygdon flows) could have lent its name to the Osrhoene before one would expect the Mygdon to do so. 64

Nat. Hist. 6.16.42. See also the brief discussion in J. B. Segal, “The Jews of North Mesopotamia Before the Rise of Islam,” 33. Segal indicates that the inhabitants of both sides of the Tigris in northern Mesopotamia were related “by ties of culture and consanguinity.” 65

Louis Dillemann, Haute mésopotamie orientale et pays adjacents (Paris: Geuthner, 1962), 112.

66

Translation is that of H. Rackham in the Loeb Classical Library. The assumption that Nisibis is included with the regions to the west of it is the error as well of Richard N. Frye (The Heritage of Persia [Cleveland: World, 1963], 180), who states that the boundaries of the Abgar kingdom in the first century included Nisibis and areas on the Tigris, since Pliny (6.31.129) claims that the tribes of the Orroei and the Adiabeni touched one another. Frye fails to recall that the Parthian king Artabanus III had given Nisibis to Izates of Adiabene. See above, note 49.

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figure Bardaisan—not only do not determine the provenance of the work, but are not as strong in themselves as they might appear.67 The inconclusiveness of the arguments for Edessene authorship of the work points to a need to reexamine the question of provenance of the Acts of Thomas. In addition, evidence within the work seems to point further east. The scholarly assumption that the Acts of Thomas was written in Edessa is, therefore, not based on solid evidence but on the assumption that Edessa was the most important early city in Syriac-speaking Christianity. But this claim is built on the prominence of the city in the fourth century. Even at that late date, the Christian reputation of Edessa flourished primarily in the west. Ephrem, arriving in the third quarter of the fourth century, states that Edessa was still mostly pagan when he settled there. Syriac-speaking Christians attempted to correct the narrow Eusebian tradition claiming Edessa’s prominence; in a discussion regarding the paschal controversy, the Syriac translator changed the reference to the bishops in “Osrhoene and the cities there” to a statement about “the church of Mesopotamia and the cities there.”68 Nisibis, however, had been a Christian center from an early time, boasting a large Christian community including the great Ephrem, as well as the bishop Jacob, one of the 318 bishops who attended Nicea. It is really only after the demise of the city of Nisibis in 363, when it fell to the Persians and when most of its Christian community moved en masse to Edessa,69 that Edessa becomes the center of Christianity in the region, thus fulfilling the 67 Bremmer himself acknowledges that “none of these arguments proves that Edessa was the place of composition” of the Acts of Thomas (“Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria,” 24; emphasis his). Bremmer’s arguments include the figure of Bardaisan from Edessa, the name of Mygdonia, the use of the term pasgriba, and a literary argument linking Achilles Tatius with the Acts of Thomas (Bremmer claims that the eagle dream of Carish is dependent upon Achilles Tatius and states that Bardaisan also read Achilles Tatius). 68

Hist. eccl. 5.23.4. But any reference to the region may be an interpolation, since it does not appear in the translation of Rufinus. See the brief discussion in Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 222. The passage in Eusebius may be suspect also for the reason that nothing is really known about the early celebration of the pasch in Mesopotamia; Aphrahat, in the fourth century, indicates that the Christians followed the Semitic calendar in setting the date. See note 53 above. 69

Ephrem apparently stayed temporarily near Amid, as did many of the residents of Nisibis, forming a community named kwvmh Nisivbew". According to the sixth-century John Malalas, [fhsiv] kai; teicivsa" povlin e[xw tou' teivcou" th'" povlew" jAmivdh", kalevsa" th;n kwvmhn Nisivbew", ejkei' pavnta" tou;"

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earlier claims of Eusebius. Indeed, the famous School of Edessa, founded sometime after 363,70 was known among the inhabitants of Edessa as the “School of the Persians,”71 suggesting either that it had actually existed further to the east prior to its incorporation in Edessa or that those involved in it hailed from the eastern regions under Persian control, most likely Nisibis. Egeria, in Edessa in the 380s,72 wanted to visit lands further to the east, but was told that Nisibis and other lands in Persian hands were not available for pilgrimage.73 In the early period and indeed well into the fourth century, from what little can be known, it appears that Nisibis was at least as important a center of Christianity as was Edessa. This, as well as the internal evidence in the Acts of Thomas, suggests that the work may have been written by an author with ties to Nisibis, rather than to Edessa. Date The Acts of Thomas is the last of the five apocryphal acts to have been written and survives complete in both Syriac and Greek versions. It is generally assigned to the early third century for several reasons. The other apocryphal acts can be dated prior to the end of the second century,74 and there may be reason to believe that one or more of them

ejk th'" Mugdoniva" cwvra" oijkei'n ejpoivhse kai; Silouano;n to;n politeuovmenon. See Ioannis Malalae Chronographia (ed. Ludwig Dindorf; Bonn: Weber, 1831), 336–337 (Chronography 13.27). 70 There are various traditions regarding its founding. Sozomen, writing on Ephrem (Hist. eccl. 3.16), knows nothing about it and the Ephremic vita tradition assigns its founding to Ephrem’s disciples. But the largely reliable late sixth-century Cause of the Foundations of the Schools by Barhadshabba states that Jacob of Nisibis founded a school in Nisibis and appointed Ephrem its first exegete; when the Christians moved from Nisibis to Edessa after 363, Ephrem continued the school there, which continued to flourish after his death. For discussion, see Arthur Vööbus, History of the School of Nisibis (CSCO 266, subsidia 26; Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1965), 8–9 and Joseph Phillip Amar, “The Syriac ‘Vita’ Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1988), 19–20. 71 See the discussion in Vööbus, History of the School of Nisibis, 7, who asserts precisely that the Syrians in the western regions called the refugees from Nisibis “Persians.” 72

On the dating of Egeria’s visits to the eastern regions, see Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, Appendix B, 237–39. 73

Itin. Eger. 21.12.

74

See a brief summary dating the various apocryphal acts, see Bremmer, “The Novel and the Apocryphal Acts: Place, Time and Readership,” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel 9 (1998), 161–62.

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contributed to the composition of the Acts of Thomas.75 In addition, Bremmer argues that Roman names and terms in the work indicate a date after the Romans deposed the local King Abgar of Edessa, in 212/213.76 Origen (apud Eusebius) knew acts of John, Peter, Paul, Andrew, and Thomas, which would seem to indicate the same collection of apocrypahl acts known to later writers. Finally, because the Acts of Thomas displays some links with Bardaisan (including, for example, the name “Mother” for the Spirit in the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50) and the Manichaeans were familiar with the story of Thomas, Bornkamm declares, “The period of origin of the ATh is settled by their place in the history of religions between Bardesanes and Mani; they will have been composed in the third century.”77 I suggest that we need to reexamine the question of dating of the Acts of Thomas and analyze its accuracy, especially in the light of the redactional activity displayed by the work. The questions of intertexuality and the work’s position in the history of religions do

75

Opinions vary. See, as an introduction, the dicussion in Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 18–26. But, on possible dependence of the Acts of Thomas on the Acts of John, see Eric Junod and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, L'histoire des actes apocryphes des apôtres du IIIe au IXe siècle: le cas des Actes de Jean (Cahiers de la Revue de théologie et de philosophie 7; Geneva: Revue de théologie et de philosophie, 1982), 36–39. 76

Bremmer, “The Acts of Thomas,” 3. In discussing the author of the Acts of Thomas, Bremmer seems to touch again on the subject of dating, using arguments that I find entirely inadequate. He asserts that the author of the Acts of Thomas, like Bardaisan, had read Greek novels, in particular Achilles Tatius (dated to the late second century) and claims that an argument of Bardaisan’s, known from the Book of the Laws of the Countries (as well as from Eusebius), was used by the author of the Grundschrift of the PseudoClementine literature. The Grundschrift, he argues, shows knowledge of Heliodorus. Since the Homilies, where such evidence is found, is dated before the council of Nicea, Heliodorus must date from the third century, “perhaps the period 230–240.” Bremmer acknowledges the commonly held theory that the Aethiopica postdates the emperor Julian and makes use of his description of the siege of Nisibis by the Persians in 350, but dismisses it. Even if he is correct in doing so, and I am wary of this conclusion, it is rather loose dating indeed to suggest that its use by a pre-Nicene document therefore places it in the first half of the third century. The Grundschrift itself is difficult to date and the direction of dependency between the passage in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (9.29), the Book of the Laws of the Countries (607–608), and the corresponding passage in Eusebius (Praep. ev. 6.9), has been a matter of debate. The most we can conclude from Bremmer’s arguments in this regard is that the author of the Acts of Thomas may have read Greek novels, in particular those of Achilles Tatius, and that to claim such for a Syriac-speaking author in northern Mesopotamia is not an outrageous possibility. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas knew the Greek novel, although I am not convinced by reference to the eagle in the dream of Carish. 77

G. Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.441.

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not provide the certainty one would like, and the reliability of the comment in Origen for dating the completed work is highly questionable. The intertextual relationship between the various apocryphal acts of apostles is uncertain, but the common genre suggests at least some loose, perhaps nonliterary, relationship between them. While there is no doubt that the Acts of Thomas is the most fully developed, most complete (surviving in complete form in both Greek and Syriac), and indeed latest, of the five earliest apocryphal acts, to assign an early third-century date to the Acts of Thomas based on its relationship to the other apocryphal acts is unsatisfactory. Relative dating could perhaps be valuable with regard to the early tales alone, but even with these, it sets only a rough terminus post quem. If the author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas knew other Christian apocryphal acts, especially the Acts of Peter,78 or read Greek novelists, such as Achilles Tatius,79 we can confidently claim only that the work stems from or is later than the late second century. Roman names are indeed used in the second half of the work but, as Bremmer himself recognizes in making this point, Edessene kings began assuming Roman names around 200.80 Edessa was made a Roman colonia in 212/213 and continued as such for a time, although in a document from the middle Euphrates dated December 18, 240, a king Abgar is noted to be reigning in his second year, and coins again call the city by its Syriac name, Orhay.81 By 242, Edessa is again called a colonia and the monarchy decisively 78

See the discussion in Klijn, Acts of Thomas, 18–26. In the end, Klijn is uncertain whether there is direct dependence or whether similarities in language are due to a common background. He is most inclined to see dependence on the Acts of Peter, and states, inexplicably (p. 26), “If this means that the Acts of Thomas are dependent on the Acts of Peter the Acts of Thomas were written in the beginning of the third century.” Rather, the Acts of Thomas must then simply postdate the late second century. Drijvers (“The Acts of Thomas,” 323) is equally unconvinced that there is a literary relationship between the Acts of Thomas and other Christian apocryphyal acts. 79

So Bremmer, “The Acts of Thomas,” 4; also “Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria,” 24–25. 80

See Andreas Luther, “Abgar Prahates Filius Rex (CIL VI, 1797),” Le Museon 111 (1998): 355–56.

81 Millar, The Roman Near East, 151. On the coins showing Abgar the king, however, also appears the Roman emperor Gordian. Millar points out that the later tradition about a Man‘u ruling Edessa in the intervening period (the twenty-six years after Edessa was made a colonia but before this Abgar) must be

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abolished.82 Nisibis had been a colonia since the 190s;83 it was probably briefly captured by Shapur I in 23984 but quickly regained by the Romans. But it is simply not helpful in dating the Acts of Thomas to refer to Roman influence or names, since there had been a Roman presence in the region since Pompey, a presence that grew stronger over time, including the establishment of provinces85 east of the Euphrates by Trajan, and general control of the region, complete with the designation of several cities as coloniae, by Septimius Severus. In fact, the picture presented in the Acts of Thomas is of a complex social milieu. While some names (Tertia, Marcia) in the second half are Roman, there are also good Persian names found there (Mizdai, Vizan, Manashar), while the name of the merchant who purchases the apostle in Act 1, Habban, is of local origin.86 This fits with the characterization of the region as being Greek, Roman, and Syrian all at the same time, and the city of Nisibis in particular as bilingual, if not trilingual.87 The most significant datum for dating the Acts of Thomas to the early third century is the mention of Thomas, together with the other four apostles to whom are assigned early apocryphal acts, by Origen.88 But Origen does not seem to have known the Acts of Thomas referring to a member of the royal family who was more of an “heir apparent” than a ruler; it is this Man‘u who is given, in the newly discovered Syriac document from the middle Euphrates (at the confluence of the Khabur and the Euphrates), as pasgriba. 82

Millar, The Roman Near East, 152.

83

On the difficulty of determining the status of Roman coloniae in Mesopotamia, see Millar, “The Roman Coloniae of the Near East: a Study of Cultural Relations,” in Heikki Solin and Mika Kajava, eds., Roman Eastern Policy and Other Studies in Roman History: Proceedings of a Colloquium at Tvärminne, 2–3 October 1987 (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 91; Helsinki: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, 1990), 7–58, esp. pp. 38–39, 46–50. 84

On the uncertainty, see the discussion in Millar, The Roman Near East, 153.

85

Albeit short-lived. But the fourth-century Rufius Festus, in his Breviarium 14, was to count this as a turning point in Roman involvement in northern Mesopotamia. For Rufius Festus, see J. W. Eadie, The Breviarium of Festus (London: Athlone, 1967); the passage in question is found on pp. 56–58. 86

Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, 205.

87

Millar, The Roman Near East, 482.

88

Apud Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.1.

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that has survived, since he declares that Thomas evangelized Parthia. The constant references to “the land of the Indians” in our work would render it impossible to make this claim. It is unlikely that Origen had in mind the same region intended by the author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas (the Indus valley region),89 since the Parthian kingdom did not extend all the way to the Indus River.90 Regardless of this fact, the terminology employed by Origen is quite distinct; no one reading the complete Acts of Thomas would suggest that Thomas went to “Parthia,” a term that does not even appear in the work.91 It is, however, quite possible that Origen knew an early version of our Acts of Thomas, probably one or more of the tales in the first half of the work, which may indeed have been set in Parthia. If the discrete tales may have circulated as early as Origen’s day, what can be said about the work as a whole? We have already seen that the terminus post quem of the Acts of Thomas can be roughly set to the very late second or early third century, although this dating probably pertains more to the discrete early tales than to the work as a whole. Attestations to the group of apocryphal acts begin only in the late fourth century, with Epiphanius and Augustine.92 But Ephrem knows the tradition of Thomas ministering in

89

See the discussion in Albrecht Dihle, “Neues zur Thomas-Tradition,” JAC 6 (1963): 54–70. Dihle demonstrates that the region of interest in the Acts of Thomas is not the Indian peninsula but rather the region of modern Pakistan, where coins of a first-century king by the name of Gundaphoros or Gundaphernes have been found. A more recent study with the same conclusion can be found in Lourens P. van den Bosch, “India and the Apostolate of St. Thomas,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 6; Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 125–48. 90 The Indus valley region was part of the state of Kushan until the Sassanian Persians pushed their borders further to the east. 91

In contrast, “India” or “the Indians” appears 21 times in the Greek, and references are spread throughout the work. 92 Epiphanius: Pan. 47.1 and 61.1. Augustine: Faust. 22.79; Adim.17; Serm. Dom. 1.20.65. Philaster of Brescia (De Haer. 88.6) also mentions the apocryphal acts, but does not include the Acts of Thomas, raising the possibility that the Acts of Thomas did not always circulate with the others. I disagree with Schäferdiek (“The Manichean Collection of apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius Charinus,” 90–91) that the use of pecudes and bestiae in the plural by Philaster must include the asses of the Acts of Thomas, so that mention of the work is implicit. Perhaps these plurals should be understood in the same way that Schäferdiek understands the plural “dogs”: “as pure generalization” (p. 90).

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India,93 and, although he does not specify his source, knows as well the story from Act 2 of the Acts of Thomas in which Thomas is commissioned to build a palace for the king.94 It is clear, then, that, in the early third century, there existed a tradition that Thomas had been the apostle to the Parthians.95 But by the third quarter of the fourth century, Thomas was reported to have evangelized India, to have been martyred there, following which his bones were brought back to the city of Edessa. In between these two markers appears the completed Acts of Thomas, ignorant, at least in its present form, of the earlier tradition and giving rise to the later tradition. It is the advent of Mani and the religion he established that is often used to indicate the latest date for the composition of the Acts of Thomas. Indeed, the Manichaean PsalmBook provides the earliest clear reference to the five works we know as the five apocryphal acts of the apostles,96 indicating that, by the time of its composition,97 these five works were circulating as a unit. The Psalm-Book displays knowledge of Thomas’s martyrdom and his ministry in India, calls him a “merchant,” and makes mention of his disciple Mygdonia. It

93

Carmina Nisibena 42.1; Hymni dispersi 5, 6, and 7.

94

Hymn 7.2: “Who was seen formerly building earthly (buildings) which he built on high, and while he was down (on earth) all this time, he even built houses in heaven? Was it not Thomas, apostle of the son?” 95

In addition to the quote from Origen, there is also the evidence of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions. 96

See the discussion in Schäferdiek, “The Manichean Collection of apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius Charinus.” The primary interest in the first passage in the Manichaean Psalm-Book is to give examples of faithful people enduring persecution and martyrdom. As a result, the reference to Thomas is to a scene found in the martyrdom, which section of the Acts of Thomas surely circulated independently. Only with the Acts of Paul (but see Schäferdiek's n. 27 on p. 96) and the Acts of John is it clear that the entire works were known. But elsewhere, the Manichaean Psalm-Book indicates knowledge of the entire Acts of Thomas by mentioning his work in India as well as his disciple Mygdonia. (I disagree with Schäferdiek that calling Thomas a “merchant” in India “tells against a direct link with the Acts of Thomas itself.” Instead, it simply shows confusion, a trait common in these psalms regarding various Christian figures. See also Poirier's suggestion for the solution to the problem in “Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme,” Apocrypha 9 [1998], 272.) For the English edition of the Manichaean Psalm-Book, see A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Part II, ed. C.R.C. Allberry (Manichaean Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Collection; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938). The passage in question is on pp. 142 and 143. 97 The composition of the Psalm-Book is associated with Mani’s disciple Thomas. So Torgny SäveSöderbergh, Studies in the Coptic Manichaean Psalm-Book: Prosody and Mandaian Parallels (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells, 1949), 155, who dates it to the last quarter of the third century.

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is important to keep in mind, however, that we have no way of knowing if the apocryphal acts known to and used by the Manichaeans were the same as those which have come down to us.98 The relationship between the Acts of Thomas and Manichaeism will be discussed further below. It is difficult to date the Acts of Thomas more precisely in the absence of more restrictive external information. Using internal markers is particularly frustrating in a work that has been so heavily edited, that is fictional in nature, and for which linguistic clues are few. Although the Hymn of the Pearl gives evidence, in its terminology, of Parthian origins, its independent nature accords this information little value in determining the date of the work as a whole.99 If, as is commonly upheld, the original language of the work was Syriac, but the surviving Greek is, in general, more reliable, we are forced to seek linguistic clues only in a translation or in a heavily doctored version in the original language. Even examining the state of the Syriac language used in the work, or the Syriac apparently underlying the Greek, is not as helpful as it would appear to be.100 Not only has there been obvious redaction of the surviving Syriac witnesses, but the truth is that we know nothing about literary Syriac in the third century. The third-century inscriptions from the region, and the few documents which survive, were written in a “Proto-Syriac,” not in the standard literary Syriac that has come down to us.101 As Sebastian Brock says, “In view of this epigraphic evidence it is likely that the few surviving literary texts written before ca. 300

98 Poirier offers the possibility that the Acts of Thomas known to the psalmist included only Act 1 and the second half of the work (“Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme,” 273–74). This is a distinct possibility and would mean that the two halves were brought together at an even later date, thus further complicating the questions of authorship and dating. 99 See Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle des Actes de Thomas, 310–17. The same could, I think, be said of information gleaned from analyzing the Hymn of the Bride. 100

For a discussion of the relationship between the Syriac and Greek terms used in the two versions, see Attridge, “The Original Language of the Acts of Thomas.” 101 Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 226. The origins of the Syriac language are shrouded in mystery. As a dialect of Aramaic, it was sometimes given the name of the city of Edessa. But the written language underwent changes. The earliest literary Syriac manuscript is dated 411.

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have had their dialect ‘updated’ to conform to the standard literary Syriac of the fourth century onwards; this means that we have no means of saying whether their original dialect was that of the early Edessene inscriptions102 (‘Proto-Syriac’), or not.” Brock continues, offering a comment that touches on the earlier discussion of provenance, “Conversely, neither can we claim that, because an early text such as the Acts of Thomas is in standard, or Edessene Syriac, that [sic] it must accordingly have originated from Edessa.”103 We are forced, then, to give greater weight to the content of the fiction in determining the dating of the Acts of Thomas. Although the story closes with a martyrdom, the work as a whole gives no evidence of harsh or active persecution of Christians. Its tenor is quite different from that of apocalyptic literature. There is no hidden message imparted to the faithful; the apostle clearly preaches, in the unified second half (as Jesus does in Act 1), a life of sexual renunciation. The apostle does not seem to have obtained a special revelation, unless his identity as Jesus’ twin and alter ego, which does give him greater insight into the divine will, could be so understood. There is no combat myth or general sense of anxiety and danger. The apostle continues to preach while in prison, is given access to his devoted followers, and exits the prison, with supernatural aid, when necessary. The animals that appear, while not entirely benign, are not seeking to devour the apostle or his followers; although the serpent is described in fearsome terms, Thomas carries on a casual conversation with it before its demise. Only with the tour of hell in Act 6, with its inclusion of an otherworldly mediator, do we begin to approach the genre of apocalyptic. But on the whole the work does not reflect a period of threat to or persecution of Christians. As a result, it seems likely that the Acts of Thomas antedates the fourth century;104 it was most likely written prior to the Great Persecution of Diocletian as well as that of the 102

For the inscriptions, see Drijvers, Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions (SSS n.s. 3; Leiden: Brill,

1972). 103

Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 226.

104

A pre-fourth-century dating for the Acts of Thomas could perhaps also be surmised since, in the early fourth century, the earliest form of the Addai/Thaddeus legend was current and, according to Eusebius, the

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fourth-century Shapur II (the Christians in Mesopotamia, of course, had the dubious privilege of being persecuted by rulers of two empires, surviving threats at the hands of the Romans only to endure them under the Persians).105 If the Manichaean Psalm-Book dates from the late third or early fourth century,106 this provides further, albeit inconclusive, reason for limiting the composition of the Acts of Thomas to the third century. The conversion of King Mizdai and his court suggests that one of the purposes of the author/redactor is to declare the superiority of the “new religion” to Zoroastrianism. This would suggest a terminus post quem of about 226, when Ardashir was crowned, inaugurating the Sasanid dynasty and establishing Zoroastrianism as the official state religion of Persia. But other religions were tolerated until the Mobad Kartir came to prominence late in the reign of Shapur I. Kartir himself claims to have persecuted members of other religions, including both “Christians” and “Nazoreans,”107 but his harsh policies, which must have begun in earnest with the death of Shapur I in 273, apparently ended with the inauguration of the more tolerant Narseh in 293. Although the Acts of Thomas shows no signs of active persecution of Christians, this does not mean that it could not have been written when Kartir was active. It should be remembered that the only knowledge we have of documents pertaining to it were located in the Edessene archives. Eusebius states that Thomas sent Thaddeus to Edessa (Hist. eccl. 1.13.4; 2.1.6); neither Ephrem nor Egeria mentions the legend of Thaddeus, but both know the importance of Thomas to Edessa. 105

The same reasoning would suggest that the work does not stem from the period of the Decian persecution. 106

So Poirier, “Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme,” 273–74.

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Apparently two groups of Christians, often considered Marcionite and “orthodox,” although other groups and combinations could be in view. Kartir’s inscription is as follows (translation by Martin Sprengling, “Kartir, Founder of Sasanian Zoroastrianism,” AJSL 57 [1940]: 197–228; translation on 220–23; modified by Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 2.18): “And in kingdom after kingdom, and place after place throughout the whole empire, the services of Ohrmazd and the gods became superior, and to the Mazdayasnian religion and the Magi-men in the empire great dignity came, and the gods and water and fire and small cattle in the empire attained great satisfaction, while Ahriman and the devs attained great beating and hostility, and the teachings of Ahriman and the devs departed from the empire, but there [within the empire] were left uncultivated. And Jews and Buddhist Sramans and Brahmins, for Brahmins and Nasoreans and Christians and Maktak and Zandiks in the empire became smitten, and destruction of idols and scattering of the stores of the devs were left uncultivated. And in kingdom after kingdom, and place after place, many divine services in magnificence, and many Varahran fires, were established, and many Magi-men became happy and prosperous, and many fires and Magi were imperially installed.”

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Kartir’s persecutions is his own claim; he may have exaggerated his power,108 since he is unremembered in the writings of his numerous purported victims, with the sole exception of the Manichaeans, who recall the martyrdom of their master at his hands.109 If the figure of King Mizdai in the Acts of Thomas represents the traditional religion of Zoroastrianism and its inevitable downfall, the picture of the apostle of the new religion being jailed and persecuted must be understood to represent the response of Zoroastrianism to the bearers of the Christian message. The Persians hated asceticism, especially sexual renunciation,110 as becomes evident during the fourth-century persecutions of Christians under Shapur II, when celibate women were offered the choice of marriage or death. Kartir himself claims to have encouraged marriages. Setting a firm terminus ante quo for the composition of the Acts of Thomas becomes difficult, then, since clear witnesses to it are quite late and internal evidence is ambiguous. It was most likely written sometime in the third century. But this is also the period during which Mani was active and Manichaeism took hold in much of the Persian world and beyond. The relationship between the Acts of Thomas and Manichaeism has often been discussed, since it is clear that the Manichaeans used some form of the Acts of Thomas, as well as the other apocryphal acts, and were even accused of including them among their canonical writings at the expense of the Lukan Acts of the Apostles.111 108 Neusner claims that churches were destroyed during Kartir’s persecutions, but says there is little record of martyrs. Neusner’s interest is mainly in Babylonia, however, where one would expect Kartir to have been especially active. See Neusner, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia, 75. 109 Perhaps the Acts of Thomas was written during Kartir’s revival, but shows no evidence of persecution since it may have remained only a threat, rather than a reality. Nisibis was taken or threatened by the Persians at least four times in the third century, but was apparently never in the hands of the Persians for long. As a result, the Nisibenes may have escaped active persecution, but must have known about the revival of Mazdaism, since Persian forces had penetrated the area. 110

Vööbus, History of the School of Nisibis, 2 n. 2: “According to the ancient Persian tradition ‘one should persevere much in the begetting of children’” (Sayast-ne-sayast, X, 22). 111

Augustine suggests that the Manichaeans are reading the wrong scriptures (Faust. 22.79; on the rejection of the Lukan Acts, see Faust. 32.15; Adim. 17.5; Epistula 237 ad Ceretium 2). What the Manichaeans themselves considered canonical is more difficult to determine. See the discussion in JeanDaniel Kaestli, “L’Utilisation des Actes apocryphes des apôtres dans le Manichéisme,” in Gnosis and

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Manichaean interpolations into the Acts of Thomas have been suggested by several scholars, from Thilo through Bousset to Bornkamm. But further advances in scholarship have revealed that Manichaean influence is actually slight, if present at all.112 Apart from the insertion of the Hymn of the Pearl, the Manichaeans appear not to have tampered with the Acts of Thomas which they received.113 Yet there are remarkable similarities between the careers of Thomas and of Mani; they are so closely reflective of one another that it would appear that one is modeled on the other. Mani experienced revelations from his heavenly Twin, who instructed him in his message and sent him forth to preach in India. Similarly, the apostle’s heavenly twin is Jesus who, despite the apostle’s protestations, sells Thomas to a merchant bound for India. And not only did Mani have a heavenly alter ego, but each devout person has a “Form of Light” in heaven which will be known clearly after death.114 Both Mani and Thomas undertake missionary journeys to India and, for both, the region intended appears to be the Indus valley area of northwest India.115 While in India, Mani converted a Buddhist king; Thomas is said to have converted King Gundaphar.116 Both Mani and Thomas preach a gospel involving extreme asceticism and certainly the renunciation of sexual activity by the chosen. Both Manichaeism and Christianity had to deal with the revival and even hostility of the renewed Zoroastrianism.

Gnosticism: Papers read at the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies (Oxford, September 8th–13th 1975) (ed. Martin Krause; Leiden: Brill, 1977), 107–16. 112

See the discussion in Poirier, “Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme,” 274–79; Poirier is responding primarily to Bousset and rejects Bousset’s claims of Manichaean tampering with only one possible exception, that of Thomas’s fast before the Lord’s Day in chap. 29 (in the Syriac he does not fast). 113

Poirier, “Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme,” 279.

114

Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 8.

115

Thilo long ago noted that the claim among Christian authors that Thomas evangelized India is unknown before it is found in Manichaean texts (Acta S. Thomae Apostoli, 100). 116

That there was actually an Indian king by this name in the first century has long been noted. See Dihle, “Neues zur Thomas-Tradition,” 58.

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The Acts of Thomas itself does not appear to be of Manichaean origin; its dualism is of a different type. The myth of the fall of a divine being and the subsequent presence of evil, having derived from good, with the resulting ethical implications for humans, is absent from the Acts of Thomas. The complex Manichaean cosmology is also absent, although there may be points of similarity, e.g., in the titles for various figures, such as “Mother of the Living” and the presentation of the “Great Spirit” as the consort of the heavenly Father.117 If the date of origin of the Acts of Thomas cannot so easily be set prior to the beginning of Mani’s missionary activity in the early 240s, the possibility must be considered that the author of the Acts of Thomas knew of Mani’s activity118 and wrote with an eye toward the competing “new religion.” Both apostles, Thomas and Mani, whether in fiction or in fact, attempted to win success in the face of a newly flourishing Zoroastrianism; adherents of both religions were eventually to lose their lives as the result of Zoroastrian persecution. The similarities between the Acts of Thomas and the Manichaean religion may not, then, be accidental or simply the result of shared cultural conventions. The author/redactor of the Acts of Thomas appears to have fashioned a story of the apostle, making use of traditions of the apostle’s itinerant preaching and healing ministry, into a tale of a journey to India on the part of Jesus’ true twin to preach a message of extreme asceticism for the express purpose of combatting Mani’s similar message. The real twin of a heavenly power is not Mani but Thomas, whose name, which conveniently offers an opportunity to develop the twin motif, was already associated with missionary activity in the Mesopotamian region.

117

A thorough examination of the terminology shared between the Acts of Thomas and Manichaean texts would be valuable. I suspect that many themes and images appear in both, but with different understandings. 118

Mani gained the audience of Shapur I at Shapur’s coronation in about 242 and was given freedom to spread his message during most of Shapur’s reign.

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The Acts of Thomas is, then, a subtle refutation of Manichaeism.119 The Manichaeans, adopting the five Christian apocryphal acts, may have recognized this and inserted the Hymn of the Pearl, which can easily be read as a tale of Mani’s own destiny,120 in order to rebut the claim. In the words of Paul-Hubert Poirier, “Nous savons en effet qu'en plus de leurs Ecritures proprement manichéennes, oeuvres de Mani et de ses disciples, ils n'ont pas hésité à s'approprier ou à utiliser tout autre écrit, religieux ou profane, qui pouvait servir leurs desseins de propagande missionnaire.”121 Conclusion In the end, we know little about Christianity in Mesopotamia in the second and third centuries. What we do know is that the earliest historical (as opposed to legendary) evidence of Christianity in Nisibis antedates that of Christianity in Edessa. In the fourth century, Edessa is an important Christian city which grows in significance after Nisibis is ceded to the Persians and the Christians in that city—a sizable number—leave for Edessa. We know far more about Christianity in Edessa, probably in part because of the extensive Edessene archives, but surely also due to the fact that Nisibis was in a war zone throughout much of the third and fourth centuries. We also have no firm evidence to date the Acts of Thomas to the early third century. The testimony of Origen most likely refers to an oral legend or to an early form of the Acts of Thomas rather than to the work that we know. Because of information within the work, I suggest that it was written during the Persian period and that the author/redactor may have composed the second half of the work and redacted the first half in a conscious attempt to

119 I must point out that I have long viewed the Acts of Thomas as earlier than the career of Mani and have, therefore, seen any points of similarity as the result of the conscious choice of Mani or his followers. The position presented here is experimental. 120

The richness of the Hymn of the Pearl allows it to be compatible with several systems of thought. See the discussion in Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 318–20, in which Poirier discusses Manichaean, gnostic, and orthodox interpretations of the Hymn. 121

Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 311.

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claim Thomas as the true apostle, in order to counteract the success of Mani and his followers. The principal problem in discussing the authorship, provenance, and date of the Acts of Thomas lies with the composite nature of the text, an issue that will be discussed in further detail in the next chapter. Traditional assumptions may indeed be accurate regarding the tales found in the first half of the work. But for the unified story set in King Mizdai’s court, and therefore for the work as a whole, the traditional conclusions must be revised. Based on an analysis of the principal themes of the work, I conclude that the author of the second half of the Acts of Thomas and the redactor of the whole work most likely hailed from Nisibis and wrote sometime in the middle or second half of the third century.

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CHAPTER 3 THE LITERARY CONTEXT OF THE EPICLESES The Acts of Thomas is a composite work.1 This fact is evident in the general scheme of the work; roughly the first half is a series of vignettes starring the apostle Judas Thomas and telling of his adventures as he traveled to the country of the Indians and of his ministry there. Each act in this section functions as a separate story; little in the narrative itself binds the acts together except the apostle and the motif of his travels to and in the cities of India. Even this latter element is missing in Acts 3–6, in which the apostle deals with individuals and crowds whose homeland is not identified or implied. The tales are not only discrete stories, but are portable accounts of the apostle’s missionary activity, accounts which, for the most part, could arise from and be applied to any region.2 Even within the individual tales, several shorter stories are sometimes brought together, without entirely satisfying results. Act 6, for example,3 includes the story of a man whose hand withers upon receiving the Eucharist, leading the man to reveal that he is guilty of murder. After he revives the woman he killed, having been “sealed” and presumably 1With this, Yves Tissot is in agreement (Yves Tissot, “Les actes de Thomas, exemple de recueil composite”). 2The Acts of Thomas is the source of the tradition that Thomas evangelized the country of India. Yet even within this work there may be included older traditions about Thomas’s activity in Parthia, since the individual acts are often not bound to a particular locale. There is also tension within the work regarding the part of India to which Thomas traveled. Since he sets sail for India in Act 1, travel to the Indian peninsula seems to be implied. (The story opens in Jerusalem, but that setting is quickly dropped as Thomas and Chaban begin their journey.) But King Gundaphar, whose conversion is the topic of Act 3, is an historical figure from northern India, reigning in the first century of the common era. For brief discussions of the regions purportedly evangelized by Thomas, see Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.427 and Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 27–29. 3See the brief discussion of the lack of unity in this act in Michael LaFargue, Language and Gnosis (Harvard Dissertations in Religion 18; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 54–55.

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forgiven for his violent deed, the story shifts to the woman’s tale of her tour of hell. The man is never mentioned again. The woman ends her tale of infernal torments with the cry, “I ask and beseech you therefore that I not go back to those places of punishment which I saw.” The apostle uses the woman’s speech to call the crowd to repentance, continuing to teach them and pray. Thomas never acknowledges the woman’s plea, nor does he refer to her again after his initial statement that “You have heard what this woman has related.” The people respond to Thomas’s teachings with actions and a speech indicating their acceptance of his message and what sounds like a request for initiation (“We ask you [Jesus] to become members of your flock and to be numbered among your sheep”).4 The request is never satisfied in the narrative; instead the apostle launches into a prayer that shifts from praise of God to appeals to “look upon us” for reasons that apply more properly to Thomas himself than to his listeners. In this one brief act, several characters and situations are introduced, then dropped, as the narrative blithely hops from one theme or person to another, often leaving behind those earlier advanced in the narrative. In addition to the originally discrete character of the tales, the Acts of Thomas has undergone extensive redactional activity. The varied manuscript traditions of the work demonstrate the fluidity of the story and the freedom enjoyed by copyists and editors. A. F. J. Klijn is guilty only of understatement in his claim that “each copyist must be considered to be a rewriter, adding to the text, omitting from the text and altering the text according to his own taste and theological outlook.”5 The most striking example of rewriting is found in

4Those who request initiation are members of the crowd who were healed by Thomas. Although different nouns for sheep are employed in various places in the Acts of Thomas, the association of initiation and being part of the divine sheepfold is clearly advanced in chapter 26. And, as also in chapter 26, being numbered among God’s sheep is associated with the “seal” in chap. 131. The seal is that which identifies God’s sheep (explicitly stated in chap. 26 and implied in chap. 131). In a noninitiatory context, Judas prays that Jesus, following upon his descent to hell, would incorporate the former dwellers of Hades into his flock; his “sheep” are those who already belong to him. Chapter 131 uses ajmnav"; elsewhere the term is provbaton. The image is certainly more primitive than its use in these texts; the thoughtworld of the Johannine community appears to have links with that of Syriac-speaking Christians. 5Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, vii.

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the Arabic manuscript6 of the Acts of Thomas, in which Thomas travels to India,7 is sold to a friend of the king, is ordered to build fortresses, and is chastised when he builds “heavenly” fortresses instead of those envisioned by his owner. At this point, the story takes a dramatically different turn from that preserved in other language traditions; the apostle is flayed alive, but survives with the assistance of his “twin,” and proceeds to travel about the land, carrying his flayed-off skin, curing people and raising the dead with it. The martyrdom of Thomas, which includes the long prayer spoken by the apostle while in prison, is recognizable as following that known to us from the Greek and Syriac. In addition, several other details in the Arabic agree with the main tradition: the apostle carries a hand-written deed given him by Jesus, describes his skills as a carpenter, converts the wife of a prominent figure, and is to distribute money among the poor. Clearly, this late tradition is an independent development of the Thomas story, yet it also shows unmistakable signs of being based on the original story best preserved in the Greek and Syriac versions. Even short of this complete rewriting, and within the main manuscript traditions, noticeable differences are evident. Not only are there epitomes of the work in Greek, but in several sections even important Greek manuscripts have signficantly different accounts, both sometimes differing from the Syriac as well.8 Often one family of Greek manuscripts gives the impression of oral transmission; the story is essentially the same, but the terminology differs. Synonyms of corresponding difficulty and frequency of use are employed, suggesting that no attempt was made to rewrite the work, but that the scribe was working from memory rather than directly from a manuscript.9

6Translated from the Coptic. A collection of apocryphal acts in Arabic, including the Acts of Thomas, was edited and translated by Agnes Smith Lewis in her Acta Mythologica Apostolorum. 7As in the other Arabic acts, the apostle is initially accompanied by Peter. 8See, for example, chaps. 83–86, in which ms. P is signficantly shorter than U, and the independence of the Syriac can be seen especially in chap. 84, with its reference to Esau’s birthright. 9The phenomenon is especially striking in the martyrdom (which probably circulated independently of the rest of the Acts of Thomas), in which P represents a somewhat more literary and often lengthier

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Textual Evidence of Redaction in the Acts of Thomas Differences between the Syriac and Greek manuscript traditions, however, are the most interesting and informative. The Syriac tradition, in several places (most notably in the epicleses of interest here) alters the text, deleting objectionable material. Throughout the Acts of Thomas, however, especially in short phrases and statements, the Syriac often preserves the simpler and most likely earlier tradition.10 A few examples of notable differences between the Greek and the Syriac follow: description of events than that found in U. Often, however, the distinctions between the mss. would be lost in translation, since the differences between the two mss., though frequent, are not significant in meaning. In some cases, though (esp. the long prayer, located in other mss. in chaps. 144–148), an oral reading can clearly be ruled out. There are several possible ways of accounting for differences in terminology (if not in general story line or even detail) between the mss. It is possible that changes are due to scribal rewriting, evident throughout the work. But in some places, the differences are to such an extent that an entirely new text is produced, although the story line is unchanged. Alternatively, the operation of a scriptorium, involving the dictation of the text to a number of scribes, could result in such changes, especially in the case of an unskilled apprentice who might have taken “notes” but did not catch exact terms or phrases. Finally, an attentive auditor of the work might later have written down the specifics of the story line, while inadvertently altering terms. This final suggestion may be plausible given the fact that most works of ancient literature were known by the general public as the result of oral reading sessions. The formal practice of transcription of works is more complicated. Scholars often copied the works they valued by hand or hired someone else to do so. Popular works, into which category the Acts of Thomas would surely fall, may have been copied and distributed under the jurisdiction of professional booksellers and producers. It is not difficult to imagine that such mass production would lead to an increase in errors of transmission of the text. This is especially true if the method of copying involved dictation. Although there is little evidence for this practice prior to the early medieval period, all Greek mss. of the Acts of Thomas are medieval or modern, and could thus have been affected. For more information on copying practices in antiquity, see Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), esp. 82–93. 10As the work was copied and translated, expansion seemed to be the norm. There are several instances, however, of abbreviation in the later tradition. The excision and alteration of material objectionable on doctrinal grounds, as seen often in the Syriac, has been mentioned. The Greek, too, sometimes abbreviates, perhaps due simply to scribal error. A single example will suffice: In chapter 83, the apostle, seeing slaves carrying the litter of the wealthy Mygdonia, begins to discourse on the sins of the affluent and powerful. Following the phrase “they do not know that all human beings are equal before God” (the line is unique to the Syriac, perhaps lost in the Greek due to homoioteleuton), the Syriac reads, “whether they be slaves or free,” followed by a statement of God’s righteousness, then “neither slave nor free, neither rich nor poor.” The Greek U lacks everything after the first “slaves or free” but agrees with the Syriac after “neither slave nor free, neither rich nor poor”; both Syriac and Greek U have the apostle continue, discussing the equality of rich and poor. Although neither homoioarchton nor homoioteleuton can be blamed for the omission, it seems clear that the Greek ms. U has omitted the pertinent material. Without it, the Greek moves abruptly from mention of slaves and free to a discussion of the rich and poor. The Greek P does contain the phrase “rich or poor,” following a reference to “slaves in this life or free,” but omits the rest of the section, concluding the chapter with a reference to making judgements in order to prepare one’s affairs.

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Chapters 33–34: The Story of the serpent who killed a man The Syriac here is much lengthier than the Greek. Although the second half of chapter 33 is essentially the same in both, the first part of the chapter differs markedly. In the Syriac, the crowd is given speech and desires that the serpent be killed, and the words of the apostle to the serpent are longer and harsher. Redactional activity is easiest to recognize, though, in the first line of the Syriac, in which the narrative is interrupted in order to provide an explanation for the serpent’s ability to speak (not of its own volition, but as a result of the apostle’s prayerful intercession). When the sinful youth is raised, he speaks tearfully to the apostle, recounting an experience in which he saw another man with the apostle, a man who spoke to Judas about him. The youth then launches into an account of his spiritual journey. This description of his release from darkness, his participation in the victory over evil forces, and his discovery of a revealer are found in the Syriac manuscript in the British Library as in the Greek, but only after a lengthy prayer of praise, entirely absent from the Greek. Interestingly, the Syriac of the Sinai palimpsest, unfortunately quite fragmentary in this section, supports the readings of both the Greek and the British Library manuscript in different ways. Although most of the beginning of chapter 33 is missing from the Sinai manuscript, what is present suggests that it reads essentially the same as the British Library manuscript. Sinai includes “because Judas had asked” before breaking off, and resumes

It is possible, of course, that there is some alteration evident in all the surviving manuscript traditions. In fact, this entire section is highly problematic textually. The Greek P omits large blocks of material and has a general reading quite independent of that found in U, which agrees on the whole with the Syriac. But U contains a fairly clear reference to the Golden Rule which is missing from the Syriac of the British Library ms. The Sinai ms., however, although fragmentary and confusing at this point, seems to contain something similar to the Golden Rule. Perhaps most significant, chap. 83 in the Greek U and Syriac B.L. ends with a statement about what humans are commanded to do, a statement remarkably similar to that attributed to Bardaisan in the Book of the Laws of Countries, 552. This similarity suggests to Bornkamm (Mythos und Legende in den apokryphen Thomas-Akten, 86) that the Acts of Thomas belonged to circles of Christians who looked to Bardaisan as their intellectual ancestor. Bornkamm followed the lead of Th. Nissen, “Die Petrusakten und ein bardesanitischer Dialog in der Aberkiosvita,” ZNW 9 (1908): 319, in identifying the passage; several scholars of the Acts of Thomas have posited a similarity between the BLC and the story of the Hymn of the Pearl in the Acts of Thomas. For a summary of the debates, see H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, chap. 1, esp. pp. 32 and 51.

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again with “you have [not] feared that your end had come,” both phrases found in the London manuscript, but missing from the Greek. In chapter 34, however, the Sinai manuscript introduces a vivified young man in tears, as does the Greek. Although the text is quite fragmentary at this point, the young man speaks of doing wrong, as in the Greek, and the word “forms” appears (in the Greek, the apostle is said to have appeared in two forms). The occasional words and phrases of Sinai which appear in this section follow the speech of the young man given in the Greek, but when Sinai picks up (briefly) again, it is at the beginning of the second speech of the youth (as found in the British Library ms.), which it follows until it breaks off completely. This section provided a copyist plenty of reasons to adopt the role of redactor. As we have seen, the Syriac contains an explanation offered in the beginning to account for the serpent’s ability to speak; the phrase interrupts the flow of the narrative and is clearly secondary. The beginning of chapter 33 has been expanded in the Syriac in order to elevate the apostle and stress his powers. The youth’s words in chapter 34 have been converted into prayers of praise in the Syriac (but the Sinai ms. clarifies that this attitude on the part of the youth was not in the original story), and the young man’s speech regarding his journey has been altered as well. In the Syriac he no longer speaks of a luminous one who is his kin, but of coming to the “lord of the day”; there is also more emphasis on the enemy. Finally, the chapter closes with a request from the youth to hear the apostle’s preaching, rather than, as in the Greek, to see the hidden man again. The Syriac copyist apparently found some references in the source manuscript offensive and, seeking to correct them, inserted as well a lengthy prayer of praise.

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Scriptural quotes or allusions11 The story about the young man who had been killed and then raised by the serpent provides another example of expansion of the narrative, this time in the Greek text. Chapter 36 contains a speech of the apostle to the young man, outlining the differences between what is perceptible to humans and what is promised by God. Into the Greek version have been inserted several sayings of Jesus as recorded in the gospels (“it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven”; “those who wear soft clothing are in the houses of kings”; “do not be concerned for your soul, what you eat or what you drink, nor about your body, what you will wear...”; etc.),12 as well as sometimes rather complicated citation formulae for each (e.g., “it has been named and it is said” in the discussion about clothing). The Syriac contains none of these references, which were most likely supplied to “provide a scriptural ground for the apostle’s moralizing.”13 Although both Greek and Syriac refer to biblical literature, whether directly or indirectly, there are differences in the way the two versions approach the scriptures. The Greek version tends to have more references to Pauline literature, while the Syriac amplifies or adds references from the Hebrew scriptures. The latter phenomenon can be observed in chapter 59, in which both the Greek and the Syriac claim that Jesus is the Messiah about whom the scriptures spoke, but the Syriac elaborates by inserting, “and whose types, mysteries, and likenesses the Law and the Prophets displayed; who was given as a covenant to the people, so that they might be restrained on his account from idol worship; the Light of the Gentiles, through whom the grace of God descended on them; in whose kingdom all who keep his commandments find rest and are honored with glory.” The explicit mention

11I depend heavily, in this section, on the work of Harold W. Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas” in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Intertextual Perspectives (ed. Robert F. Stoops; Semeia 80; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 87–124. 12See the fuller discussion of this section in Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas,” 90–91. 13Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas,” 91.

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of the law and the prophets, and the allusions to episodes in the life of ancient Israel, were inserted by the Syriac-speaking Christian copyist, in an attempt to emphasize one of the beloved facets of Syriac-speaking Christianity, its relationship to and development out of the history of Israel.14 Although the work originated in a Semitic milieu, embellishments in the Greek occasionally mask that fact. The tendency of the Syriac version to lack occasional allusions to Pauline or deutero-Pauline texts reflects its Semitic character and the hesitation among Syriac-speaking Christians to adopt Pauline language and traditions (or perhaps sometimes their ignorance of these traditions). The identification of Jesus as the “firstborn of many brethren” (Rom 8:29)15 is found in chapters 47 and 60 of the Greek, but missing from the Syriac of both. Even when there are apparent allusions to Pauline language, they appear in sections providing general exhortation, suggesting either that the Syriac-speaking Christians were more comfortable with this material than they would, presumably, be with Paul’s more radical statements criticizing the Jewish law,16 or that the ethical material was, in fact, stemming from universal or generally known moral teachings.17

14Christianity in this region is naturally more Semitic than that to the west, given the centers of Jewish learning in the area. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 281, calls the fourth-century Syriac authors “Christian midrashists” and suggests (pp. 6–9) that Christianity in Osrhoene developed out of contact with local Judaism and that of neighboring Adiabene. Both Ephrem and Aphrahat speak disparagingly of their Jewish neighbors, but lay Christian claim to the history of Israel nonetheless. For studies of Jewish or Biblical influence on individual authors, see Tryggve Kronholm, Motifs from Genesis 1–11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian: with Particular Reference to the Influence of Jewish Exegetical Tradition (Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1978) and Jacob Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1971). 15Indentified already by Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas,” 94. 16So Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas,” 96. 17A few examples from Acts of Thomas 58 will suffice. For the injunction to “put off the old self and put on the new” (Col 39–10; cf. also Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:22–24 for “putting on” or being “clothed” with Christ or the new self): The metaphor of putting on or off clothing to describe how people manifest their character is known from Greco-Roman and Jewish writings. In Plato’s Resp. 5.457A, “The women of the guardians, then [i.e., guardians of the state], must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment...” (Loeb English translation of Paul Shorey). See the numerous examples of the metaphor in Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 431. To speak of putting off the self appears to be peculiar to Pauline (or deutero-Pauline) usage. But see the discussion in P. van der Horst,

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The ability of the text to grow in its allusions to biblical material is evident in the speech of Mygdonia in chapter 129. The earliest manuscript of the Acts of Thomas, the 5th–6th century Sinai palimpsest, contains Mygdonia’s description of the glorious life: “when there is day and night, and in that place there is neither light nor darkness, and neither good nor evil, and neither rich nor poor, and not slaves, and not those freed, and not those who are haughty and mock the humble.” The later Syriac manuscript tradition,18 represented by the oldest complete surviving manuscript of the Acts of Thomas, that found in the British Library, expands the text after “neither rich nor poor” to include “and not male and not female,” a clear echo of Gal 3:28.19 The same reading is reflected in the Greek of chapter 129 as well. At some point a copyist noted the list of contrasting terms and recalled the famous Pauline list, inexplicably placing the “male and female” reference before that to slaves and free, rather than after it. Mygdonia’s speech is clearly not a direct allusion to the Pauline formula, so there is no reason to suspect that some Tendenz led the copyist of the Sinai manuscript to drop the phrase. But here we see a clear expansion of the text in both the Greek and later Syriac traditions.

“Observations on a Pauline Expression,” NTS 19 (1972/73): 181–87 about a fragment of Aristocles preserved in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.18.26 in which the skeptic Pyrrho says, “It is difficult to take off the human being.” The admonition, “Let thieves no longer steal, but let them live by work and toil” (Eph 4:28) is reminiscent of teachings against theft in Hebrew tradition (Lev 19:11; cf. Isa 1:23; Jer 7:9), where work is also valued (Exod 20:9; cf. Amos 6:4–6). These values are part of Greco-Roman tradition as well; see the discussion and examples in Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, 453. The negative command that one should not “requite evil with evil” (Rom12:17) is most clearly represented in numerous statements from Jewish tradition, as also in writings from the ancient Near East and Greco-Roman world. See, for example, Joseph and Asenath 28.4, “Do not return evil for evil to any person”; Hesiod, Op. 265, “He does mischief to himself who does mischief to another” (Loeb English translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White), and the long lists of examples given in Walter T. Wilson, Love Without Pretense: Romans 12:9–21 and Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Literature (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1991), 188 nn. 114–15. 18The British Library manuscript clearly does not descend from the Sinai palimpsest, however. Errors in Sinai are missing from the London manuscript. But while it stems from a predecessor of Sinai, the British Library manuscript contains numerous expansions, including that discussed here. 19Complete with the distinctive reading of this final phrase. In Gal 3:28, the oujk ... oujdev contrast gives way to “not ... and,” while in the Syriac of chap. 129, lyt … w changes to wl’ … wl’ beginning with this phrase.

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Occasionally, the development of biblical language in the Acts of Thomas shows an attempt on the part of a copyist or translator to clarify that which was found in the source text. This appears to be the case in the Greek of chapter 83, which provides a negative version of the Golden Rule. The Syriac of the London manuscript lacks the reference entirely, instead providing a thoroughly confusing “but something which we can do.” The 1871 editor of the manuscript in the British Library, William Wright,20 suggests that something is missing, and the text should read “But we are commanded to do something which we can do,” resulting in a slightly less muddled reading, but one that is hardly transparent. The reason for the confusion in the Syriac tradition becomes evident upon consulting the Sinai manuscript. Although fragmentary at this point, the text seems to read, “But we are commanded [to do] something acceptable to a person ... [not what] he would not do.” The text must have been faulty here at a relatively early date, and the British Library manuscript reflects the uncertainty of the reading. But enough is present to suggest that the Greek reading stems from an intact copy or is at least a legitimate reading of the text as it was found. The Greek translator understood the sense of the passage and turned it into an explicit (negative) dominical logion. Copyists also apparently felt comfortable changing the biblical imagery they found. In chapter 36, the apostle discourses on heavenly things, “about God, our Lord Jesus, the angels, the watchers, the holy ones” (Syriac). The Syriac continues with a reference to the “new world” and the “produce of the tree of life, and the drink of life.”21 In the Greek, in which the “world above” has begun the list, the apostle continues by speaking of “ambrosial food and the drink of the true vine.” Presuming that the Syriac is more

20William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; London: Williams and Norgate, 1871; reprint 2 vols. in one; Amsterdam: Philo, 1968), Syriac p. rng. 21The term here translated “produce” is borrowed from Greek; in Syriac literature it usually means “excrement.” It is used in that sense in the Hymn of the Bride in both Greek and Syriac. Wright reads the present passage as equivalent to “the food of the tree of life which has no loss of flavor” and therefore translates as “incorruptible food of the tree of life.”

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ancient,22 we can see that the reference to the tree of paradise has been altered to a reference to the Johannine vine. True to form, the Syriac text prefers an image from the Hebrew scriptures, while the Greek turns to the New Testament. Attridge has suggested that the mention of the vine reflects the liturgical use of wine in the Eucharist in Greek-speaking areas, a practice unknown in the earliest rituals of Syriac-speaking Christianity.23 The Greek translator did not simply turn to a new image, however, but built on that present in the source text. In Syrian literature, from the Odes of Solomon through the classical period, images of paradise and the tree of life abound. Later writers in Syriac, especially Aphrahat, expand the image of the tree, so that it becomes a vine, reaching its tendrils beyond the fence erected in the garden after the fall in order to provide nourishment to humans. The fruit of the tree of life and the grape, symbol of those in Israel who respond in faith as well of

22An assumption not entirely certain regarding this passage, but likely both because ritual considerations seem to play a part in the Greek text and because the term “excrement” as part of the heavenly world might have been unacceptable to a translator. 23Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas,” 91, referring also to Andrew McGowan, “To Gather the Fragments: The Social Significance of Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals” (Ph.D. diss.: University of Notre Dame, 1996; now published as Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals. In the more ancient liturgical rituals found in the Greek (as opposed to the generally more developed form of the rites in the Syriac) of the Acts of Thomas, there is never any mention of wine in the Eucharist. Chapters 27, 29, 50, and 133 (after an elaborate prayer over the bread in the last example) mention only bread, which was broken and shared. (The contents of the “Eucharist” in chapter 51, which causes the sinful young man’s hands to shrivel up upon taking it to his mouth, are not specified.) The rituals in chapters 121 and 158 involve bread and a cup, although, in chapter 158, only the bread is shared. In chapter 121, Mygdonia is said to be made a sharer in the “body of Christ and in the cup of the son of God”; explicit mention of the contents of the cup indicates that it was filled with water rather than wine or a mixed drink. In fact, the narrative preceding this ritual is informative: When Mygdonia’s nurse offers to respond to Mygdonia’s request for bread and water by bringing “loaves of bread” and “jugs of wine,” Mygdonia demurs. All that is necessary, she indicates, is a drink of water, a loaf of bread, and some oil, all of which figure in the initiatory rite that follows. These three elements are mentioned as well in the narrative in chapter 152; Tertia, the king’s wife, claims that her husband had indicated that the apostle enchants people with “oil, water, and bread.” Finally, the two instances in the Acts of Thomas in which the “body and blood” of Jesus are mentioned in a eucharistic context are in prayers of the apostle; that in chapter 158 interrupts the narrative and appears to have been composed independently and inserted into its present context. The corresponding prayer in chapter 49, addressed to Jesus, is less problematic itself, but precedes the independent epiclesis to an obviously feminine figure. The description of the ritual in both places specifies only a breaking and sharing of the bread, despite clear mention of the cup in chapter 158. Cf. McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 191–93, on the Eucharist in the Acts of Thomas.

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Christ himself, are confused.24 The vine imagery takes various forms; sometimes Christ is the vineyard and Christians are the vines, sometimes he is the branch of the vine and Christians are the fruit hanging from him. But especially strong is the identification of the vine and the tree of life, which nourishes and sustains those who eat from it. The Greek translator of the Acts of Thomas may have sought both to clarify the reference to the tree of life, and then to transfer it to the second element of the phrase (the drink), so that the statement becomes more clearly eucharistic. The original phrase as represented by the Syriac may indeed have been understood to be eucharistic, but the lack of distinctive elements (such as wine) in Syrian liturgical practice makes it difficult to determine.25 The relationship between the Greek and Syriac manuscript traditions is not always readily apparent. This is complicated by the fact that there are clearly at least two distinct families of Greek manuscripts. Sometimes a biblical phrase was understood by one translator of the Syriac, but completely missed by another, as in the case of Caesar’s coin in chapter 19.26 Most Greek manuscripts of this section read, “The king knows that he has acquired his royal dues,” missing the fairly clear reference in the Syriac, “What belongs to the king is to be given to the king.” But Greek manuscripts BHZ preserve the allusion to the dominical logion.27

24Even more commonly, Christ is the olive, the source of light, of healing, and of the oil of anointing, which grows from the tree of life. “This means that the ‘Tree of Life’ is represented simultaneously as vine and as olive”: Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: University Press, 1975), 125. See Murray’s discussion of these themes throughout chapter 3: “The Vineyard, the Grape and the Tree of Life.” Cf. also Jean Danielou, Primitive Christian Symbols (tr. Donald Attwater; London: Burns & Oats, 1964), especially chapter 2: “The Vine and the Tree of Life.” 25The use of “medicine of life” for the Eucharist, originating with Ignatius, continues throughout the Syrian tradition. It may lie behind the reference to the “drink of life.” 26Cf. Matt 22:21; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25. 27Another possible explanation for this is that the Syriac copyist had access not only to a Syriac manuscript, but also to one in Greek. In such a case, an originally ambiguous statement has been altered to include a maxim from the canonical gospels. Further investigation into the manuscript tradition is necessary, however, before any claims of bilingual transcription could be made.

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In the lengthy prayer of the apostle in chapters 144–147, there are again notable differences between some of the Greek manuscripts. In that section, the Syriac and the Greek manuscript P often agree over against Greek U. In the example of Caesar’s coin, both P and U are represented in the collection of manuscripts that failed to see the biblical reference. Liturgical passages A great deal of redactional activity is evident in the descriptions of initiation within the Acts of Thomas. In general, the rites in the Syriac manuscripts conform well to later practices of the Great Church (while retaining the significance of oil in initiation), while the Greek seems to preserve older, less standardized rituals. But there are a few instances, sometimes significant, in which the Syriac preserves the more ancient reading. The first clearly liturgical passage in the Acts of Thomas is that found in chapters 25–27, the initiation of King Gundafar/Gudnaphar and his brother Gad. When the king and his brother, having learned the true (heavenly) nature of the apostle’s building program, declare that they want to serve Thomas’s God, the apostle utters a prayer of praise to Jesus. The simpler form of the prayer appears in the Syriac; the Greek has been expanded in order to capitalize on events from the life of Jesus and references from the gospels. The mention of the possibility of persecution for worshippers of Jesus is expanded to include comparison with Jesus’ passion, and Jesus is addressed as “our lord and truly our good shepherd,” clearly recalling the good shepherd image of John 1028 and perhaps alluding to the confession of Thomas in John 20:28. In addition, the simple petition to “anoint them, purify them” has been altered to speak of “having cleansed them with your bath and anointed them with your oil.” Since there would be no reason for the Syriac, which includes an account of water baptism in its ritual, to excise mention of the bath, the reference has surely been added to the Greek. The order corresponds with the practice of baptism

28Also 1 Pet 5:4 and Heb 13:20.

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followed by anointing, although the practice in Syria, as known from liturgical texts from the region, featured an anointing first. Throughout the Acts of Thomas, when both anointing and water baptism are found, the anointing precedes the water rite. In the account of the rite itself, it is the Syriac that has been amplified, perhaps to illustrate conformity with the practices of the Great Church. The Greek contains a “sealing” with oil, followed by the epiclesis, and a simple Eucharist of bread. That the Syriac-speaking redactor wanted to include a water rite is unmistakable; the king closes the bath for seven days and the bathhouse is the setting for the initation that follows. The epiclesis in the Syriac, which remains associated with the anointing, is more “orthodox” and less intriguing than its Greek counterpart. The final line has been transferred to the description of the rite itself. It appears that the Syriac-speaking church was reacting to charges that its practices and theology were questionable; in response, it emphasizes its orthodoxy in both ritual and in prayer. The same phenomenon can be observed in the rite described in chapters 49 and 50. The Greek version includes a sealing (no mention is made of any element used in the rite), followed by a eucharistic celebration.29 But the Syriac elaborates extensively, introducing a nearby river that becomes the setting for baptism, expanding the eucharistic prayer that precedes the epiclesis over the bread, and, again, cleansing the epiclesis of any elements that could be considered questionable. The initiatory and eucharistic rituals in chapter 121 are remarkably similar in Greek and Syriac.30 The Syriac includes the directive that the nurse of Mygdonia anoint her, a phrase missing from the Greek. It is difficult to know if the phrase was added to the Syriac in order to bring the ritual into conformity with contemporary rites, or if the idea of a non-

29Although the description of Eucharist is quite simple—a table with bread, a prayer, the sign of the cross on the bread, and distribution of the bread—it is far more elaborate than that found at the end of chapter 29. 30The line introducing the water receptacle in the Syriac is confusing, and probably corrupt.

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initiate performing part of the initiatory ritual offended a Greek copyist. The most significant difference between the Greek and the Syriac is found in the narrative preceding the ritual. There Mygdonia requests supplies that will be needed for the rites that follow; in the Greek she asks for a drink of water, a loaf of bread, and oil.31 The Syriac, again conforming to later custom, introduces a “mixed cup.”32 In addition, the prayer during the anointing has apparently been altered slightly in the Syriac; the Greek version emphasizes the hidden things revealed in the oil, somewhat like the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50. In the Syriac, the addressee changes in mid prayer, so that the appeal to “let your power come” is made, not directly to the oil, as in the Greek, but to Jesus.33 It is in the prayers that most variety can be seen between the Greek and Syriac of chapters 132–133, in which initiation and Eucharist are described. In the rites in both, the oil is emphasized but baptism is briefly mentioned. A prayer speaks of baptism, and another prayer is spoken during the anointing. The Syriac expands and slightly alters the baptismal prayer; the reference to a “threefold” birthing is changed to a statement about the Trinity. A line is added in the Syriac that negates an earlier line: the “hidden power” of baptism34 becomes also the power visible in baptism. The activity associated with the bread of the Eucharist is essentially the same, although the prayer over the bread is significantly altered in the Syriac, and apparently offensive material excised. The Greek reference to the “name 31As discussed in chapter 4 below, the narrative in this section suggests that oil is the only element used in the initiation prior to the eucharistic celebration. 32That is, wine and water mixed together, as was common for meals and was used in later eucharistic practices. The Sachau manuscript, while retaining the mixed cup, has Mygdonia say not only that she doesn’t need much wine, but also that she doesn’t need pure wine. On the absence of wine in the Eucharist, and especially the practice of bread-and-water Eucharists in early Christianity, see Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists. 33Indirect appeals such as this appear to be a later liturgical development. See the discussion in Sebastian Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines,” in Symposium Syriacm 1972 (OrChrAn 197; Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1974), 183–218. 34This line is missing from the Sachau manuscript, perhaps dropped because of the conflicting line to come. “Hidden power” is mentioned here in Sinai, but, due to homoioteleuton, the Sinai scribe’s eye dropped down to the end of the next prayer, so that Sinai is of little help in this section, except to confirm the reading of “Trinity.”

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of the Mother,” recalling the language of the epicleses in Greek, becomes a trinitarian pronouncement, and a reference to “hidden authorities and powers” is deleted from the Syriac. Finally, one copyist of the Syriac inserted “wine” after bread;35 most Syriac and all Greek manuscripts36 lack the oenological reference. There is brief mention of the liturgical elements in a speech of King Mizdai, reported by his wife Tertia, in chapter 152. The king claimed that the apostle made use of various devices to enchant his followers; they are (in varying order) oil, water, and bread in the Greek, with the addition, in all edited mss. of the Syriac, of wine as well. The list occurs twice in the chapter and both Greek and Syriac are consistent in their presentation, the former making no mention of wine, the latter including it. The final liturgical passage37 in the Acts of Thomas is that in chapters 157–158, an account of initiation and Eucharist. Again, the Syriac of the British Library ms.38 has a much less intriguing prayer than that found in the Greek. In this case, it appears that there may have been a corrupt Syriac manuscript that led to a complicated and variegated tradition in the extant manuscripts. But the eucharistic prayer is largely intact; the most significant variant in the accounts of the Eucharist in this passage is the insertion of “mixed” into later manuscripts of the Syriac, a term missing from the Sinai manuscript as well as the Greek.

35The British Library ms. is the only edited Syriac ms. to contain the word “wine”; it is missing from both Sachau and Sinai. In addition, Agnes Smith Lewis claims that the Cambridge ms. also refers only to bread. See Lewis, The Mythological Acts of the Apostles, xli. 36At least all of those known to and edited by Bonnet. 37I have not dealt with liturgical material in chapters 29 and 51, since the Greek and Syriac of these brief eucharistic passages agree. 38The “beautiful fruit” prayer in the London ms. is coherent and appears to agree with that in the Greek, although only the first few lines of the prayer are present. The ms. then conflates the two prayers of the apostle as found in the Greek into one prayer. The Sinai ms. appears to be faulty; some of the manuscript is fragmentary, but even when the ms. seems to be clear, a large section of the prayer found in the London ms. is missing. Sachau has a brief and altogether different prayer. In addition, the final prayer of the initiation, beginning “In your name, Jesus Christ” and the second anointing, found in Greek, B.L., and Sinai, is missing in Sachau.

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Having established that there was heavy redactional activity in the manuscript transmission of the Acts of Thomas, in both the Greek tradition and in the Syriac, we must now turn to the question of redactional activity even in cases unsupported by textual evidence. This can be seen most easily in the composition of the many spoken pieces which interrupt the narrative of the work. Internal Evidence of Redaction in the Acts of Thomas Interspersed throughout the Acts of Thomas, and often concentrated in liturgical settings, are lengthy prayers, hymns, and speeches. These may interrupt the flow of the narrative, but provide important clues to the theological position of the redactor of the work. Often they are integrated into the surrounding narrative by catchwords or themes, but their independent nature is evident. There are three categories of independent material, with some overlap between the categories. The first category includes those prayers or hymns that not only interrupt the flow of the narrative, but also do not fit in their current context. Existing independently, they seem to have been interpolated at an early stage in the development of the tradition. These are the easiest to identify, but constitute the smallest grouping. Textual evidence supports their identification as secondary additions. The second category comprises those prayers that are lengthy, but are fairly well integrated into their current context. Although they do not necessarily move the story forward, they are sometimes central to the concerns of the author and do not interrupt the flow of the narrative. They may have been written for the occasion by the redactor, or a shorter prayer or speech may have been expanded. We have seen textual evidence of this latter phenomenon already. The final category is that which includes the epicleses that are the subject of this study. Once again, the prayers seem to interrupt the narrative, and can also be identified as independent compositions. They seem to have preexisted and were incorporated into the text of the Acts of Thomas at some undetermined

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point, perhaps by the redactor39 who brought the early tales together with the unified story involving the court of King Mizdai. Such prayers are concentrated in liturgical settings; the fixed prayers of the liturgy apparently proved especially suitable for incorporation into a novel with liturgical interests. Interruptions in the narrative We shall begin this section by considering two examples of material in the first category. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. The Hymn of the Pearl. The final section of the Acts of Thomas is a relatively unified tale of the conversion of members of the royal household of Mizdai and other socially prominent figures, most notably the woman Mygdonia, a noblewoman in her own right and the wife of the king’s close relative and confidant. Within this unified final section, however, is inserted the famous Hymn of the Pearl (chaps. 108–113), perhaps the most easily recognized independent section of the work. The hymn is purported to be a poem of Judas Thomas, recited while he was confined to prison. The poem tells the story, in the first person, of a prince sent to a foreign land to rescue a pearl. Donning the attire of the land in which he finds himself, the prince forgets his true identity and must be alerted to it by correspondence from his parents. Seizing the pearl, he begins to return home and finds that his parents have sent the gift of his royal clothing, which aids him in his self-recognition and on his final journey. The protagonist is never named, but the details of the story make it clear that it was never meant to be understood as an account of the apostle’s life. The prince hails from the east; the apostle finds himself, unwilling, preaching and ministering in a region to the far east of his native land. Thomas himself was sold as a slave; the character in the hymn is of royal stock. Even

39As I have argued above, this redactor is also the author of the Mygdonia story, and is thus responsible for the integrated form of the Acts of Thomas. Numerous subsequent translators and copyists have, however, sought to improve the work.

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on the lips of Thomas, the tale is symbolic of a life of delusion and the need for selfrecognition. Within the Acts of Thomas, the Hymn of the Pearl interrupts the flow of the narrative. The husband of the noblewoman Mygdonia, understandably upset when his wife attaches herself to the apostle (with the resultant conviction that marriage and sex are to be forsaken by one who is “betrothed” to Christ), arranges to have Thomas imprisoned. A dispute between the apostle and the angry Carish is followed by Thomas’s brief appearance before the king and an account of his joy while being led to prison. Carish returns home, believing that he has solved his domestic problems. Instead, Mygdonia is more aloof than ever to him and she seeks the apostle in prison; a short time later she is initiated and eventually becomes his liturgical assistant40 and companion in prison. Into this coherent account of the efforts of Carish to secure the apostle’s arrest and the restoration of his marriage is inserted the lengthy Hymn of the Pearl. The hymn interrupts the narrative, employs a different theme and style from the surrounding account,41 and introduces distinct vocabulary (for example, the Iranian parwankin for the prince’s two companions42), thus indicating its independent existence and later insertion into the narrative. The independent nature of the Hymn of the Pearl, unlike that of the similarly abstruse Hymn of the Bride, appears to be demonstrable on textual grounds.43 The Hymn of the Pearl is found in only one Greek witness to the Acts of Thomas, a twelfth-century manuscript (U) from the Bibliotheca Vallicellana in Rome.44 Although most of the

40Her role is the same as that of a deaconess in the Didascalia and elsewhere. 41For more detailed argument on the independence (and great antiquity) of the Hymn of the Pearl, see Paul-Hubert Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle des Actes de Thomas. 42Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.434. 43But see discussion in notes 47 and 53 below. 44And the eleventh-century epitome of Nicetas of Thessalonica, which seems to summarize a text much like that of the Rome manuscript. See the discussion in Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 179.

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remaining Greek manuscripts are incomplete, and generally are missing the chapters immediately preceding and following the hymn, it is significant that the only other Greek manuscript which could be said to contain the complete narrative (P: Parisiacus graecus 1510) is missing the entire hymn and only the hymn.45 Of the five copies of the Acts of Thomas in Syriac, only one manuscript, that in the British Library, contains the hymn. Three of the manuscripts are late (18th or 19th centuries) and may be directly related to one another.46 The tenth-century manuscript in the British Library has not only the Hymn of the Pearl but also a lengthy doxology spoken by the apostle.47 The effect of inserting both prayers in this spot is that the interruption in the narrative is quite extended. The prayer of praise bears a number of similarities to the other prayers in the Acts of Thomas,48 and Poirier suggests that it was most likely inserted here

45And, interestingly, the final lines of the prayer of the apostle just prior to the hymn, suggesting the possibility that the hymn is not simply “missing” from P but was intentionally excised at some point in the textual transmission. 46So Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 1–2, although this judgment warrants scrutiny. 47The only person to have treated the teshbuhta at any length is Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 171–84, in discussing its relationship to the Hymn of the Pearl. Klijn chose not to include it in his edition (despite using the translation of the B.L. manuscript provided by Wright, who faithfully reproduced the text as found in the British Library, with occasional emendations). Indeed, it is included in no modern translations of the Acts of Thomas except that of Wright, despite its appearance in the most ancient complete manuscript of the work. The Berlin ms. has an abbreviated version of the prayer of praise, and introduces it in the same way that the Hymn of the Pearl is introduced in the London ms., with the addition of the words “of praise” after “hymn”; an abbreviated version appears as well in Cambridge. The insertion of a shorter prayer into the narrative at an early date fits the pattern found elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas (and demonstrated below). If the short prayer of praise (later expanded) was the first to be inserted into the narrative at this point, its absence in the Greek U could be due to being displaced by the Hymn of the Pearl, but it is difficult to explain why P does not also include it. Perhaps the scribe of P did not, in fact, know the prayer of praise but copied from a ms. that contained only the Hymn of the Pearl but chose to delete the poem, finding it objectionable on theological grounds. The loss of part of the preceding prayer in P, as well as the Hymn of the Pearl, seems to suggest that the section was intentionally deleted. P lacks not only the hymn itself, but breaks off in the middle of chapter 107 (although not in mid sentence), suggesting the intriguing possibility that offensive leaves were ripped out of a ms. That P might have included the hymn does not change the secondary nature of it, but, if true, would suggest that the hymn’s inclusion in the work might have been fairly early. The Syriac Sachau ms. also lacks the Hymn of the Pearl and much of the immediately preceding material, but not in the same way as P. 48Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 182, notes some similar themes: the Father, or Christ, who vivifies creation; Christ donning humanity; the indwelling of God in the elect; the “fruit” of the Father, as a title applied both to Christ and to the oil of anointing.

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first, perhaps based on a legend about the apostle in prayer similar to the story about Paul in the canonical Acts of the Apostles 16:23–40, esp. 16:25.49 Poirier believes that the doxology was introduced into a coherent narrative at this point.50 A copyist may then have chosen this location for inserting the Hymn of the Pearl, since Judas Thomas was already involved in prayer. Both the Hymn of the Pearl and the prayer of praise have titles in the British Library manuscript, and the Hymn of the Pearl is graced with a concluding statement that the hymn is finished, further demonstrating its identity as an interpolation.51 The

49Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 183, apparently builds on the observation by Bornkamm, Mythos und Legende, 121, that the introduction to the Hymn of the Pearl could reflect Acts 16:25. 50L’Hymne de la Perle, 183–84. Although in general Poirier’s arguments are sound, there are a few problems with his reconstruction of the manuscript development. First, he assumes that P represents the earliest text, in which both the teshbuhta and the Hymn of the Pearl are absent. But, as I have suggested above, there is some evidence that something has been removed from P at this point, most likely the Hymn of the Pearl. In addition, the assumption that the earliest form of the teshbuhta appears in the London ms., where it is longer than in Cambridge and Sachau, cannot be proven. As Poirier himself (L’Hymne de la Perle, 176–77) knows, the prayers in the second half of Cambridge and Sachau have routinely been abbreviated. But it is also true that the shorter form fits well with the usual kinds of prayers in the Acts of Thomas. In the end, the original character of the teshbuhta remains unclear and the question of its inclusion in the Acts of Thomas warrants further examination. 51So also Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, 180. Poirier maintains that the prayer of praise, although probably not older than the Hymn of the Pearl as an independent work, was inserted into the Acts of Thomas at an earlier date than the Hymn of the Pearl. The teshbuhta, which lacks a colophon, then formed an integral part of the text; its title was written when the Hymn of the Pearl was inserted. But there are problems with this understanding. The long prayer clearly interrupts the narrative just as much as does the Hymn of the Pearl, and its content appears to reflect the concerns of the orthodox editor whose hand is evident elsewhere in the extant Syriac. It has not been proven that the teshbuhta was part of the text before the Hymn of the Pearl was inserted; it is possible that the insertion of the Hymn of the Pearl preceded that of the teshbuhta. An editor who knew the Hymn of the Pearl might have chosen this location for the lengthy prayer since Judas Thomas was already involved in prayer and perhaps to correct the tendency of the hymn with a wholly orthodox prayer of praise. An abbreviator, whose hand is evident in Sachau and Cambridge, might have chosen to delete the Hymn of the Pearl entirely, perhaps on doctrinal grounds, in addition to excising a significant portion of the teshbuhta. It would still remain to be explained why the teshbuhta is found in no Greek mss. Poirier (L’Hymne de la Perle, 184) believes that a scribe replaced the teshbuhta with the Hymn of the Pearl, resulting in the text of U. In fact, I think it highly unlikely that the Greek translators knew the prayer of praise; it was probably inserted in the Syriac tradition, most likely by the orthodox editor, after the work had been translated into Greek. An alternative order of events would then proceed as follows: 1) A coherent narrative recounted the apostle’s plight in prison. 2) Into this (in the Syriac) was inserted the Hymn of the Pearl, a work of great antiquity but clearly independent from the rest of the Acts of Thomas. 3) The entire work was translated into Greek. It is possible that several independent translations were made, resulting in the various ms. traditions in Greek. One of these translators may have used a text lacking the Hymn of the Pearl (and eventually resulting in P). But, especially if the differences in the Greek ms. traditions can be explained on other grounds, it is possible that P is the result of intentional deletion of offensive material, namely the Hymn of the Pearl. 4) An orthodox editor added (so the London ms.), or perhaps replaced the Hymn of the Pearl with (so Cambridge and Sachau), the teshbuhta. The length of the teshbuhta at this point cannot be

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copyist52 of an ancestor of the Sachau ms. in Berlin then left off the Hymn of the Pearl, but retained an abbreviated form of the doxology.53 The oldest surviving Syriac of the Acts of Thomas is found in the fifth/sixth-century Sinai palimpsest, but it is, unfortunately, quite incomplete and missing the section in question. The textual evidence then, while not entirely conclusive, points to the secondary nature of the hymn, supporting internal evidence of the hymn’s later insertion. The hymn was certainly included in the work by the tenth century, but the Acts of Thomas might have circulated without the hymn for a time in order for a manuscript tradition, absent the hymn, to develop.54 Daughter versions in the Greek lack the hymn, but this fact is of little significance due to their fragmentary or abbreviated nature. Chapters 144–148. The long prayer of Judas in prison has a complicated history. Manuscript U, the complete Greek witness, includes this section as chapters 144–148,55 and the Syriac of the British Library and Sachau manuscripts include the prayer in the same context.56 The Sinai palimpsest includes the prayer, with some interesting differences from the London manuscript, and seems to situate the prayer at the same point as well. The Greek determined. The short form accords with other prayers in the work. But the long form shows affinities with a number of themes present elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas. 52This copyist, working from a descendant of the British Library manuscript, produced the ancestor of Sachau 222, Cambridge 2822, and, apparently, Mosul 86 as well. 53In Sachau the central portion of the prayer of praise is simply left off. Sachau includes the designation “Act 11” and a title before the narrative resumes again, at the point at which Carish goes to talk to Mygdonia. The introduction of the prayer of praise reproduces the introduction of the Hymn of the Pearl (“And when he had prayed and sat down, Judas began to chant this hymn”) in the British Library manuscript, but with the simple addition of the words “of praise” to identify the “hymn,” suggesting that the Hymn of the Pearl was intentionally deleted from Sachau and the teshbuhta inserted in its place. Poirier posits a different course of events, asserting that the prayer of praise was replaced by the Hymn of the Pearl in the tradition represented by U. This would require that the scribe had the foresight to delete the words “of praise” from the introduction. 54As we have seen, it is possible that the originator of the manuscript tradition that produced the Greek P knew the hymn but deleted it on doctrinal grounds. 55It is the only Greek manuscript to include the prayer at this point. 56Sachau is missing large sections of the prayer; it may be fragmentary at this point.

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manuscript P ends Act 12 with chapter 143. Indeed, most of the Greek manuscripts that include a version of the prayer locate it in the martyrdom scene, in place of the “My Lord and God prayer” found in chapter 167 in U.57 In these manuscripts, the Lord’s Prayer is omitted completely and there are significant differences between them and U in the composition of the long prayer. The fact that this prayer was transmitted apart from any context (in ms. Q), and changes context (found either in Act 12 or in the martyrdom), suggests the possibility that it had an independent origin. The prayer itself is a farewell discourse, recounting the deeds and accomplishments of the apostle, his calling to a life of poverty, and the trials of his ministry. He prays also for the community he has established, that it might flourish, safe from the devil’s snares. That his time of service is ending is clear in his claim to have “brought your work to completion and fulfilled your commandment” (chapter 145)58 as well as his appeal to be allowed to “taste of the meal” for which he has prepared. The apostle anticipates that he will receive his reward and find rest after his toils. He asks for protection from evil powers,59 hoping that he might “pass by” them unseen, to be judged without interference by the devil. Clearly the hostile powers of the extraterrestrial world are in view. The apostle’s hearers listen intently (chapter 143), apparently understanding this to be his farewell discourse. But significant members of the community are missing, namely, Mygdonia, her nurse, and Tertia. Only the men are present, and the wife and daughter of Siphor the general. This fact makes it unlikely that it was originally placed here as the apostle’s farewell; it would be a grave oversight to offer final thoughts to a community

57Mss. PFLSZ. Manuscript Q, which contains only the first two acts and this long prayer, and thus cannot be said to indicate the location of the prayer, lacks its beginning and end. Manuscript Z also lacks a large section near the beginning. Interestingly, the Sinai ms. often has readings that correspond with P, although Sinai does include the Lord’s Prayer. 58Translation of Attridge from U; P is quite similar. The claim is made again at the end of chapter 146 in U and in the corresponding place in the martyrdom in PQFLS. 59In the Syriac, they are “powers” and “rulers.”

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whose principal members are missing. In this respect, the prayer fits better in chapter 167,60 where it is spoken as a private prayer, and immediately precedes the apostle’s death.61 The long prayer of the apostle in prison, then, seems out of place in its current context. It may originally have been part of the martyrdom and found its way into the prison scene,62 or it may have been written later and inserted into this context. But its present position in the prison scene is problematic. If the Greek manuscript U is to be believed in chapter 149, something has been excised from the text before this point, as suggested by the awkward luqei;".63 The variations in the manuscript tradition support the position that the prayer once existed independently of its present context. The prayer’s authorship is uncertain but it, unlike the Hymn of the Pearl, may in fact have been written by the compiler of the complete Acts of Thomas.64 The numerous New Testament references, which, as we have seen, grew in frequency over time, could indicate a period of composition later than that of the early tales. The claim to have left behind a wife accords nicely with the apostle’s preaching of celibacy, a value of the author of the Mygdonia story, but is applied to the apostle’s own life only here and in chapter 61. Greater attention needs to be given to this prayer and to the martyrdom scene in order to reach a firm conclusion regarding authorship and compositional history.

60The introductory lines of chapter 143, however, in which the listeners anticipate Judas’s imminent death, are found in this place in P as well as in U and the Syriac witnesses. 61Indeed, although the martyrdom mentions the leading characters of the Mygdonia story, they are not integral to the story. The martyrdom shows signs of independent composition. 62One possibility is that this prayer was originally in the martyrdom, but the martyrdom followed immediately upon chap. 143. With the martyrdom following the prison scene, the prayer sometimes retained its position in the martyrdom, sometimes became a prayer in prison. The story of Vizan’s conversion, perhaps a development of the tradition that a son of the king was freed of a demon (chap. 170), was then inserted. This suggestion is, it should be noted, simply conjecture. In the work as we currently have it, the Vizan story is integrated, although seams are apparent. 63No other Greek ms. includes the material found in chap. 149 of U. It does appear in the Syriac (but without the reference to the release of the apostle). 64That is, the redactor who brought together the early tales with the unified second half of the work.

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Authorial redaction/composition of prayers and speeches The second category of prayers in the Acts of Thomas includes those that were composed (or perhaps extended) in their present location by the redactor of the Acts of Thomas. In the second half of the work, the prayers may have been composed in the course of writing the narrative (although this is not required), but, in the first half, they were clearly composed during the process of redaction, not when the tales were originally written. Because the distinction between this category and the next involves the claim that some material was traditional, a claim that can be supported only by internal evidence, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the prayers which belong in this group and those in the next. Discussion will be limited to prayers and speeches most illustrative of the group’s character. The Bridal couple. In the first act, Jesus, mistaken for the apostle, appears to the bride and groom in their chamber and decries the evils associated with sex and childbearing. Jesus’ speech alludes to the prayer of Thomas, recently concluded, making it clear that Thomas’s words, in some form, were known when this section was composed.65 The theme of sexual renunciation appears for the first time in the Acts of Thomas in this speech; it is also found elsewhere in the work, especially in the second half, where it is central in the preaching and teaching of the apostle.66 When questioned the day after their wedding by the bride’s parents, the bride and groom provide an explanation for their behavior, while merely alluding to their visitor of the previous night. The bride offers a speech extolling the virtues of sexual renunciation and her

65The words of Jesus, however, have nothing in common with the themes of Thomas’s prayer, suggesting that they were composed independently and probably by different authors. It appears, in fact, that the prayer of the apostle in chapter 10 was a traditional prayer employed here by the author/redactor, who then proceeded to compose many of the prayers and speeches that follow. See the discussion of chapter 10 below. 66See the discussion below on the significance of sexual renunciation to the author/redactor.

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husband offers a prayer thanking God.67 The groom’s speech eloquently proclaims that he has received healing and self-knowledge from God. In a line reminiscent of that of the Samaritan woman in John 4, the groom declares that God “showed yourself to me and revealed to me everything about my condition,” although no such encounter is recorded in this act. And, although the bride and groom never fully explain what provided the impetus for their decision to renounce sexual activity, the king understands that they were so influenced by the apostle’s preaching. There is, then, incomplete logic in the course of events in the narrative, but the disjunction between speeches and narrative is not entirely disruptive in the present context. Throughout, the reader understands the progression of events and arguments. The author is providing the audience with a narrative logic, although from the point of view of the characters in the story, were they to reflect on it, there would be gaps and inconcinnities. That the speeches and prayers in Act 1 were composed by the author of the unified second half of the work68 is evident in their central concern: sexual renunciation. This theme provides the context for the conflict between the couple and the bride’s parents, and sets the stage for rejection of the apostle by the king.69 This is not to say that there is not traditional material in this act. The act opens with disjunctive accounts of the beginnings of the apostle’s journey, and the wedding banquet scene has little in common with this scene, in theme or in detail, other than the wedding theme. Nowhere in the banquet scene does Thomas express concern about celibacy, nor does he demur to attend a celebration of conjugal unity. The flute player, so prominent at the banquet, forms only a footnote in the

67The Syriac employs a traditional Semitic formula for introducing the prayer. A few other differences can be noted between the Greek and the Syriac of this prayer, especially near the beginning. 68And redactor of the entire work; see the argument below. 69In fact, it may have been the seed for the longer Mygdonia story, in which Thomas again comes into disfavor for preaching continence. The principal characters in that story differ, but the king (in the longer story, King Mizdai) remains among the chief opponents of the apostle. Thomas’s conflict with temporal rulers is emblematic of his rejection of the significance of the earthly life and its trappings. This king is the first of three with whom Thomas will lock horns (and the only one not to be converted in the end).

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second half of the act. Finally, the groom’s prayer, composed as it is with a pattern of repeated articles combined with participles to describe the “Lord,” may also include traditional material. But the redactor has woven together the various strands to produce a coherent tale, modeled around the central motif of sexual continence. Even the groom’s prayer, if it does antedate the unified tale, is incorporated into this section with its reference to chastity and to the groom’s lack of shame. It seems likely that the prayers and speeches in this section were expanded by the redactor in order to emphasize the favored theme of celibacy. We have already seen examples of prayers being lengthened in the process of the transmission of the Acts of Thomas. Without manuscript evidence, however, we cannot know with certainty if that is the case in the story of the bridal couple in Act 1. But long prayers and speeches are characteristic features of the second half of the Acts of Thomas, where they are better integrated into the narrative. The author of the Mygdonia story seems to have influenced heavily the tale in Act 1, although not to have composed the entire act. This author/redactor’s hand is less evident in Acts 2–8. Mygdonia and Carish. The speeches of Mygdonia and Carish in Act 9 illustrate the author’s fondness for declamatory speeches and penchant for rhythmic touches and stylistic flourishes. Carish laments his loss in two florid speeches. In chapter 100, Carish cries out a repeated “Woe is,” before continuing the speech, providing valuable information about the couple’s marriage. The stirring words of Carish in chapter 115 sing the praises of Mygdonia and the sorrow of Carish in words that (briefly) recall the Song of Songs. One of the most stylized speeches apparently written by the author of the second half of the Acts of Thomas is the ejkei`no" speech of Mygdonia in chapter 124, in which some form of ejkei`no" is contrasted with some form of ou|to" twelve times. Although it is not entirely clear that the author composed this piece, it seems likely. It is true that the direct address to Carish and absence of the ejkei`no"//ou|to" pairing in the penultimate line could

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suggest an alteration of traditional material.70 But the content throughout the speech fits the wider context, and clearly expresses the author’s value of sexual continence in order to enjoy the “marriage that lasts forever.” In addition, the direct address to Carish is paralleled in an earlier line that does employ ejkei`no"//ou|to" and retains the form of contrast and the contrasting themes of destruction and perishability versus immortality. The speeches of Carish in chapters 99, 100, and 115 and the speech of Mygdonia in chapter 124 appear to be compositions of the author, rather than set pieces that have been incorporated into the story. They address the present concern (the status of their marriage), are integrated into the narrative, and add to, rather than interrupt, the story. This is not to claim that there is not traditional material employed in the second half, but simply that the author of the Mygdonia story often composed lengthy speeches, providing one piece of evidence for supposing that the less integrated speeches and expansions of the first half come from the pen of this author/redactor. This conclusion, however, means that judgments about traditional material are made more difficult in the second half of the work, although it appears that the author did incorporate earlier pieces, especially in the prayers of the apostle. Prayers with anaphora. A striking feature of many of the prayers and lengthy speeches of the Acts of Thomas is the use of anaphora in structuring the prayer. We have seen a similar pattern already in the groom’s speech in chapter 15 and that of Mygdonia in chapter 124, and a clear example of the phenomenon will be seen below in the prayer in chapter 80. Although the feature often suggests a liturgical Sitz im Leben, it could also be employed as a literary feature to capture the reader’s attention or to add a somewhat poetic flavor to the prayer or speech. Anaphora sometimes suggests that the prayer or speech is traditional, but

70It could also be argued that Mygdonia does not directly answer the question of Carish. But the concern for physical attractiveness is that of Carish, not of Mygdonia. See their conversation in chapters 116 and 117, in which Carish again speaks of his own handsomeness, which comment Mygdonia ignores. It appears that the author has skillfully presented both key characters so consumed with their own concerns that they do not fully comprehend the position of the other. Indeed, Carish is generally presented as a sympathetic figure, deeply in love with his wife and confused by her rejection of him. He seems to be convinced that her attraction to Thomas (she speaks always of her love for Jesus) is a judgment on physical beauty, certainly a plausible excuse for marital “infidelity.”

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it might also have been written by the author, marked by greater care in composition than the surrounding narrative. There are numerous examples of anaphora in the Acts of Thomas. Most are concentrated in the second half of the work, but several occur in earlier acts. Following are examples of the prayers employing repetition, prayers that seem to come, some clearly, others less so, from the pen of the author/redactor. The prayer of the apostle in chapter 61 (Act 6), for example, extends an already completed prayer.71 It is characterized by the anaphoral “Look upon us,” and a strong statement of the ascetic and independent nature of the Christian life. The renunciation of family and the mention of the newly-formed family of disciples of Jesus, as well as the itinerant nature of the Christian life, is found explicitly stated only here and, to a lesser extent, in the long prayer of chapters 144–147, despite the apostle’s own life’s example. And the prayer’s ascetic understanding of marriage is paralleled in only a few places in the first half of the work. Even the term xevno" is applied to the follower of Jesus in the first half of the work only in Act 1, where it appears several times, and here.72 It is used repeatedly to identify the apostle in the Mygdonia story. The first line of chapter 61 sounds like the final line of a prayer, moving, as it does, from epithets, participial phrases, and a statement of thanksgiving to a petitionary prayer. Although the rest of chapter 61 is phrased as petition, it is of a decidedly different nature, both in terms of style and content, from the first line. The entire prayer of chapter 61 then, after the first line, reflects concerns of the author of the Mygdonia story and must have been inserted here when the early tales were redacted.

71The first prayer, which occupies all of chapter 60, concludes in the first line of chapter 61. 72In the apostle’s prayer to Jesus in chapter 72, Jesus’ renown is said to be “strange” in the city. It is difficult to know if the prayer was composed as part of the tale or inserted here. It is characterized by repetition of the name “Jesus” which might suggest independent composition, but it does not interrupt the narrative (although, by the same token, it does not further it).

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The prayer in chapter 123 employs anaphora, but the content is appropriate to the occasion of a prayer by the newly initiated Mygdonia and her nurse. “New God” begins the first line of the prayer (reflecting a position held throughout the Acts of Thomas that the message preached by the apostle was innovative); each line following begins simply with “God.” The attitudes expressed in the prayer are those of the author73 and the prayer ends with a reference to Carish. It appears to have been composed for the occasion, demonstrating the author’s penchant for anaphora in prayers, and skill at producing them.74 In prison, the apostle Judas Thomas appears to bid farewell to his companions. A series of speeches and prayers, beginning in chapter 142, are strung together with little commentary intervening. The compositional history of the entire section is puzzling. After his trial before King Mizdai and subsequent torture, the apostle, at the request of the king, utters a prayer that brings an end to the threat of a flood and saves the king’s life.75 The apostle is then returned to the prison so that Mizdai can decide his fate. It is surprising that the narrator immediately insists that Judas would soon die. Following speeches that bear the mark of imminent doom, the narrative proceeds to describe an initiation that takes place outside the prison; the martrydom itself closes the story. But the martyrdom proper includes another trial before Mizdai; this account seems unaware of the events in the other trial, when the apostle saved the king’s life. I have argued above that the long prayer in chapters 144–147 was originally independent, perhaps part of the martyrdom scene itself. Chapter

73E.g., the “stranger” is Thomas; the hidden God has been revealed; out of love for humanity, God has not hesitated to be humbled (“small”). 74Although the prayer fits the context, one could argue that the words of Carish immediately following the prayer suggest that the spot was originally occupied by another prayer, one that dwelt more extensively on the content of his character. There can be no doubt, however, that a prayer mentioning Carish occupied the spot and, in the absence of further evidence, it is unlikely that a second prayer mentioning Carish would be inserted to take its place. Carish is exaggerating regarding the women’s present assessment of him as “wicked, crazed, and base”; the reader knows that, in fact, such is indeed their opinion of him. 75The cities of upper Mesopotamia were often flooded by the powerful rivers on whose banks they were built. A story is told of Ephrem’s ability to save the city of Nisibis, besieged by the Persians, when an attempt was made to alter the course of the River Mygdon in order to inundate the city.

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143, as well, does nothing to further the story, has little if anything to do with the apostle’s current situation, and was probably inserted at this point. The prayer in chapter 142, however, cannot be so easily dismissed. Characterized by an almost consistent pattern of anaphora, the prayer in chapter 14276 is more difficult to classify than the preceding examples. It is the prayer of one who is soon to die, but who is confident to be entering a life of repose. This theme, as well as ideas of being released from care and leaving behind a life of service for freedom, corresponds with the attitudes of the author of the Mygdonia story. The themes of conflict and of servitude, while not peculiar to the apostle, do fit his story. Only the introductory line, in which the speaker mentions having been sold, could be said to be specific to Thomas. This line does not fit the anaphoral pattern and could have been supplied to introduce a prayer that already existed. But this position is not required. We have seen before that the author sometimes waxes poetic in composing prayers for the characters of the story to voice. In the end, it is impossible to be entirely confident in affirming or denying the redactor’s authorship of this prayer. A common organizing principle, short of anaphora proper, of several speeches and prayers is the use of participial phrases to describe the actions of the addressee, usually on behalf of the one praying or the community of believers. In the “Twin of Christ” speech, spoken by the ass in chapter 39, the apostle’s activities are described in this way. Thomas addresses Jesus in similar fashion in chapter 53; in this prayer, the actions are usually contemporary, but sometimes refer to historical events from Jesus’ life. Nothing compels one to view either of these speeches as traditional; both fit their contexts and were probably written by the author/redactor.

76The antithetical lines recall several similar prayers in antiquity, notably the Hymn of Christ in the Acts of John.

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Use of traditional prayer types. An author/redactor who composed prayers using such literary devices as anaphora to capture the reader’s attention might also have copied traditional rhetorical or prayer styles when composing original pieces. The following two speeches, from the first half of the Acts of Thomas, make use of liturgical or literary precedents, but appear to have been written by the author/redactor of the work as a whole. The anti-prayer of the apostle in chapter 44 follows a woman’s description of demon-possession, and is addressed to the demon itself. Each of the ten lines of the prayer begins with the expletive “O,” followed by a disdainful epithet. Because of the nature of the prayer, it is difficult to imagine its independent existence in liturgy, unless it was used in exorcisms. The content fits well in an address to a demon, and responds to the woman’s petition that the demon be driven out of her; after the anti-prayer is spoken, the demon in fact emerges. The prayer may have had an independent existence, but more likely was composed for the occasion by the author or redactor of the tale, perhaps drawing on material from exorcistic rituals. The response of the demon in chapter 45 is couched in repetition as well. Similarly, the aretalogy of the serpent in chapter 32, by its nature, involves repetition as it describes the serpent’s nature and influence. The ejgwv eijmi of the speech recalls the aretalogies of divine figures, such as Isis, singing their own praises. The aretalogy of chapter 32 is remarkably historical in approach, recounting the evils of generations of humans, led astray by the serpent’s wiles. Only in discussing the serpent’s defeat by the Son of God is the aretalogical form dropped. The number and variety of stylized speeches and prayers that seem to come from the pen of the author/redactor manifest the skill of the writer, who wove more complex and intriguing material into a very simply written narrative. The author/redactor relied on traditional material for inspiration, and freely drew from the works of others as well, especially, it appears, from the prayers of the liturgy. It is to the third category, that of preexistent prayers employed in the Acts of Thomas, that we shall now turn. 99

“Pre-existent” prayers and speeches We have seen that the Acts of Thomas enjoys a complex compositional history, in which copyists felt free to insert material, excise material, or alter its placement, as well as to abbreviate and expand. Even in the early stages of composition, the author/redactor wrote lengthy speeches or stylized prayer, and sometimes expanded other prayers. But the author/redactor also seems to have made use of material written by others, apparently altering it somewhat to fit the present context. Despite the perils associated with claiming that material used in the Acts of Thomas enjoyed an independent Sitz im Leben, there are numerous prayers and a few speeches that give evidence of pre-existing the composition that survives. Due to the redactional activity that is apparent in the manuscripts, it is impossible to say at precisely what point the material was incorporated into the work, but, absent any evidence to the contrary, it is safest to assume that the author/redactor made use of earlier material, usually liturgical, inserting prayers where appropriate, either in the original composition of the second half of the work or in the traditional tales in the first half. In some cases, the antiquity of the prayers is evident.77 Many of the prayers that seem to have antedated the Acts of Thomas can be found in liturgical settings in the work. But several are also inserted at opportune times in the apostle’s preaching or in conversations. The following analysis touches on a few of the most significant examples. Chapter 39. In the brief Act 4 of the Acts of Thomas, the apostle has a discussion with a young ass who claims to be a descendant of Balaam’s ass, the evidence for which lies in its verbal abilities. The ass requests that the apostle ride it, and he eventually obliges. Inserted between the request and Thomas’s response, however, is a prayer to Jesus, a prayer

77Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle, insists on the great antiquity of the Hymn of the Pearl, which is, to be sure, in a category of its own in many ways.

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providing vivid titles for and descriptions of Jesus and remarkably similar to the epicleses in its themes. Even a cursory reading of the surrounding narrative makes it clear that the prayer is an interpolation. The ass’s request is not directly addressed until after the prayer, but, more importantly, the narrative following the prayer clarifies that the prayer was not always in its current location. The crowd looks at the apostle, waiting for him to answer, but the narrator indicates that he is silent for an hour, before he asks the ass for an account of its identity. The crowd’s response and the narrative itself claim that the apostle did not respond to the ass, thus ignoring the prayer and its introductory phrase, “Answering, the apostle said.” The content of the prayer itself is out of place; it is a prayer of praise to Jesus, with numerous epithets. Only one phrase gives nod to its current context, “you who now speak through dumb animals,” but even this interrupts the references to rest and quiet in the prayer. Removing everything following e{w" a]n eij" th;n povlin eijsevlqh/" (LipsiusBonnet p. 156, line 23) and preceding the beginning of chapter 40 would provide a much smoother reading. Chapter 80. The “Glory to you” prayer of chapter 80 is appended to a simpler prayer of the apostle, a prayer that emphasizes characteristic concerns of the work, such as heavenly rest (achieved already by Christ). Both the form and content of the “Glory to you” prayer mark it as a work of a different author than the composer of the rest of the act. This author also does not seem to be the redactor of the work as a whole; the prayer must have antedated the redaction of the Acts of Thomas into a unified whole.78 The prayer stands apart from its context most clearly in the anaphoral “Glory ” that characterizes most of the prayer. The prayer begins by addressing epithets to an unnamed addressee (clearly, as evident later in the prayer, the exalted Jesus), then proceeds to identify qualities of the one who is praised. Each quality is then explicated with regard to its

78It is, of course, possible that it was inserted later but such a position cannot be demonstrated conclusively.

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implications for humans. Roughly the second half of the prayer becomes a bit more complicated, tracing the events of Jesus’ life, death, and exaltation, and their importance for believers. Only the last two lines stray from the formal pattern established in the rest of the prayer; they replace the dovxa with su; ei\, and extol the revelatory qualities of the exalted one. The “Glory to you ” prayer stands apart from its context not only because of the use of anaphora (a not uncommon feature in the prayers of the Acts of Thomas) but, even more importantly, because of its content. Although Robert Taft has identified the epiclesis in chapter 50 as a “Logos epiclesis,”79 there is, in fact, no logos theology in the entire Acts of Thomas apart from this prayer in chapter 80; twice the addressee is identified as the “word.” In addition, the rest of the work is unconcerned with kerygmatic claims,80 which are integral to the prayer in chapter 80, but concentrates more on the promises of the heavenly life, a life anticipated in the actions of believers on earth.81 Only here and in the prayer in chapter 158 is there any reference to Jesus’ resurrection. Only here and in the traditional82 prayer of chapter 10 is there any mention of Jesus’ ascent to the heavenly sphere. This prayer contains the only references to the humanity and divinity of Jesus in the entire work, and the only reference to sitting at the right hand (here, the right hand of the addressee) and judging the twelve tribes; here the judgment is given, not to Jesus, but to the believer.

79Robert Taft, “From Logos to Spirit: On the early history of the epiclesis,” in Gratias agamus: Studien zum eucharistischen Hochgebet : für Balthasar Fischer (ed. Andreas Heinz and Heinrich Rennings; Freiburg: Herder, 1992), 489–502. 80The tradition of the descent to Hades, popular in Syriac-speaking Christianity of a later date and probably present in the Odes of Solomon, is mentioned twice; both times, however, the prayers appear to be traditional and do not stem from the pen of the author/redactor. 81This theme is present in the prayer also. 82As we shall see below.

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The “Glory to you” prayer in chapter 80 is an independent composition, then, and one written by someone other than the work’s chief author/redactor. It was employed here because of its reference to “rest” and to the addressee’s nature as “wise,” qualities identified as those of Christ in the prayer which begins the chapter. These catchwords must have provided the redactor with an opportunity to incorporate an independent prayer and to extend the words of the apostle in honor of Jesus. Chapters 47–48. Somewhat similar to those in the prayer in chapter 80 are the repetitions in the prayer in chapters 47 and 48. Much of the prayer is addressed to “Jesus,” followed by epithets or participial phrases describing Jesus’ actions. The prayer is filled with New Testament allusions,83 but the repetition is still striking. At the same time, the address to Jesus does not govern the entire section; there are many lines which depart from the anaphoral repetition, and the petitionary material at the end does not even mention Jesus. The prayer is remarkably silent about the occasion that purportedly gives rise to it: the dismissal of a demon from a woman and its threat to return to her again once the apostle has gone away. Nothing in the prayer mentions providing protection for the woman; it gives only a simple and brief recounting of a victory over evil by Jesus.84 Instead the prayer is centered on Jesus and his actions, whether while on earth or currently, in behalf of humans. The woman’s plight has been forgotten and the closing petition at the end of chapter 48 is

83One phenomenon regarding biblical allusions in the Acts of Thomas in general, as discussed earlier in this chapter, is that they tend to accumulate over time, with successive copying and editing of the work. It is not unlikely that this prayer was originally much shorter and grew through transmission. The Syriac ms. in the British Library, in fact, has several interesting differences from what is found in the Greek; some Greek phrases are clearly accretions (e.g., “God from God” and “God of God,” recalling credal formulae, or the addition of “buried” to the list of things that have happened to Jesus, which may stem from the same milieu), but others may have been excised from the Syriac (e.g., perhaps the “three” secret words imparted to Thomas reminded a copyist of the [apparently unacceptable] tradition found in the Gospel of Thomas 13). Although the differences in the versions show tampering with the text, it is difficult to pinpoint the extent or the occasion of the alterations. 84Jesus is said to be “Right hand of the light who subjects the wicked one with his proper nature.” This might have provided the redactor with the motivation to insert the prayer at this point; the apostle had just indicated that the demon was simply demonstrating its own nature.

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made for a group of people, suggesting that it was originally offered in a community setting. She, however, returns to center stage during the initiation rite that follows. Chapter 34. The use of repetitive words and phrases without their complete dominance is true as well in the speech of the young man who had been killed and raised by the serpent in chapter 34. His words are offered as a description of his former life and his journey to a new life. The speech is ordered by such statements as “I was” or “I found,” and the statements often have a two-fold structure. But this is not a strict organizational principle. This speech was clearly inserted by a later hand; it interrupts the young man’s words concerning another who, with the apostle, appeared to the young man in death. The content does not really fit the young man’s situation; he cannot claim to have destroyed the ruler of darkness. Instead, it reminds one of the similar story so beautifully recounted in the Hymn of the Pearl. These examples represent material that appears to have been taken over by the author/redactor, although perhaps edited extensively before being inserted in the present context. Indeed, the prayer in chapters 47 and 48 has received a fair amount of editorial attention even after its insertion here, as the differing language traditions illustrate. The use of traditional material is evident as well in the prayers of central concern to this study, the Spirit epicleses in chapters 27 and 50. A detailed analysis of evidence for the traditional nature of these prayers is now in order. The epicleses. Sometimes precisely what unites the discrete sections in the early part of the work is the language of the prayers. The epicleses in chaps. 27 and 50 provide probably the most striking example: the prayers clearly echo one another, yet they are placed in narrative settings that have nothing in common with one another, except the fact of initiation. Indeed, they are inserted into the only two initiatory scenes found in the discrete tales of Acts 2–8. The epiclesis in chapter 27 is spoken at the initiation of King Gundaphar and his brother Gad in Act 2; the prayer in chapter 50 occurs in Act 5, after the apostle has left the land of 104

King Gundaphar and has begun to travel. He first encountered (in Act 3) a corpse and the serpent that killed a young man and then, at the command of Thomas, restored him to life, then met (Act 4) a speaking ass that carried him to a city, and finally (Act 5) entered the city and exorcised a demon from a woman. It is at the initiatory Eucharist for this woman and others that the second epiclesis is proclaimed. Although there is some forward movement in the narratives, chiefly in the travel of the apostle, the key ingredients of the tales could be shifted from act to act without any loss of flavor or coherence. The striking similarity that exists between the epicleses could suggest one of two things: they were either composed in the same style by the author, or they preexisted the Acts of Thomas, both stemming from a similar (liturgical) Sitz im Leben. Since the author/redactor demonstrates an interest and ability in writing stylized prayers, as we have seen, the independent nature of the prayers would have to be demonstrated on other grounds. We shall see that the language and themes of the prayers, while not unique to the Acts of Thomas, point to understanding them as independent compositions, at home in Christian liturgy, that have been employed here in the context of initiation. Given the nature of the work and the use of stylized material in liturgical scenes, the employment of formulae introducing traditional material is rare. No claims that “it is said” or “it is written” introduce the prayers in the Acts of Thomas, although most prayers are introduced, not surprisingly, with some claim that the apostle spoke or prayed the following words. Since the prayers are of greater interest in the Greek than in the Syriac, which shows signs of alteration, they will be analyzed primarily with respect to their form in the Greek manuscripts. Comparative material from throughout the Acts of Thomas will be examined in the Greek as well, except in cases when the Syriac sheds greater light on the prayer or statement in question. Although redactional activity occurred in both Greek and Syriac, the prayers in the Acts of Thomas, in general, seem to be better preserved in the Greek; the copyists of the Syriac enjoyed greater editorial freedom or, as is especially likely, were 105

particularly concerned with bringing the Syriac edition of the Acts of Thomas in line with an emerging orthodoxy. Several motifs found in the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50 appear also in prayers elsewhere in the work. Surprisingly, they are often concentrated in a limited number of prayers, each of which seems to have arisen in a similar setting. The themes of hidden mysteries that are revealed, and the mention of a heavenly Mother are concentrated in a few key sections of the work. Even fairly innocent terms, such as compassion or power, terms one would expect to find throughout the work, are often limited to a few noteworthy prayers. The following table illustrates some of the uses of significant terms; the discussion below will comment on these and other themes found in the epicleses.

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TABLE 1 TERMS USED IN EPICLESES

Greek term(s)

In epicleses of chapters 27,

In chapters elsewhere

50a

(this list is not exhaustive)

a{gion o[noma

27 line 1

49, 53, 132, 157

a\qlo" / ajqlhthv"

50 line 4

39, 85

ajnavpausi"

27 line 7B; 50 line 8B

10, 39, 80

ajpokaluvptw

27 line 6; 50 line 5

10, 47

ajpovkrufo"

27 line 6; 50 lines 6A, 7

10, 47, 80, 165

ajpovrrhto"

50 line 6A

10, 132, 133

duvnami"

27 line 2

10, 121, 132 (2x), 133, 157 (5x), 158

ejlqev

27 passim; 50 passim

30, 49, 52, 54, 98

ejpivstamai

50 line 3

10, 80

eujsplagcniva / eu[splagcno" 27 lines 2, 4; 50 line 1

10, 39, 80, 122, 132, 136, 156

/ splavgcnon hJsuciva

50 line 5

39, 85

koinwniva / koinwnov" /

27 lines 5, 8C; 50 lines 2, 4, 9A 49, 61, 121, 132, 139

koinwnevw mhvthr

27 lines 4, 7A; 50 line 7

7, 39, 110, 133

musthvrion

27 line 6; 50 line 3

10, 47, 121, 133, 165

tevleio"

27 line 2; 50 line 1

39, 48

fanerov" / fanerovw

50 lines 6A, 8A

10, 34, 39, 53

carav

50 line 8B

39, 85, 86, 142, 148, 157, 158

a

The line designation employed here is that presented in chapter 1.

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Come (ejlqev). At first glance, the most striking feature of the epicleses is the anaphoral “come” that begins each line (with the exception of the seventh line of the prayer in chapter 50). This accords the prayers a rhythmical style that is often used as a criterion for isolating traditional material.85 Ralph P. Martin suggests that “language which is exalted and liturgical,”86 a description that fits these prayers, indicates an origin in a liturgical setting. A liturgical origin also helps explain their inclusion in narratives of initiation ceremonies. It is especially in the themes and the terminology itself that the prayers stand out from the narrative of the Acts of Thomas. A detailed examination of the terminology in the epicleses and a comparison with the language in the rest of the Acts of Thomas will demonstrate this. Since the anaphoral “come” establishes the form of the prayers in addition to forming part of the content of the prayers, I examine it here, before turning to the descriptions of the addressee and other terminology in the prayers. The use of “come” is not unusual in prayers in the Acts of Thomas, and continued to be used in liturgical settings of later eras in the Syriac-speaking churches.87 It is employed frequently in the Acts of Thomas, in prayers both liturgical and non-liturgical. 85See, for example, the list of criteria proposed by Ralph P. Martin for analysing hymnic material in the New Testament: Carmen Christi: Philippians ii. 5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (SNTSMS 4; London: Cambridge University Press, 1967; Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 18–19. Scholars have generally pursued the isolation of traditional material from Christian texts with an eye toward identifying hymns, although Joseph Kroll attempted to distinguish hymns from other prayers (Die christliche Hymnodik bis zu Klemens von Alexandreia [2. Aufl.; Darmstadt: Wissenchaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968]). 86Martin, Carmen Christi, 19; Martin is discussing the use of hymns, however, not prayers in general. 87See Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines,” in which the author demonstrates that all short baptismal prayers are addressed to Christ (p. 196), and the use of the third-person imperative “come” (in contrast to “send”) is the only form found in the East Syrian epicleses. He argues that the earliest baptismal epiclesis was addressed to Christ to “come” (probably, he suggests, developing from maran atha), then to Christ that the Spirit might come, then to the Father that the Spirit might come. Although Brock treats the Acts of Thomas, he ignores the Greek forms of prayers from that work, and almost completely disregards the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 (in one place noting the opening line of the epiclesis in chapter 27 and declaring that the prayer asks Christ to come, failing to account for the final line which is addressed to the Holy Spirit [Greek] or Spirit of holiness [Syriac]). Against this view and that of Taft, “From Logos to Spirit,” I maintain that the earliest epicleses—at least in one form—were addressed directly to the Spirit, as evident from the Acts of Thomas. Whether or not the original Sitz im Leben of the prayer in chapter 27 was initiatory, it, together with that in chapter 50 (over the bread of the Eucharist), is the earliest initiatory epiclesis in existence. It makes use of an imperative addressed to the Spirit.

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Apart from the epicleses, the imperative is used six times in prayers, most often in the singular, but once in the plural. Since the apostle is most often the figure involved in prayer in the Acts of Thomas, most appeals to “come” are on his lips, although others (the youth who killed the woman, Mygdonia) employ it as well. E j lqev is addressed not only to Jesus or the “Lord” (chapters 30, 49, 54, 98), but also to the “salvific power” (chapter 52). This last example occurs in a prayer that includes as well the only example of the second-person plural imperative of e[rcomai used in prayer.88 The occasion is the healing of the withered hands of the young man who killed a woman (Act 6); the apostle orders that a basin of waters be brought and proclaims this epiclesis (chapter 52) over the waters. It is the best example of an “exemplar epiclesis”89 in the Acts of Thomas, that is, an epiclesis addressed not to a divine figure per se, but to a heavenly reality that is to dwell in and transform its physical counterpart. The apostle appeals to “waters from the living waters” to come, as well as “salvific power that comes from power” to come and dwell in the waters. In her study of the Gospel according to Philip, Martha Turner90 contends that the address to heavenly exemplars is more primitive than an address to Jesus. The alteration suffered by the Syriac version of the prayer, in which Jesus is awkwardly made the recipient of the prayer, supports this. The use of the third-person imperative is found in the remaining six examples of the use of e[rcomai in prayer. E j lqavtw appears in the Lord’s Prayer in chapter 144 and in a eucharistic prayer in chapter 133. Two prayers have been loosely joined together to form the prayer over the bread in chapter 133; the first addresses the bread directly (but with an awkward address to Jesus appended in one instance), while the second, in which e[rcomai is

88In fact, e[lqete is used only two other times in the entire work, once to a group of listeners and once to some asses. 89The term is coined by Martha L. Turner, The Gospel according to Philip: The Sources and Coherence of an early Christian Collection (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 38; Leiden: Brill, 1996) in her discussion of “sacramental exemplarism” in the Acts of Thomas, 208–12. 90The Gospel according to Philip, 209.

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used, asks that the power of the blessing might come and that the bread might be established. The verb ejnidruvw, used here, or iJdruvw, is found only in the Hymn of the Bride, the Hymn of the Pearl, and in the liturgical settings here and in chapters 121 and 157. It is, then, used only in poetic material inserted into the work91 or in later initiation accounts recorded for the first time by the author/redactor. Indeed, it appears to be a term in use in liturgical settings known to this author, for it has been inserted into the prayers in which it appears. This is clear from the prayer in chapter 121, in which a traditional prayer addressed to the oil (another example of “exemplary epiclesis”) is made into an epiclesis over Mygdonia. But the Syriac of the prayer remains an epiclesis over the oil, although the addressee changes from the oil to Jesus. Turner suggests that the prayer originally addressed the heavenly oil, which was asked to come dwell in the oil being used in initiation,92 thus corresponding to the “waters from the living waters” prayer of chapter 52. The argument is supported by the fact that a similar phenomenon can be observed in chapter 157, in which a prayer over the oil and addressed to the “fruit” is followed by a prayer to Jesus. The form of this second prayer,93 which employs the verb ejnidruvw, is less traditional than the first, addressed, as it is, not to the heavenly exemplar but to Jesus and appealing only indirectly to the “power” to come and, later (using the same third-person imperative of e[rcomai), to the “gift.” The second of the two eucharistic prayers in chapter 133 is, likewise, supplied by the author/redactor and appended to a traditional liturgical formula. The epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 provide two of only five occasions for which e[rcomai is used in a liturgical setting; the three other occasions, as we have seen, make use

91The use of the verb in the hymns is quite unlike that in the liturgical materials. In the hymns, it does not bear the importance that it has in the initiatory prayers, where its common use would suggest that it derives from the same author. Twice (chaps. 121 and 157) it refers to the “power” (and also indirectly in chap. 133) and once (chap. 133) sanctifies the bread. Always in these prayers it is associated with an appeal to “come.” 92Turner, The Gospel according to Philip, 211. 93Some of the content of this prayer seems to be traditional, although the form of address is not.

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of the third-person imperative, suggesting that they are of lesser antiquity than the prayers which are of greatest interest to this study. The repeated use of ejlqev in these prayers is unmistakable and unique; it is a prayer for a heavenly figure not only to be present, but to join in a liturgical action. Although, if the theory of “sacramental exemplarism” is correct, many of the prayers found here may have originally been addressed to a heavenly reality and an appeal made to join in the present rite, examples of this phenomenon remain only in the “waters from the living waters” prayer of chapter 52, a prayer that is not offered in a sacramental context in the Acts of Thomas.94 But here in the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50, direct appeal is made to a heavenly figure to be present, an appeal that is paralleled only in chapter 49, just prior to the beginning of the second epiclesis. The eucharistic prayer of chapter 49 is addressed to Jesus, who is invited to “come” and to commune with those present. It is likely that this appeal suggested to the redactor to insert the similar-sounding epiclesis at this point. Each of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas features the anaphoral “come” nine times. This correspondence between the two prayers suggests that it was a fixed feature of such adjurations.95 Redactional activity or simple error in transmission (probably before incorporation into this work) is evident in both prayers; the five-fold list in line eight of chapter 27 interrupts that line’s appeals, while the seventh line of chapter 50, beginning with “sacred dove,” throws off the anaphoral pattern of the epiclesis. The seventh line of chapter 50 has probably been displaced from its proper location as part of the next line (after

94The prayer over the waters in chapter 52 was, however, probably a baptismal prayer in its original Sitz im Leben. It is intriguing that it is not placed in such a context in the Acts of Thomas, although water baptism is found in three of the five liturgical scenes. 95Although I have not found a comparable number of repetitions in another ancient prayer text, the appeal to “come” is a notable feature of magical papyri, where the alternate form “I adjure you” is especially common. See, e.g., the love spell, PGM IV.1496–1595, in The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, including the Demotic Spells (ed. Hans Dieter Betz; 2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1.67. The verb ejlqev, often employed in cultic settings to invoke the presence of the divine, is not an uncommon appeal in the Orphic Hymns; see, for example, the Hymn to Asklepios, number 67 in Apostolos N. Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns (SBLTT 12; Graeco-Roman Religion Series 4; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977). The standard edition of the hymns is W. Quandt, Orphei Hymni (Berlin: Weidmann Verlag, 1955). For fuller discussion of these texts, see the chapter on prayer below.

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“Mother”).96 In both prayers, the eighth and ninth lines are lengthier than the earlier lines, appearing to be a stylistic feature of the prayers themselves, perhaps added prior to their insertion into this work. Holy name (to; a{gion o[noma). The address to the “holy name” of Christ in chapter 27 parallels that found in three other places in the Acts of Thomas. One is in the pre-epiclesis prayer of chapter 49, and another in a prayer over the oil of chapter 157. Only in chapter 53 is it used in a non-liturgical setting; the apostle is praying to Jesus to raise a dead woman. Although the limited number of times in which this common phrase is found, and its concentration in liturgical settings, suggests a possible common origin of the various prayers, the use in chapter 27 is actually unique. Only here is the “name” personified and addressed directly; all the others are embedded in prayers directed to Jesus. Similarly, a direct appeal to the “name of Christ” is found only in chapter 27 and in the “Glory to you” prayer of chapter 132. That prayer shares a number of motifs with the epicleses, as will be explored below. The name of Christ is elsewhere mentioned,97 but never directly addressed as it is in these two prayers. Revealer of hidden mysteries (hJ ta; musthvria ajpokaluvptousa ta; ajpovkrufa; hJ ta; ajpovkrufa ejkfaivnousa kai; ta; ajpovrrhta fanera; kaqistw'sa). Although mention of the “mysteries” is not uncommon in the Acts of Thomas, the theme of “hidden” or “secret” mysteries is limited to several prayers spoken by the apostle, often in the context of initiation. When Thomas prays over the bridal couple in Act 1, he proclaims that “you, Lord, are the one who reveals hidden mysteries and discloses secret words.” The identical

96See my discussion of this line in chapter 1. 97Apart from the prayers of chapters 27 and 132, the “name of Christ” is mentioned three times. Chapter 41 may include redactional material to explain why the apostle allowed the ass to die and did not raise him, while chapter 163 discusses the “true name” of Jesus. In chapter 157, however, the “name of Christ” is found again in a prayer spoken during an anointing, a prayer addressed to Jesus and identifying the

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terms are used in the prayers of chapter 27 (“revealer of hidden mysteries”) and chapter 50 (“one who discloses what is secret and renders visible what is hidden”). Similarly, the apostle, on his way to his martyrdom (chapter 165) exclaims concerning the “hidden mysteries.” Animals identify him as the herald of a hidden message (chapter 39, in the “Twin of Christ” speech of the ass, and chapter 78, again in an ass’s speech). In addition, chapter 50 employs ajpovkrufo" to describe the addressee, the “hidden Mother.” In similar fashion, the apostle proclaims that “You are the hidden light of reason” in the “Glory to you” prayer of chapter 80. That which is hidden is, of course, revealed. We have seen that the prayer in chapter 10, like the epiclesis in chapter 27, is addressed to one who reveals hidden mysteries; the same combination of terms is found in the prayer in chapter 47, which brings together ajpokaluvptw, ajpovkrufo", and musthvrion. The only other instance in which these three terms are found in close proximity is in the epiclesis in chapter 50, in which all are employed, although not in a single line. The same theme, with different language (the rare krufimai`o" for ajpovkrufo" and deivknumi instead of ajpokaluvptw) can be seen in the prayer over the oil in chapter 121. A common alternative to ajpokaluvptw, ejkfaivnw, occurs in chapter 50 line 6 and in several other instances in the work. In prayers, it appears only in the epiclesis, in the prayer of the apostle over the bridal couple in chapter 10, and in the “Jesus” prayer of chapter 47. It is found also in the ass’s speech in chapter 78, in which the ass indicates that Thomas’s Lord wants to reveal tav ajpovrrhta.98 The far more common faivnw appears in several prayers, in narrative, and in the Hymn of the Pearl. The mystery is “ineffable” (ajpovrrhto") in the eucharistic prayer of chapter 133. This term is employed as well of the addressee in the prayer in praise of baptism in chapter

anointing, in this instance, as a “remission of sins” (in chapter 132, that role is assigned to baptism, in chapters 50 and 133 to the bread of the Eucharist). 98The ass’s vocabulary corresponds in other ways with the language of the epicleses: Thomas is the apostle of Christ uJyivstou, who is twice said to perform megalei'a through the apostle. Thomas is also said to “understand” true healing.

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132, in which the ineffable one is said to share in baptism (in ms. U; P has “your ineffable power”99). In the apostle’s prayer over the bridal couple of chapter 10, as well as in the speech of the ass in chapter 78, it is the words that are hidden, revealed only by the will of the Lord. The epiclesis in chapter 50 does not specify what is ineffable, but the feminine addressee is the one who reveals such things. Hidden, ineffable things (or the hidden, ineffable one) are manifest (fanerav) by the feminine figure in chapter 50. She herself is made manifest in her own works. The same idea is found in the prayer of the apostle in chapter 10, in which the “Lord” is said to be present in all things and “manifest through the activity of all things.” The verb fanerovw (chapter 50 employs the term fanerov") is used also of the one who reveals beautiful things, found by the resuscitated young man in chapter 34, and in the speech of the apostle over the dead woman in chapter 53, in which he says that Jesus is always becoming manifest. More importantly, the apostle’s prayer of chapter 39 contains the same thought as that found in the prayers of chapters 10 and 50; through action, one who is hidden is revealed. Compassionate mother (hJ mhvthr hJ eu[splagcno"). One of the most intriguing aspects of the epicleses is the inclusion of the term “Mother” to designate the recipient of the prayers.100 “Mother” appears in both chapters 27 and 50, twice in chapter 27. It appears in

99Almost the entire prayer (but, in this section, only the prayer) differs extensively in P and U. The prayer in both mss. is problematic and differs somewhat from the Syriac. The Syriac mss. are, however, also corrupt in this section. London has the fullest prayer: “Glory to you, hidden power,” repeated twice, the second time continuing, “that communicates with us in baptism.” Sinai contains several copying errors here, misspelling “Glory” as “Forgiveness” and dropping off after “hidden power,” only to pick up later in the next prayer where the same words occur. The Berlin ms. lacks the shorter of the two lines, as well as other lines of the prayer; intriguingly, it reads not “hidden power” but “hidden mystery,” thus agreeing with the eucharistic prayer of chapter 133. The Syriac tradition, then, seems to support P’s reading of “ineffable power” but also U’s additional phrase, “who shares in baptism.” The doubled line in the London ms. is probably a copyist’s error. Such variety in manuscript evidence suggests that the prayer was corrupted at an early date, and varying attempts were made to correct it. 100All references to “Mother” have been removed from the Syriac, except that in the Hymn of the Pearl, in which it is descriptive of a character, not designated the recipient of a prayer.

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several other places in the Acts of Thomas, including the Hymn of the Bride in chapter 7.101 The coupling of “Mother” with “Father,” seen in the Hymn of the Bride, is found as well in chapter 39, where, however, a stray kaiv following “Spirit” suggests three addressees rather than two.102 Like the epicleses, the prayer over the bread in chapter 133 makes no mention of “Father”; instead it directly addresses the bread. The “name of the Mother” (and, later, that of Jesus103) is pronounced over the bread in an apparently early form of eucharistic consecration. Not only is the “Mother” compassionate in chapter 27, but an appeal is made to the “power of the Most High and perfect compassion.” Compassion is, as one might expect, a quality valued by the apostle and said to be a quality either of Jesus (as in chapter 88) or desirable for humans to possess (chapter 20 and 29) or receive (chapter 87). But as a title to designate the divine, it is limited to some significant prayers: that of the apostle over the bridal couple in chapter 10 (“Jesus Christ, son of compassion [eujsplagcniva]”), and the prayer of Thomas at the prison gates in chapter 122, in which the heavenly exemplar has sent one who reflects the heavenly reality (“Who is merciful like you?” and “Glory to the merciful one [eu[splagcno"] sent from Mercy [splavgcnon]”). It is found also in the prison speech of the apostle just prior to his martyrdom, in chapter 160 (“I accept ... that I might receive ... the merciful one” [eu[splagcno"]). In two prayers strikingly similar in many ways to the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50, the apostle addresses Jesus and praises

101Interestingly, the Hymn of the Bride, like the prayer in chapter 27, contains astral symbolism. In the epiclesis, this occurs when referring to the “Mother” (in line 7A). The astral symbolism in the Hymn of the Bride is not found in conjunction with the term “Mother,” however. The “mother” in the Hymn of the Pearl is a relatively minor figure and never adjured. 102Most likely the reference to the neuter Spirit, throwing off as it does the balance between masculine and feminine, was added at some point, perhaps to clarify the identity of the “Mother,” although the kaiv obscures that identity. 103With its change of address and unexpected mention of Jesus, this line in chapter 133 was probably inserted later.

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his compassion: “O Jesus Christ, you who are spiritual and full of perfect compassion” (chapter 39); and “Glory to your compassion, brought forth for us” (chapter 80). The prayer of chapter 50 addresses the “perfect compassion,” using the plural of to; splavgcnon. This plural usage is found elsewhere in several prayers also. The groom in chapter 15 is grateful that mercy was not withheld from him while he was perishing. Jesus is the “voice arisen from perfect compassion” in the Jesus prayer of chapters 47–48, and the “son of compassion” in the long prayer of chapter 156. In a manner similar to that in chapter 50, glory is given to the “love of compassion” (or “the compassionate one,” corresponding to “son of compassion”) in chapter 132. We have already seen that “Mercy” in chapter 122 is the heavenly counterpart to the merciful one on earth. Compassion is “perfect” in chapters 27 and 50, as also in chapter 48; Jesus is full of perfect compassion in the prayer in chapter 39.104 The agreement between the themes and terms in these prayers is unmistakable. It is not insignificant that, when the same theme is found in prayers and speeches that certainly come from the author of the Mygdonia story, a different word is used. In the prayer to stem the floodwaters in chapter 141, Thomas prays, “Oh you who have mercy [ejleevw] on my soul”; while instructing the women in prison (chapter 159), he speaks of the “Lord Jesus who has had mercy [ejleevw] on me.” The use of to; splavgcnon and similar terms, several times coupled with tevleio", seems to be a mark of traditional material found in prayers and speeches taken over by the author/redactor. Rest, quiet, joy (ajnavpausi"; hJsuciva; carav). The theme of rest is found repeatedly in the Acts of Thomas, in both the early material and in the unified Mygdonia story. Rest is associated with the life of faith and with the heavenly promises throughout the early history

104In the apostle’s prayer in chapter 10, Jesus is “son of compassion and perfect savior.”

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of the Syriac-speaking Christian churches.105 Often, references to rest are accompanied by mention of silence or joy as well. In chapter 27, it is the “Mother” who will have rest; rest is that which is afforded those who cling to the spirit in chapter 50. More standard language is used in other prayers of interest (God is “refuge and rest of the afflicted” in chapter 10; through Jesus’ resurrection come “resurrection and rest” for humans in chapter 80). Interestingly, the prayer in chapter 39 addresses ajnavpausi" in a manner we have seen before employed for the “Mother”; it is ajpovkrufo", and is made manifest (fanerovw) through action. The link between joy and rest is seen in many places in the Acts of Thomas (e.g., in chapters 35, 85, 86, as well as in chapter 50). Joy is a theme throughout the first act, whether associated with the wedding itself, found in the Hymn of the Bride (three times), or linked with the bride’s renunciation of sex (twice, in chapter 14). It is a quality imparted by the Eucharist (chapter 158), and an attitude of prayer (chapter 25). Most significant, it is employed in prayers of the apostle four times. In a prayer characterized by an anaphoral “behold” in chapter 142, Judas speaks of leaving behind grief and putting on joy (the next line also celebrates “repose” although the term is a[nesi" rather than ajnavpausi"). At the end of the apostle’s long prayer in prison (chapter 148), he hopes, after his death, to pass by the powers in “peace and joy.” The important prayer over the oil in chapter 157 is addressed to the “fruit” as “symbol and joy of those who are weary.” Even more significant, the apostle’s prayer in chapter 39, which contains also the most interesting reference to “repose,” speaks of the “glorious one who furnishes joy to his own.” There are, as well, three times in the Acts of Thomas in which a feminine entity is said to provide joy. In addition to the feminine addressee of chapter 50, chastity (in chapter 85, in ms. U) gives “life, rest [ajnavpausi"], and joy to all who acquire it.” As the long

105And elsewhere. See the recent monograph by Judith Hoch Wray, Rest as a Theological Metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Truth: Early Christian Homiletics of Rest (SBLDS 166; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998).

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speech continues, the apostle speaks of meekness (hJ pra/ot v h") as “peace [here, eijrhvnh] and joy and the enjoyment of rest [ajnavpausi"].” Only the epiclesis is actually directed to the feminine figure, while neither chastity nor meekness is personified. But these qualities provide much the same results as the manifestation of the divine figure in chapter 50. Quiet (or peacefulness or respite), unlike “rest” or “joy,” is one of the epithets employed in the epiclesis in chapter 50. It is that which “reveals the magnitudes of every greatness.” Both noun and verb are employed several times throughout the work, but usually in a general sense referring to cessation of speech. The sense of “peacefulness” is found in the long speech on chastity and meekness in chapters 85 and 86, although not directly joined with joy or repose. But the only other use of hJsuciva as a personified entity is in the prayer of chapter 39, where it, as in chapter 50, is invoked: “Oh respite and quiet, you who now speak through dumb animals.” The proclamation of a paradoxical reversal is especially striking, and follows through in the next line, in which “rest” takes action. This prayer, as we have seen, employs many of the same terms as are found in the epicleses of interest to this study. Athlete (ajqlhthv"). The similarities between the prayer of chapter 39 and the epicleses continue, with the use of ajqlhthv". Jesus is the “true and unconquered athlete” in chapter 39; the Spirit is the one who “shares in the contests of the noble athlete” in chapter 50. That Jesus is in mind here is likely, and it is important to note the distinction between the feminine figure addressed in chapter 50 and this “noble athlete.” The term ajqlhthv" is found in only one other place in the Acts of Thomas, in the long speech of chapters 85 and 86, in which chastity, imbued elsewhere, as we have seen, with qualities imparted by the Spirit, is an unconquered athlete. Communion (koinwniva; koinwnevw). A sharing with the divine, especially in a ritual context, is not a surprising concept to find in liturgical prayers. Indeed koinwniva or a related term is found twice in the epiclesis in chapter 27 and three times in the prayer of chapter 50. What 118

is surprising is that the terms are not found more frequently in ritual contexts in the Acts of Thomas; one is far more likely to find them in a concrete sense, in references to sexual activity or its renunciation. Approximately half of the references to koinwniva, koinwnov", or koinwnevw refer either to intercourse (often identified as “filthy”) or its antithesis, the “true” intercourse with Jesus. Of the remaining references, over half are to “sharing” in some enterprise or some good, such as sharing in eternal life (chapter 120) or the heavenly kingdom (chapter 24, in mss. GH). One can also have communion with God (chapter 139) or, more likely, with the Holy Spirit (chapters 132, in ms. P, and 139). The most interesting uses, however, of “communion” or “sharing” occur in the prayers accompanying liturgical action or in descriptions of rites. The more opaque references are concentrated in the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50, although more typical sacramental terms surround the prayers. Four times the apostle prays that his listeners might share in the Eucharist or the narrative indicates that such is the case: after the sealing of chapter 26 and again in chapter 27 (when the eucharistic bread is actually distributed), in a prayer to Jesus in chapter 49 just prior to the epiclesis, and in the last full line of the epiclesis itself. “Sharing” in the Eucharist appears to be a technical designation for participating in the rite and joining in consumption of the bread; an alternative reference to becoming a “sharer in the body of Christ” occurs in the narrative of chapter 121. Sharing in baptism is a clear theme in only one place in the Acts of Thomas. Chapter 132 contains a prayer lauding baptism as involving a “share in the remission of sins” and the “ineffable one” is said to share in baptism. The apostle prays (in ms. P) to one who makes humans “sharers in your communion”; the baptismal theme of the prayer suggests that “communion” here refers to initiation into the faith although a more general fellowship with Christ could be in view. The imperative, always directed toward the divine, is found only three times in the work; all are in or near the epicleses under consideration. Line 8C of the epiclesis in chapter 27 appeals to the recipient of the prayer to “commune with these youths” through the 119

anointing that gives rise to the prayer. The address in the following line to the Holy Spirit and the request to “seal them” suggests that the prayer was always used in Christian settings in an initiatory context and addressed to the Spirit. (The conclusion of line 9, however, with the trinitarian formula and the resulting repetition of “Holy Spirit” appears to be late. Perhaps the line originally ended with a phrase such as “seal them in your holy name,” somewhat similar to the conclusion of the prayer in chapter 50.) In the context of an initiatory Eucharist (chapters 49 and 50), Jesus is asked to “come and partake with us”; the feminine addressee of the epiclesis proper is requested to come and share in the Eucharist. There are numerous examples of invocation that invite a deity to be present in ritual, including a ritual meal.106 It is especially appropriate to invite Jesus to be present at the Eucharist, and the first appeal must have suggested to the redactor to insert the epiclesis at this point. The epiclesis might always have been eucharistic but its similarity to that in chapter 27 and the absence of any eucharistic language until line 9A, and even then only in the term “Eucharist,” suggests that it might have had an origin in another context. Perhaps it too was originally offered in the context of an anointing; if the addressee is, as I contend, the Spirit, then an association with the oil of anointing is to be expected. The Jesus epiclesis in chapter 49 fits better the context of Eucharist.107 The most confusing use of “communion” language in the Acts of Thomas can be found in two places in the epicleses: in the statement that the addressee shares in the “contests of the noble athlete” (discussed above), and in the opaque phrase which appears

106The Orphic Hymns provide some examples: Hymn 8, to Protogonos: “Come gladly to the celebrants of this holy and elaborate rite”; Hymn 11, to Pan: “Come to these sacred libations”; Hymn 49, To Hipta: “I call upon Hipta, nurse of Bacchos, maiden possessed. In mystic rites she takes part ... Come to these rites.” Translations from Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns. Especially clear is an example from the magical papyri (Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, PGM IV.2543–45 [p. 84]): “Come here to me, goddess of night, beast-slayer / Come and be at my love spell of attraction / Quiet and frightful, and having your meal / Amid the graves.” 107Of course, it is possible that neither epiclesis was originally initiatory, but the appeal to the Spirit, with whom the oil is always associated (see Brock, “The Syrian Baptismal Ordines,” 181) in Syriacspeaking Christianity, makes it likely that an anointing was always in view, at least for the epiclesis in chapter 27.

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in both epicleses, “come, fellowship of the male.” This phrase is as intriguing as it is confusing and probably has something to do with belief in a heavenly union of the individual with a heavenly counterpart, thus restoring an original (often androgynous) state of harmony. It will be explored further in chapter 6 below. The sacramental uses of “communion” language, then, fall primarily in three areas of the Acts of Thomas: the epicleses under consideration and the narrative surrounding them, in eucharistic contexts, and in chapter 132 on baptism. The eucharistic passages are actually identical with the passages containing the epicleses, with the addition of the narrative of chapter 121, in which Thomas is said to make Mygdonia a “sharer in the body of Christ and in the cup of the Son of God.” The uniqueness of this language, even in eucharistic contexts, supports the suggestion that the epicleses, as well as the prayer in chapter 132, existed independently prior to their inclusion in the ritual scenes of the Acts of Thomas. Power (duvnami"). The second line of the prayer in chapter 27 is addressed to the “power of the Most High.” References to the “power of the Lord” or, less frequently, the “power of the enemy” are not uncommon in the Acts of Thomas. But there is another way in which “power” is employed; as in chapter 27, it is often addressed in prayer or is identified with the addressee of a prayer. These appeals to the “power” are distinct from claims of empowerment and are found in prayers that often form the core of liturgical celebrations. The only prayer using “power” in this way that is not in a liturgical context is the prayer of the apostle in chapter 10. The apostle appeals to “Jesus Christ … the undaunted power [that has overthrown the enemy].”108 In descriptions of initiation, the appeal to the “power” is frequent. A third-person imperative requests that the power might come in the

108The phrase in brackets is not found in the Syriac and was probably added to the Greek of this prayer. The phrase brings the epithet in line with those that follow (voice, ambassador) by providing a description of activity, but the mention of the undaunted power bears a force of its own.

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prayer over the oil in chapter 121; in the prayer over the Eucharist in chapter 158, the apostle speaks of the “unconquerable power” in which the believer is shrouded. Direct address is provided in two separate prayers in chapter 132, one regarding baptism (“Glory to you, the invisible power of baptism”), the other during the anointing (“Glory to you, power founded upon Christ”). The second of these initiatory scenes concludes with a eucharistic celebration and the apostle prays over the bread, “May the power of blessing come.” “Power” has been used, then, to describe the Eucharist, baptism, and anointing; the authority of God is understood to express itself in a variety of ritual actions. It is embodied in the person of Jesus, but energizes all who call on him, as frequent allusions throughout the work make clear. But the prayer which is most completely consumed with the concept of power is that over the oil in chapter 157. The prayer is addressed to the “fruit,” but address is also made to the “power of the wood,” by which people are able to defeat their adversaries. The fruit and wood of the olive are in view here, although there may also be an allusion, not infrequent in later Syrian writers, to the tree of life in paradise, in Aphrahat an olive tree that bears fruit in the incarnation.109 Christ the Olive is the source of light, of healing, and, of course, of anointing. The tree, then, that produces the oil of anointing, is particularly potent; although it appears weak, it has an “abundance of power” that bears the “power that contemplates all things.” The epiclesis is followed by a prayer to Jesus110 that asks that his “victorious power” be present in the oil, as it was in the wood of the cross. In this brief section are found five occurrences of duvnami", all associated with the oil, although the originator of the power is Jesus. It is probably not coincidence that an appeal to “power” is found also in an epiclesis over the oil in chapter 27.

109Dem. 23. See discussion in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 115. 110The section is corrupt. It seems likely that, in fact, the reference to Jesus is late, although a change in address is clear. The Syriac, which differs considerably in the prayer to the fruit, agrees with the Greek here. In the Syriac, there is actually only one prayer, and the confusion in the Greek may indicate that such was originally the case there as well.

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Understand (ejpivstamai). Oddly, even such a common term as ejpivstamai is used differently in prayer language than elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas. Several characters speak about their knowledge or lack of it, but in only three places is reference made to the understanding of a deified figure. In the prayer in chapter 10, the apostle says that “you [“my Lord and my God”] understand what things are to be,” just as the feminine figure in chapter 50 understands “the mysteries of the chosen one.” The prayer in chapter 80 includes an introductory statement to “Christ,” who understands “the workings of the mind.” This knowledge is not in the purview of humans; it is far from the craft known by Thomas (chapter 17) or even the “true … healing” he is said by the ass to understand. The understanding displayed in the prayers is of a supernatural nature, or is beyond human ability to comprehend. Conclusion concerning the epicleses. This brief survey has highlighted a number of terms and phrases employed in the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50. Thus far we have discussed terms that are not uncommon in the Acts of Thomas, but have found a surprising concentration of these terms, or of particular meanings or uses of the terms, in a few prayers within the work. Although some are clearly of more significance than others, the coincidence of large numbers of terms and themes is striking. A brief recapitulation in the form of a chart will serve to illustrate this more clearly:

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TABLE 2 PRAYERS AND TERMS

Prayer or speech

Greek terms or phrases

Appearance of the terms in epicleses in chapters 27, 50

Prayer over bridal couple (chap. 10)

ajnavpausi";

27 line 7B; 50 line 8B

ejpivstamai;

50 line 3

tevleio";

27 line 2; 50 line 1

oJ ajpokaluvptwn musthvria

27 line 6; 50 line 6A

ajpovkrufa kai; ejkfaivnwn

(also 50 lines 3, 5, 7)

lovgou" ajporrhvtou" o[nta"; eujsplagcniva;

27 lines 2, 4; 50 line 1

duvnami";

27 line 2

uJpe;r tw`n newtevrwn

27 line 8C

touvtwn Prayer following speech of ass noere; th'" eujsplagcniva" (chap. 39)

27 line 2 (also 4); 50 line 1

th'" teleiva"; hJsuciva;

50 line 5

ajnavpausi";

27 line 7B; 50 line 8B

ajqlhthv";a

50 line 4

carav;

50 line 8B

mhvthr

27 lines 4, 7A; 50 line 1

a One of the claims made about Jesus in this prayer is that he participates in “contests” on behalf of humans; the term is ajgwvn rather than a\qlo", but the corresponding athletic imagery in each prayer is unmistakable.

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TABLE 2 (continued) Prayer or speech

Greek terms or phrases

Appearance of the terms in epicleses in chapters 27, 50

“Jesus” prayer (chaps.

jIhsou' to; musthvrion to;

27 line 6 (also 50 lines 3, 5, 6A,

47–48)

ajpovkrufon o} hJmi'n

7)

ajpekaluvfqh;b oJ ejkfavna" hJmi'n musthvria;

27 line 6; 50 lines 3, 6

jIhsou' u{yiste … tw'n

27 line 2 (also lines 1, 4); 50

splavgcnwn tw'n teleivwn

line 1

“Glory to you” prayer (chap.

ajnapauvw (in introductory

27 line 7B; 50 line 8B

80)

prayer)c and ajnavpausi"; ejpivstamai (in introductory

50 line 3

prayer); eujsplagcniva;d

27 lines 2, 4; 50 line 1

ajpovkrufo"

27 line 6; 50 lines 6A, 7

“Holy chastity” and

hJsuciva;e

50 line 5

“meekness” speech (chaps.

ajqlhthv";f

50 line 4

83–86, in ms. U [and in

ajnavpausi";g

27 line 7B; 50 line 8B

Syriac])

caravh

50 line 8B

b

Note that here Jesus is the hidden mystery that is revealed, while in chapter 27 the Spirit is the revealer of the hidden mystery. c Here achieved by Jesus. Note the epithet also in the first line of the “Glory to you” prayer proper; although the term is different, the idea of rest is consistent. Jesus’ resurrection brings rest for humans. d

Also ejlehvmwn and e[leo", in the first and third lines of the “Glory to you” prayer. Note also that “your majesty” is lauded here, while in chapter 50, the addressee is the revealer of majestic things. e

Twice in chapter 85; note also the strong emphasis on eijrhvnh, used of both chastity and meekness.

f

Chastity (chap. 85) also requires figurative participation in athletic competition.

g

Used of both chastity (chap. 85) and meekness (chap. 86).

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TABLE 2 (continued) Prayer or speech

Greek terms or phrases

Appearance of the terms in epicleses in chapters 27, 50

“Holy oil” epiclesis (chap.

musthvrion krufimai'on;i

27 line 6; 50 line 3

121)

ejlqevtw hJ duvnamiv" sou;

27 line 2, and the imperative ejlqev throughout

Baptism and “Glory to you”

koinwnov";k

prayers (chap. 132)j

(see related terms in 27 lines 5, 8C; 50 lines 2, 4, 9A)

Dovxa th/' ajporrhvtw/ sou

27 line 2; 50 line 6A

dunavmei;l

h

ajovrato" duvnami";m

27 line 2

splavgcnon;

27 lines 2, 4; 50 line 1

to; tou' Cristou' o[noma

27 line 1

Like ajnavpausi", used of both chastity (chap. 85) and meekness (chap. 86).

i Also “you are the one who discloses covered parts”; the theme of revelation of that which is hidden is constant, although the Greek differs. See also the similar “you are the one who reveals hidden treasures.” j

The similarities between the epicleses and the prayers in chapter 132 start only after the first prayer begins its “Glory to you” antiphon (in ms. U). Although the two “Glory to you” prayers in this chapter might originally have been one, they are here quite distinct in that the first places a strong emphasis on baptism. It is not unlikely that the lines of the first prayer were originally shorter, as in the second prayer, and thus lacking any mention of baptism. P differs, but retains (here, after an intervening “And he said” before beginning the “Glory to you” prayer) a reference to baptism. k The manuscripts P and U have significant differences in this section. U employs koinwnov" once and the verb once; P mentions koinwnov" twice and koinwniva once. The two mss. are essentially in agreement in the second “Glory to you” prayer. l

The reading of P; U has ajporrhvto" only.

m The reading of U. But see the note immediately above. The term duvnami" alone appears in both P and U in the second of the two “Glory to you” prayers, a prayer that bears remarkable resemblance to the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50.

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TABLE 2 (continued) Prayer or speech

Greek terms or phrases

Appearance of the terms in epicleses in chapters 27, 50

“Oh fruit” prayer over oil

duvnami";o

27 line 2

(chap. 157)n

carav;

50 line 8B

Ij hsou' ejlqevtw hJ nikhtikh;

27 line 2, and the imperative

aujtou' duvnami"

ejlqev throughout

Even where the terms employed differ from the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50, the prayers listed in the above chart are characterized by sharing themes in common with the epicleses. Although this list does not exhaust all possible prayers with similar language or themes, those noted here share other features with the epicleses as well. Several are distinguished by the fact that they appear in liturgical settings: the prayer in chapter 121, itself an epiclesis addressed to the oil, and prayers in 133 and 157. The last two are immediately followed by cletic prayers; in addition, the prayer in chapter 157 is proclaimed over the oil and addressed to the “fruit,” that is, the olive, source of the oil of anointing. This prayer combines epithets and participial phrases to describe the fruit, in a manner strikingly similar to the epicleses of chapters 27 and 50. The prayer in chapter 39 clearly interrupts the flow of the narrative and was inserted in its present context, just as the epiclesis in chapter 50 gives clear evidence of having been inserted by the redactor, inspired by the appeal to Jesus to “come and share with us” in chapter 49. Several of the prayers are characterized by anaphora, especially those in chapters 80, 132, and (to a lesser extent) 47–48. Three are addressed to Jesus (chapters 39, 47–48, 80; chapter 10 to a great extent also), while two (121 and 157) are addressed to the oil (or, chapter 157, the fruit), one to the bread (133), and one (chapter n In

addition to the terms listed here, see also ejlehvmwn in the second line of the prayer. The prayer contains as well a sense of heavenly archetypes informing the earthly realities. o It should be noted that people “put on” this power, just as people put on the bath of baptism in the prayer of chapter 132 (ms. P). The theme of “power” is strong throughout the prayer in chapter 157.

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132), like the epicleses in chapters 27 and especially chapter 50, is vague in specifying its recipient. It is, of course, in the themes that these various prayers contain that they most closely resemble the spirit epicleses. The combined use of similar terms and phrases produces a picture of an author or authors concerned with proclaiming that what is hidden from human comprehension has been made manifest through divine activity, resulting in an offer to humans to enjoy rest, to be filled with joy, to receive compassion and peace. Indeed, these are the hallmarks of the divine realm. The mysteries are revealed in Jesus, whose struggles and resultant victory are echoed in the lives of his followers. The presence of these themes in several prayers and their lack of emphasis elsewhere suggests that the prayers arose in a common setting and are here employed where deemed appropriate by the redactor. Although the prayers in liturgical contexts display many of the same concerns and style as the epicleses, it is the prayer in chapter 39 that most closely resembles the epicleses. This prayer combines many of the motifs just mentioned—one who is hidden, but manifest through action, one who is compassionate, who embodies rest, and who offers support to those struggling with the promise of joy and peace in the end—and ends as well with a reference to the “Mother.” We have already discussed the way in which this prayer interrupts the flow of the narrative at this point. Its similarity in theme to the epicleses, and its independent nature, lend support to the contention that the epicleses had an independent existence prior to their incorporation into the Acts of Thomas. Several themes and terms are unique to the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50. Perhaps most striking is the phrase “fellowship of the male,” employed only here. Elsewhere koinwniva refers to intercourse or marriage (whether literal or metaphorical for a relationship with Jesus), or is employed in a eucharistic context. The term a[rrhn appears only in these two prayers and in the Greek of chapter 129, where it alludes to the Pauline baptismal formula in Gal 3:28. We have already seen that the phrase “male and female” in chapter 129 is lacking from the Sinai manuscript and must have been added by a copyist to produce 128

the Pauline allusion. The uniqueness of the entire phrase in these prayers, and the presence of the identical phrase in both prayers, sets the epicleses apart from the rest of the work. Other terms are used here in ways that also set the epicleses apart from the rest of the Acts of Thomas. Cavrisma is employed as a concrete term for a gift, usually from God, although the demon in chapter 43 also identifies the “gift” bestowed on demonic beings. It can be used for the Eucharist (chapter 51) or the “gift of the Holy Spirit” (chapter 52), but only in chapter 27 is it an abstract heavenly reality that is not further identified (until line 9A, when the addressee of the entire prayer is identified as the Holy Spirit). Surprisingly, even a term as common as eJptav is limited to the epiclesis in chapter 27 and one other instance, the Hymn of the Bride. Both apparently depend on astral imagery, declaring the feminine protagonist as the ruler of the heavens. The intriguing and confusing line 8 of chapter 27 contains several terms that are somewhat unusual in the Acts of Thomas. The common Christian term presbuvtero" appears only here and in the martyrdom, where it is used to identify Siphor.111 Since the ecclesiastical offices bestowed on Siphor and Vizan are mentioned as somewhat of an afterthought (and certainly not described in the narrative itself), I have suggested above that this section appears to be an appendix to the martyrdom proper. Whatever the compositional history of the martyrdom, however, the use of presbuvtero" in chapter 27 is quite distinct. In the epiclesis, it is linked with and contrasted to five noetic terms. They are identified as mevlh, a term that appears only here, in Act 1 (in reference to the limbs of the man killed and dismembered by a lion), and in the prayer over the oil in chapter 121. There it may have a similar sense; the mevlh are hidden but revealed in the oil. Chapter 121 does not seem to refer to cognitive “parts” but their revealer must be superior to them, just as the addressee of the epiclesis is superior to the mevlh listed in chapter 27.

111Once in the U family of manuscripts, twice in the P family.

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The term ejpivlekto" is found in one other place besides the epiclesis in chapter 50: in the chastity speech of chapters 83–86, in which chastity is identified as “chosen” by God.112 This idea is important to the author of the Mygdonia story. If the lengthy speech was composed by the author, ideas of peace, rest, and joy, so common in the prayers which preexisted the work, have been incorporated into the speech. The main subject matter of the speech is, as we have seen, largely missing from the first half of the work, with the notable exception of Act 1. There are several terms in the epiclesis of chapter 50 that are hapax legomena in the Acts of Thomas.113 Although the agonistic life, of both Jesus and the believer, is a theme in several prayers, as we have seen, the term a\qlo" appears only in chapter 50.114 A second hapax legomenon is linked with it; the athlete with whom the feminine addressee is associated is gennai'o". In similar fashion, line 7 of the epiclesis in chapter 50 contains two hapax legomena, the identification of the dove as iJerav and the mention of twin neossouv". Although there are many “youths” in the work, and Thomas preaches the “new” God, the ornithological image in unique.115 The usual word for “holy” in the Acts of Thomas is a{gio", employed even in cultic contexts, although there it is most often used in prayer and linked with either “name” or “Spirit.” These two unique terms are linked also with unusual words; what is sacred is the dove (peristerav), a term that appears elsewhere only in the dream of Carish in chapter 91. The dove is said to “bear” the twin nestlings; gennavw appears also in chapter 79, where it is used of Christ. Finally, divdumo" is used elsewhere, in three others

112The verbal form, however, appears also in chapters 116 and 157. 113The term klhvsi" is also a hapax legomenon in the Acts of Thomas (it appears also in the epitomes but their secondary and summary nature makes them insignificant for the present discussion). The verb kalevw is not unusual, although it is never used in the sense of a divine summons. 114The related ajqlhthv" can be found in chapters 39 and 85. 115The term can be used of other young animals as well, and even of children, but here clearly means baby birds.

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spots, only of the apostle. The entire line gives evidence for a distinctive approach to the subject, using unusual language to produce a unique image.116 Despite the unusual language of the epiclesis in chapter 50, there can be no question that it is from the same pen that produced the prayer in chapter 27. Not only does the repetitive “come” to a feminine figure, together with the closing appeals, suggest this, but the two prayers share also the themes of compassion and hidden mysteries, the term “Mother,” and the ambiguous phrase “fellowship of the male.” Conclusion The epicleses in chapters 27 and 50, then, stand out in the Acts of Thomas both by their form and their language. Yet they share similar motifs with several other prayers and speeches within the work. The prayers, often in liturgical contexts, extol as well the ineffable nature of the mysteries or the divine, speak of the joy and peace afforded the faithful, and proclaim the union with the divine available through the sacraments. Several of the prayers give evidence of later incorporation into their narrative context, suggesting that they were added at a time subsequent to initial composition. The independent nature of prayers similar to the epicleses lends weight to the argument that the epicleses themselves antedate the Acts of Thomas and were inserted into their current locations by a later hand. Although the composite nature of the work and the extensive redactional activity evident in it make it difficult to determine how and when the prayers might have been inserted, I am inclined to believe that the redactor of the tales supplied these prayers, probably native to liturgical celebrations, inserting them in the first two intitiatory accounts of the work. Although similar motifs are found in prayers elsewhere, these two epicleses, with their striking correspondence in form and content, are employed in the only two

116Since this line is missing the initial ejlqev, one could argue that it was inserted into the prayer at this point, perhaps before the prayer was incorporated into the Acts of Thomas. Although this is certainly possible, the reason for the inclusion of such an obscure phrase is unclear. It is preferable to consider it part of the original prayer, although I am inclined to see it displaced. I believe that it explicates the term “Mother” and is more appropriate as a second clause in the line which currently follows it.

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liturgical scenes found in the first half of the Acts of Thomas. I suspect that the author of the Mygdonia story incorporated traditional material into liturgical scenes in that work (Acts 9–end), then found other occasions to insert additional material into the tales in the first half of the work (Acts 1–8). It is not unlikely that the early tales were first pulled together by someone other than the final redactor, and this person may also have inserted the epicleses. But their similarity to material in the second half, which bears several characteristics of independent composition, suggests that one person is responsible for bringing the work together in roughly the complete form in which we now find it. Because the epicleses are found in initiatory scenes in the Acts of Thomas, it is necessary to turn to the question of the liturgical material found in the work. The initiations represented in the Acts of Thomas vary with one another and with later developments of initiation in Syriac sources, and offer tantalizing suggestions of a unique rite practiced at an early time in the region of northern Mesopotamia. Eucharistic allusions are similarly enticing. The following chapter explores some of the issues surrounding the sacramental understandings found in this early novel from Syriac-speaking Christianity.

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CHAPTER 4 THE LITURGICAL CONTEXT OF THE EPICLESES The prayers in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas occur in the context of initiation. In the first instance, the prayer is proclaimed over the oil of anointing during a nocturnal initiation; a Eucharist follows at dawn. The prayer in chapter 50 is uttered over the bread of the Eucharist, a Eucharist that follows the bestowal of an initiatory “seal” on a woman from whom a demon had been exorcised, as well as several others. It is appropriate, then, to discuss what can be known about liturgical practices in the third-century Syriacspeaking Christian church. The Acts of Thomas itself is a key source for pertinent information. The initiatory accounts in the Acts of Thomas vary considerably from one another, and the Greek and Syriac versions of the work have significant variants even in their descriptions of the same scenes. For this reason, and because of the paucity of evidence available elsewhere, we will concentrate primarily on the five initiation accounts within the Acts of Thomas, supplementing the information with that gleaned from other sources. The rite of initiation in Syria has received considerable attention from students of liturgy,1 and the Acts of Thomas has been central to the discussion. The main interest of these scholars has been in the development of the initiation rituals, especially in the number

1Often with an eye to the Syrian background of later rites. Most notable is the work of Gabriele Winkler, whose primary interest has been in the Armenian initiation ritual. See her Das armenische Initiationsrituale: entwicklungsgeschichtliche und liturgievergleichende Untersuchung der Quellen des 3. bis 10. Jahrhunderts (OrChrAn 217; Roma: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1982), as well as her “Zur frühchristlichen Tauftradition in Syrien und Armenien unter Einbezug der Taufe Jesu,” Ostkirchliche Studien 27 (1978): 281–306. See also the discussion in E. C. Ratliff, “The Old Syrian Baptismal Tradition and its Resettlement Under the Influence of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century,” in Studies on Syrian Baptismal Rites (ed. Jacob Vellian; The Syrian Churches Series 6; Kattayam: C. M. S. Press, 1973), 85–87.

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and meaning of the anointings. It has long been noted that the evidence for baptism in the east suggests a rite with characteristics distinct from that known in the west. Tertullian’s description2 of baptism followed by an anointing (and then a second postbaptismal ceremony understood to convey the Spirit) is confirmed also by the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. But this is not the picture one gets from reading a non-liturgical work such as the Acts of Thomas. Indeed, in the Acts of Thomas and in other documents from the region, the anointing takes precedence and forms the central element of the rite of initiation. It is followed in importance by Eucharist and, finally, by water baptism.3 The elements of the initiatory rite will, then, be examined in this order: anointing, Eucharist, baptism. The discussion will include an examination of the actions involved and the meanings given to each aspect of the initiatory rite. First, however, I would like to outline the evidence for making the above claim regarding the signficance of the various elements, concentrating especially on the use of the term “seal” (sfragiv") or, in Syriac, “sign” (rushma). The term is used in all five of the initiation accounts in the Acts of Thomas, as well as in requests made by characters elsewhere in the story. Not once does any character request baptism, nor is there reference to anyone having received baptism, except in the immediate context of water baptism. The seal, however, is repeatedly requested. In several cases, it applies to a rite that includes anointing only, although it is also used of baptismal rites. The “seal” was apparently understood initially to refer to the entire rite of initiation, of which the anointing was the most significant aspect. 2De Baptismo 7.2. 3See my “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,” Studia Liturgica 31 (2001): 150–70, in which I suggest that, at an early date in northern Mesopotamia, anointing (without the presence of water baptism), followed by Eucharist, sufficed for initiation. Some portions of this chapter are published in that article. The possibility of variety in initiatory practices should come as no surprise. Already in the New Testament, differences in the rite itself (see, e.g., the story of Apollos in Acts 18:24–19:8) and in the theology of initiation can be seen. The Johannine view (e.g., John 3:1–6) of baptism as a rebirth into a new life (an understanding that dominates in Syria) differs from the position of Paul that one dies in baptism, with hope for a resurrected life in the future (Rom 6:1–11).

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The “Seal” (or “sign”)4 The seal in the Acts of Thomas is first and foremost a sign of ownership,5 similar to the brand on an animal. In chapter 131, the general Sifor and his family request “to receive the seal from you, so that we might become worshipers of the one true God and might be numbered among his lambs and sheep.” Worship must be properly directed in order for the identifying seal to be bestowed. The seal is the means by which God “recognizes his own sheep” (chapter 26). It is a “gift” from the apostle to the believer (chapter 120); in chapter 157, Judas, in a prayer, claims that the gift dwells in the oil of anointing. In addition, the seal is that which admits one to share in the Eucharist.6 The seal is also protective,7 providing a safeguard against demons. A woman who had been possessed requests and receives the seal, so that, after having received the seal, “the enemy may not return to me again.” Following the elaborate prayer over the oil (addressed to the “fruit”) in chapter 157, Judas prays that the power of Jesus might be established in the oil. The gift of that power is what vanquished the enemies of Jesus; the oil then becomes for the initiands “a defense from the adversary.” This section provides an

4The Greek text uses the term sfragiv", while the Syriac regularly employs rushma. The terms are not equivalent, but it is impossible to know if the term in the original Syriac was indeed rushma, or if this term is included in the surviving Syriac due to influence from liturgy. Because I am most interested in the Greek version of the work, I refer most often to the use of sfragiv", but make note of the Syriac reading of rushma as well. 5Sebastian Brock points out that later texts in Syriac, making use of rushma in this way, indicate that it replaces circumcision. The east Syrian ordo speaks of the baptized being circumcized with oil (Urmiah edition, p. 68), and the late fifth-century east Syrian hymnist Narsai indicates that the priest “sharpens” the oil and uses it to cut (see R. H. Connolly, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai [Texts and Studies 8; Cambridge: University Press, 1909], 41–42). Interestingly, Narsai knows only one prebaptismal anointing. See Brock, “The Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” in Sacrifice of Praise (ed. Bryan D. Spinks; Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 1981), 215–25, esp. p. 217. Brock’s article provides a valuable discussion of the meanings associated with the anointing and the eventual transfer of those understandings to the water rite. 6This is made especially clear in the last line of chapter 50: “he distributed [the bread] also to the others who had received the seal.” 7Apparently based on Ezek 9:4–6, in which a mark on the forehead offers protection to those who bear it.

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intriguing understanding of the purpose of the anointing; it provides “remission of sins, defense from the adversary, and salvation for their souls.” The entire scene is in response to the request of the king’s son, Vizan, in chapter 50, to receive the seal. The seal will save the initiates from the wickedness of the king, as well, for Tertia, the king’s wife, requests of the apostle that she and her companions receive the seal “quickly” in order to frustrate the king’s evil schemes. The seal is illuminating. After the initiands are sealed in chapter 27 (following the epiclesis over the oil), they witness a youth carrying a lighted torch and the apostle comments on the incomprehensible light of the Lord. (In chapter 132, the “light” is associated with baptism.) The seal is also life-giving, as is evident in the initiation of Mygdonia, who repeatedly requests the seal before her initiation. After she had been anointed and baptized, and has shared in the bread and cup, the apostle declares (in chapter 121), “You have received your seal and acquired eternal life for yourself.” A heavenly ratification of the apostle’s words inspires Mygdonia’s nurse to request the seal as well.8 The various meanings associated with the seal may indicate a development in theological understanding of the initiatory rite.9 But they may also suggest a variety in interpretations of the rite, corresponding to the variety we see in the elements of the ritual itself. Indeed, precisely what rite is identified as the seal is sometimes ambiguous in the five initiatory accounts in the Acts of Thomas. The first initiation, in chapter 27, involves only an anointing and Eucharist. The prayer over the oil includes an appeal to seal the initiates in the threefold name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The threefold name and the laying on of hands are central to the second initiation account as well (chapters 49 and 50); the action and blessing are 8In the words of Mygdonia in chapter 130, it is the new life she has begun—and the clear indication that it involves for her renunciation of any sexual activity—that brings “life eternal” and the ability to “behold the light incomprehensible.” This is the gospel, she declares, that Thomas has been preaching. 9As Winkler emphasizes. See her “The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and its Implications,” Worship 52 (1978): 24–45, reprinted in Studies in Early Christian Liturgy and its Context (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS593; Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1997).

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designated as the bestowal of the seal. It is the reception of this seal that enables the initiates to partake of the Eucharist. But in the more elaborate accounts of initiation in the Acts of Thomas, the precise rite associated with the seal is unclear; the term seems to refer to the entire ritual of initiation, including the Eucharist. The term is used only after the final element, that of sharing in the bread and cup, in the account of Mygdonia’s initiation in chapter 121. The meaning of the seal in the last two accounts is even less clear, although both accounts (in chapters 131 and 157) involve anointing, baptism, and sharing in Eucharist. These rituals are in response to requests to receive the seal, but there is no indication what aspect of the ritual is identified as the seal. The simplest explanation is to view the entire initiation in each of these scenes as fulfilling what is meant by seal. But, as we shall soon see, the narrative surrounding the rituals may indicate that the seal has a more limited meaning than the rite itself would seem to indicate. The seal can be bestowed more than once, but this appears to happen only under dire circumstances. Act 6 (chapters 51–61) concerns a young man who had heard the apostle and had received the seal. While subsequently partaking of the Eucharist, his hands shrivel up, thus convicting him of a crime that he proceeds to confess. The man had murdered a woman whom he loved but who refused to join with him in a life of sexual renunciation.10 The apostle again bestows the seal on the young man, then instructs him to raise up the woman, who proceeds to recount the horrors of hell. It is not stated if the seal was what was necessary for providing the young man with the power to bring the woman back to life, or if a second initiation was actually required after such a grievous sin. Although water was present, since the apostle had ordered the young man to cleanse and

10This brings up the interesting possibility that it was initially the norm in this region to enter such a commitment with a partner, a practice later condemned in the strongest terms by Aphrahat and others. It is certainly considered the ideal in the Acts of Thomas to renounce sexual activity together with one’s spouse. See, for example, the words of Sifor in chapter 131.

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thereby heal his hands in a basin of water, the sealing does not appear to have made use of the water. Elsewhere, the seal comes to refer to the sign of the cross.11 In fact, the seal is associated with anointing throughout the Acts of Thomas, although the precise action involved and the scope of meaning of the term are not always clear. Even in the initiations in chapters 121, 132–33, and 157–58, in which water baptism is clearly included as part of the rite, the seal continues to apply to the ritual involving oil. In the account of Mygdonia’s initiation in Act 10, Mygdonia, who has repeatedly desired the seal (and does so here, in chapter 120) prepares for the initiation by requesting that her nurse bring water, bread, and oil. That the water is intended for the Eucharist and not for baptism is clarified both by the nurse’s offer to bring jugs of wine instead of water and by Mydonia’s negative response; she desires only a “mixing” of water, perhaps with wine.12 The water is to be consumed, rather than applied physically, nor is there enough to use for immersion. The baptismal ritual in this account indicates that a nearby spring provided the water. Water baptism is a concern only in the ritual itself; the surrounding narrative is unaware that water baptism is to be included in the ceremony. The rituals surrounding the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 are the most helpful in determining the action involved in bestowing the seal. The term “seal” is used repeatedly in the accounts in chapters 26–27 and 49–50; neither description of initiation gives any hint of the presence of water baptism. To a group that had recently witnessed an exorcism and to the woman from whom the demon had departed, in chapters 49–50, Thomas bestows a blessing by sealing her and others “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The threefold blessing, elsewhere employed at baptism, appears to be an essential part of the rite, but the actions of the participants are not described in ways that suggest baptism. The seal is 11E.g., in the History of John, the Son of Zebedee. See William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, p. 47 of the English translation. 12tou'to de; movnon, krasi;n u{dato". The kra'si" probably indicates a eucharistic drink of wine and water combined. Mygdonia never indicates that no wine is to be provided, but demurs regarding the copious amounts (as also of the bread) suggested by her nurse. The eucharistic account in the Greek of chapter 121, however, indicates that the cup contained only water; the Syriac does not specify the contents of the cup.

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deposited on the woman through the laying on of hands. Since the apostle had just laid hands on the people and blessed them, there must be something that distinguishes the laying on of hands that is identified with the seal from the earlier blessing. It is possible that the invocation of the threefold name is understood to set the seal apart, but I believe there is a strong likelihood that an anointing is meant, although not explicitly stated. This is clearly the case in the related account in chapter 27. The term “seal” is employed most frequently in chapters 26 and 27 of the Acts of Thomas; in fact, almost 40% of the occurrences of the term are found in these chapters.13 There is, as we have seen, no mention of baptism in the description of the rite (after the oil is brought, the apostle simply stands to seal the participants), but instead an ambiguous distinction is made between the “seal” (or possibly the “seal of the word,”14 mentioned in chapter 26) and the “sealing of the seal” (chapter 27). The latter seal includes the epiclesis with an invocation of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and it is anticipated to enable the recipients to experience a theophany visually as well as aurally. Both seals make use of an anointing, but the “sealing of the seal” is described in far greater detail than is the first seal; it seems to involve pouring and then spreading the oil over the entire head. Although it cannot be proved, an intriguing possibility is that the first seal involved simply a crossing on the forehead with oil rather than a thorough anointing. In the Syriac History of John, the Son of Zebedee,15 the seal often refers to the sign of the cross, apparently with or without anointing. The “sealing of the seal” in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas does not appear to involve a full-body anointing, unless the description has been significantly shortened.

13The two accounts of initiation in chapters 26–27 and 49–50 together comprise 57% of the references to “seal” in the work. 14If that is not understood to encompass the entire rite or the reception of the gospel. 15See the Syriac and ET in William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.

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As in so many of the initiations, the prayer in chapter 27 is offered in the context of the anointing. The final line of the epiclesis asks that the initiands be sealed in the threefold name, rendering unmistakable the identification of the seal with the ritual involving oil. Indeed, in the Greek of this passage, water baptism does not figure into the ritual of initiation at all. And prior to the ritual, the narrative expressly links the oil and the seal: “And he ordered them to bring him oil, so that through the oil they might receive the seal” (chapter 26). The seal, then, appears most commonly in the Acts of Thomas in requests for initiation, and could be understood to refer to the entire rite.16 But when it is associated with any particular aspect of initiation, it is always linked with the anointing. Never is the term applied to baptism. In the first two initiation accounts in the Acts of Thomas, the seal is clearly that which allows for participation in the Eucharist. It appears that the term originally referred to the initiatory rite as a whole (apart from Eucharist), but the initiatory element of the rite was precisely that of anointing. With more elaborate ritual practices, the term retained its identification with initiation per se, even when such initiations included elements beyond simply the anointing. Anointing The anointing with oil has long been recognized by liturgical scholars as central to the initiatory rite in Syriac-speaking churches.17 It is certainly prominent in the initiatory

16Gregory Dix argues strongly for an understanding of the “seal” (i.e., chrismation) as conferring the Spirit. Dix is arguing from Greek sources, and has an eye toward contemporary practice and theology, but his findings, based on very early materials, correspond surprisingly well with what is preserved in Syriacspeaking Christianity of a later date. See Dix, The Theology of Confirmation in Relation to Baptism (London: Dacre, 1946) and “The ‘Seal’ in the Second Century,” Theology 51 (1948): 7–12. 17See, for example, articles by Sebastian Brock: “The Syrian Baptismal Ordines (with special reference to the anointings),” Studia Liturgica 12 (1977): 177–83, and “The Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite”; also G. G. Willis, “What was the Earliest Syrian Baptismal Tradition?” Studia Evangelica 6 (1973): 651–54. See also Winkler, “The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and its Implications,” and “The History of the Syriac Prebaptismal Anointing in the Light of the Earliest Armenian Sources,” Symposium Syriacum 1976 (OrChrAn 205; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1978), 317–24.

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accounts in the Acts of Thomas. The variety in the five accounts of initiation in the Acts of Thomas points to the tremendous diversity of practice by early Christians, even in a single region. Three of the initiation accounts also occur in the second half of the work, the section that I have argued was composed independently of the tales in the first half by the redactor of the entire work. These three accounts are more developed than the first two (in chapters 26–27 and 49–50), probably reflecting their later date, but they too display some variety, although all include the three elements of anointing, baptism, and Eucharist. Anointing in the Acts of Thomas The first account of an anointing, in chapter 27, is brief in its description of the rite, although it includes a lengthy epiclesis. The new initiates request the “seal” and receive an anointing followed by Eucharist: “The apostle took the oil, poured it over their heads, smeared it, and anointed them.” The participants hear the voice of the Lord and later witness a youth carrying a lighted lamp, but never is water mentioned. Only earlier in the narrative, in a prayer that reverses the usual order in the Syrian church (i.e., anointing followed by baptism), is water baptism suggested; the apostle prays that the initiands might be “cleansed … with your bath and anointed … with your oil.” But even this mention of “bath” is secondary; it does not appear in the corresponding prayer in the Syriac. In fact, the entire prayer in chapter 25 has been expanded in the Greek, with such pious embellishments as the suggestion that the apostle is in a “joyous rapture” and in his deferential “at my earnest request.” Since there would be no reason for an editor of the Syriac version to delete the reference to the bath (a baptismal rite does appear in the Syriac), a Greek editor must have inserted the mention of “bath” in chapter 25. This prayer originally contained no hint of baptism, but instead asked that the initiates be anointed and purified; the Greek editor transferred the cleansing action to the bath. Although the Greek of

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the epiclesis in chapter 27 is clearly superior to the Syriac, this earlier prayer in chapter 25 illustrates the tendency of the text to grow, as each copyist becomes an editor.18 The Syriac version of the rite attempts to correct the Greek, emphasizing the water ritual. In the Syriac, the king, one of the new initiates, orders the bath to be closed for seven days, and on the eighth day it is the site of the baptism. First the apostle pours oil on the heads of those being baptized, and prays the epiclesis, as in the Greek. Then he baptizes them in the bath; the youth carrying a lighted lamp is seen only after they emerge from the water. Eucharist follows, as in the Greek. But in the earlier prayer of the apostle, only anointing is mentioned, although one might argue that baptism is implied in the plea that the initiates might drink of the divine fountain. But such an image need not be understood baptismally; here, in fact, it should not be so understood. Instead it refers to the offer made to the initiates to imbibe the wisdom of God available in Jesus.19 In the Greek text of the initiation in chapter 49, there is not only no water, but no oil is mentioned either. A woman, from whom a demon had been exorcised, asks the apostle for the “seal” and he lays hands on her and others. It is possible that an anointing is implied, but certainly no baptism occurs. A Eucharist, with an epiclesis, follows. In the Syriac, the group goes to a river for baptism and then celebrates Eucharist; the lack of anointing becomes even more evident. Although the woman asks for the “sign” (the Syriac rushma is regularly used where the Greek has sfragiv"), the apostle never lays hands on her. The comment in the Greek that “many others received the seal along with her” has been changed to “many were baptized with her.” Water baptism has clearly become more prominent than anointing in the Syriac version. There is no doubt that the initiation of chapter 121, in both Greek and Syriac, includes baptism. But we have already seen that the narrative regarding preparation for the

18 The prayer in chapter 25 illustrates that one cannot routinely assume that the Greek is superior to the Syriac. 19See my “Initiation by Anointing,” esp. 158–66.

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initiatory rite assumes simply an anointing with oil; the water Mygdonia requests is enough only for a drink. In the actual description of the rite, the apostle prays over the oil, anoints and baptizes the initiand; they then share bread and a cup. But the prayer of the apostle, spoken over the oil of anointing, suggests that the anointing is the central event in the initiation. The oil has qualities similar to those said of the Spirit in the prayer in chapter 27; it is revealer and bearer of power. In addition, it reveals the cross, perhaps alluding to an early form of the tradition, common in the classical period, in which the tree of life in paradise is at once the source of the oil of anointing (and, in Ephrem, identified with the lifegiving Spirit) as well as the source of the wood of the cross.20 No meaning is accorded the water, although it is bestowed in the threefold name of Father, Son, and Spirit. After the Eucharist, identified simply as sharing in the “body of Christ and in the cup of the Son of God,” the apostle claims that the seal has been given. The “seal” here could perhaps refer to the entire rite, although the anointing has clearly been its most prominent feature. A second initiation is hinted, when Mygdonia’s nurse requests the seal and Thomas gives it to her with a blessing, but no description of the rite is provided. The Syriac of chapter 121 includes a clearly secondary full-body anointing, and gives the appearance of two anointings of the head preceding it. In the Greek, after the apostle anoints Mygdonia’s head, he orders her nurse to disrobe her and dress her in a new garment. But in the Syriac, the uninitiated nurse is called upon to anoint Mygdonia’s body and dress her in a loincloth. In both versions, Mygdonia dresses more fully after the baptism, but only in the Syriac is her entire body anointed. The entire passage shows signs of embellishment, and the full-body anointing seems to be inserted in order to accord with the current practice known to the editor. It corresponds as well to the fullest description of

20See the discussion in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom (Cambridge: University Press, 1975), 113–30. If the Armenian Diatessaron’s reading is genuine (the passage in the Syriac is shorter), the tradition identifying the tree of life with the cross is far more ancient than the fourth century. See Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 127. Ode 20 speaks of a crown from a tree (in paradise), and the anointing in truth that will occur after the crown is donned.

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initiation in the work, that in chapters 156–158, in which the previously initiated Mygdonia is asked to take on the role of deacon21 in anointing the women. The initiation of the general Siphor and his family, in chapters 132–133, accords little prominence to the anointing. In this account, the statement regarding baptism is the most important element. Still, the apostle pours oil on the heads of the initiands and utters a prayer of praise. The prayer seems to be a continuation of the prayer earlier in the same chapter regarding baptism. Although there is no firm textual evidence to support the contention, I suspect that the prayers were originally joined together and spoken over the oil. In the present context, the apostle lauds baptism, then anoints the initiands’ heads, and only then requests water and baptizes them, suggesting that originally baptism did not figure into the account until after the anointing. In addition, the apostle speaks of the light poured forth in baptism, an image that accords better with the oil of anointing. If the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 can be taken as an indication that the Spirit is more correctly identified with the oil than with baptism, the mention of the Spirit entering a person’s soul would suggest, as well, that an original form of this prayer connected it with the anointing. The most elaborate ritual found in the Acts of Thomas is that in chapters 156–158. In this scene, the apostle utters three lengthy prayers, the first (addressed to the “friend” and divine physician) and last to Jesus, while the second is spoken over the oil of anointing. Two shorter prayers to Jesus accompany the anointing. The ritual itself includes an anointing of the heads of the initiands by the apostle, followed by a second anointing by the apostle (of Vizan) and Mygdonia (of the female initiands).22 The second anointing is presumably that of the entire body, as can be seen in the fact that Mygdonia is needed to 21The term is actually used only once in a liturgical context; in chapter 49, the eucharistic table is prepared by a deacon. More commonly, the term applies to the apostle, although in two departure scenes (chapters 65–66 and, in the martyrdom, chapter 169), he leaves behind a deacon to serve the people in his place. 22By the end of the fourth century, as is clear in Chrysostom, two prebaptismal anointings were known in the region of western Syria, replacing the earlier, single anointing, suggesting that this account in the Acts of Thomas may be relatively late. See the discussion in Sebastian Brock, “The Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” 215.

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anoint the women, who had earlier been stripped.23 The anointings clearly receive the most attention of all the initiatory elements in the account, although a lengthy prayer is spoken over the bread and cup. Baptism, in the threefold name, is mentioned only cursorily. No explanation is provided for the source of the water; the initiation takes place in the house of Vizan, rather than in a bath or near a fountain or river, as occurs in other accounts. The prominence of anointing in the Acts of Thomas was noted by the fifth-century bishop of Spanish Asturica, in a letter to neighboring bishops Idacius and Ceponius.24 Turribius is concerned about the teachings of the highly ascetic Priscillianists, and describes apocryphal works used by them, at least some of which he has read (in illis quos legere potui apocryphis codicibus). Several of the apocryphal acts of apostles known to us are mentioned; first in order, and receiving the most attention, is the Acts of Thomas. Turribius says the work exsecrandum est, because of its teaching that baptism is not to be performed with water, but with oil alone (non baptizare per aquam, sicut habet Dominica praedicatio, sed per oleum solum). It is not clear if Turribius knew an earlier recension of the Acts of Thomas than that extant,25 one which lacked any accounts of water baptism, or if he is simply exaggerating. In

23Ruth A. Meyers argues that the inclusion of a second anointing in the fuller accounts of initiation is occasioned precisely by the fact that women were being initiated and attention is given to the role of a female deacon in anointing the bodies of the women. See her “The Structure of the Syrian Baptismal Rite” in Essays in Early Eastern Initiation (ed. Paul Bradshaw; Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study 8; Grove Liturgical Study 56; Bramcote: Grove, 1988), 31–43. The initiation in chapters 49–50 is of a woman (and others), but there is no explicit mention of an anointing, in either Greek or Syriac. In the Syriac, a deacon is mentioned in the context of preparing for eucharist. 24PL 54.711–14. 25Nor is it clear how the Acts of Thomas arrived in Spain. C. H. Turner (“Priscillian and the Acts of Judas Thomas,” JTS 7 [1906]: 603–605) mentions that Burkitt told him that Egeria (“Silvia”) must have taken a copy west with her. Turner counters that Priscillian himself, who died shortly after Egeria must have returned home, knew the work, since he identifies the apostle Jude as Thomas, and calls Jude the “twin of the Lord” (features of the Acts of Thomas). Indeed, Egeria mentions (Itin. Eger. 19.19) that she has copies of the correspondence between Jesus and the Edessene King Abgar at home, although the copy she received from the bishop in Edessa appeared to be longer than her own. Apparently the written traditions of the Syrian Christians were well known in the west in the fourth century. They were, presumably, translated into Latin. For an English translation of Egeria, see John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels (London: SPCK, 1971).

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the extant Greek text, only two26 of the five initiation accounts lack water baptism, but in the four accounts that mention oil,27 the anointing receives greater attention than the water baptism. In these four accounts, the apostle prays over the oil, but not over the water; all of the initiation accounts include a Eucharist, and three28 have a prayer over the bread as well. Anointing is given the position of greatest prominence in the Acts of Thomas and sharing in Eucharist is of secondary importance. Water baptism is, of the initiatory practices, third in value. It cannot be said that the work denigrates water baptism, and the only account that could be said to teach “baptism”29 with oil alone is that in chapter 27. But it is likely that the high esteem accorded the oil of anointing was striking, especially to a westerner unaccustomed to its prominence.30 That Turribius considered the Acts of Thomas to contain instructions to use only oil for initiation may indicate that he read a work of greater antiquity than we possess. It is widely recognized that the extant Greek is not a simple translation of the original Syriac. And the fact that the surviving Syriac shows clear signs of embellishment indicates that there was some discomfort with the text. It is possible that the Greek translator had already attempted to “correct” the work. But even if Turribius made use of a recension essentially It is easy to imagine, however, why there is no longer extant this Latin text of the Acts of Thomas, if one ever existed (the surviving Latin is a rewritten version), and why the work was to a large extent unknown in the west at a later date. Leo the Great, responding (in his Epistula 15) to materials sent him by Turribius regarding the errors of the Priscillianists, decreed that the apocryphal writings associated with the names of the apostles were to be burned, and any bishop who allowed them to be owned was to be considered a heretic. Given the fate suffered in the previous century by Priscillian (execution), Leo was probably taken seriously, and copies of the apocryphal acts were destroyed. 26Chaps. 27 and 49. In the account in chapter 49, neither water nor oil is mentioned, only an ambiguous “seal.” 27Chaps. 27, 121, 132, 157. 28Chaps. 50, 133, 158. 29Presumably Turribius knew and practiced a baptism of affusion, or else uses the term baptizare to mean “to initiate.” It is unlikely that he imagined an immersion or submersion in oil. 30Commenting on the opinions of Turribius, C. H. Turner (“Priscillian and the Acts of Judas Thomas,” 604–605) claims that the mention of oil in initiation “is exactly the sort of feature, in that strange and weirdly fascinating story, which would arrest the attention of an orthodox reader in the fifth century.” Turner goes on to suggest that water baptism may not have been part of the original text.

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the same as our extant Greek, he correctly noticed the importance of anointing in initiation generally, and perhaps the lack of water baptism in the accounts in chapters 27 and 50 as well. Just as the rite of anointing takes precedence, in general, in the liturgical scenes in the Acts of Thomas, so also the meaning accorded the oil is emphasized. We have already seen that it is most closely associated with the “seal,” which is a sign of ownership, offers protection, illuminates, and gives life. In addition, three prayers spoken over the oil of anointing indicate that the oil is associated with power, is revealer and healer, and sanctifies. The wood of the olive tree is linked with the cross of Jesus. In several ways, the attributes of the oil correspond with the attributes of the feminine addressee of the epicleses. The prayers over the oil will now be examined, beginning with the shortest (in chapter 132) and ending with the longest (in chapter 157), in order to lead to an understanding of the theology associated with the oil and with anointing in the liturgical passages of the Acts of Thomas. The prayer over the oil in chapter 132, spoken by the apostle while he is pouring oil over the heads of the initiands, is relatively short. It begins with an anaphoral “Glory to you,” just as does the prayer praising baptism that appears immediately before it.31 Interestingly, the three epithets in the anointing prayer correspond with those found in the epiclesis over the oil in chapter 27. Both are addressed to the “name of Christ” and to “power,” here identified with Christ, while that in chapter 27 links it to the “Most High.” Although ajgavph is never directly addressed in either of the epicleses to the Spirit, the theme of mercy is emphasized. It is the “Mother” who is merciful in chapter 27 and “perfect compassion” is adjured in both epicleses. Although the oil itself is not directly addressed in the prayer in chapter 132 (as it is in the next two prayers to be examined, those in chapters 121 and 157), it is understood in the same manner as the oil of anointing in the first initiation account. The epicleses are clearly addressed to a feminine figure, explicitly

31See my brief discussion above on the possibility that these two prayers were once linked and both associated with anointing.

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identified as the Holy Spirit in chapter 27, and the same personage seems to be in mind throughout the prayer in chapter 132, in which two feminine terms and one neuter are employed. The oil is apparently understood, here as well, to bestow the Holy Spirit. Before the apostle anoints Mygdonia in chapter 121, he offers a prayer to the “holy oil given for our sanctification.” The oil, itself holy, acts to make holy those who are anointed with it.32 The oil also is revealer, and acts in opposition to baseness, while establishing goodness. In addition, it has one of the characteristics found in the prayer over the oil in chapter 132, that of power. Three times in this prayer the apostle indicates that something is revealed. The oil itself is addressed as a “mystery” which reveals (deivknumi) the cross, a theme that is more fully developed in the corresponding prayer in chapter 157, in which oJ deiknuv" is used. In that prayer, as we shall see, the olive tree bears power (as does to the cross), which the apostle requests might be in the oil. The oil is also an “unfolder”33 (aJplwthv") of parts that are covered and revealer of hidden treasures. Two lines celebrate the inherent goodness of the oil or its ability to thwart error. The oil is that which “abases crooked deeds.”34 In the longer Syriac version of this prayer, the crookedness refers to misshapen limbs, and much of the prayer in Syriac emphasizes the healing power of the oil.35 The oil is also declared to be “offshoot of beneficence,” employing a hapax logomenon (to; blavsthma) in the Acts of Thomas. 32The Syriac at this point declares that the holy oil was given for chrism. Where the Greek associates the resulting fruit of the oil rite with the adjective (“holy” leads to “sanctification”), the Syriac amplifies the noun (“oil” becomes “chrism”). Perhaps this is because the Syriac for “holiness” (qadishuta) is a technical term in Syriac, referring throughout the second half of the Acst of Thomas to a life of sexual renunciation. 33Translation mine. The verb aJplovw is that which is used in chapter 49, just before the epiclesis, of the action of the deacon in preparing the cloth on the table to be used for Eucharist. 34Translation mine. 35There is some confusion in the Syriac between this line that refers to the straightening of crooked limbs and the line immediately preceding it. It appears that the Syriac editor conflated two lines, taking the Greek aJplwthv" to mean “straightener” and understanding that which is crooked in a literal, rather than metaphorical, sense. But the emphasis on healing (and Jesus as Physician) is a theme found throughout the work also.

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In a third-person imperative,36 the power of the oil is requested to “come.” Power is an attribute of the Spirit in the epiclesis of chapter 27; it is also a key attribute of the oil in all three of the initiation scenes in the second half of the Acts of Thomas. All three have prayers linking duvnami" with some form of the verb iJdruvw in the middle voice. In the “Glory to you” prayer in chapter 132, the power is declared to be established in Christ, while in the prayers in chapters 121 and 157, the apostle makes a request that the power be established (in Mygdonia in this prayer in chapter 121; in the oil of anointing, in chapter 157). It is precisely by the establishment of the power in Mygdonia that she is to be healed,37 through the “freedom” that apparently corresponds with the establishment of power within one. The appeal for the oil’s power to come links this prayer with the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50, in which the Spirit is directed to “come.” The elaborate prayer over the oil in chapter 157 is directed to the “fruit,” which is superior to any other fruit.38 The subsequent description suggests that the fruit described is the olive, whose many uses (as a food, as a source of oil used for lamp lighting, healing, anointing—of royalty, prophets, athletes—and in sacrifice) made “the olive in antiquity ...

36See Brock’s discussion of the development of the imperatives in epicletic prayers: the baptismal epiclesis was originally addressed to Christ, then Christ is requested to send the Spirit, and finally the Father is asked to send the Spirit. Sebastian Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines.” Brock includes discussion of the various epicleses in the Syriac Acts of Thomas, but does not examine the more ancient Greek version. In fact, the oldest type of epiclesis in Syriac-speaking Christianity, as is evident in the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas, is addressed directly to the Spirit. These are, however, not baptismal, but rather anointing and eucharistic, epicleses. Winkler essentially follows Brock: “Further Observations in Connection with the Early Form of the Epiklesis,” in Le Sacrement de l’Initiation Origines et Prospective: Patrimoine Syriaque Actes du colloque III (Antelias, Lebanon: Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Pastorales, 1996), 66–80. 37Oddly, the Syriac at this point diverges and does not speak of healing, but rather of holiness (qadishuta). Since the theme of sexual renunciation pervades the second half of the work, it is difficult to know whether the Greek or the Syriac of this line—indeed of the entire prayer—is closer to the original. Elements of each version bear the characteristic marks of the Acts of Thomas as a whole. 38If the “fruit” addressed by the apostle is understood to be a heavenly reality, this prayer is yet another example, albeit of a different type, of “sacramental exemplarism.” See the discussion and coining of the term in Martha Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 208–18.

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the fruit par excellence.”39 It is extolled here for its many virtues and uses, some of which (e.g., crowning victors) are absent from the other prayers over the oil in the Acts of Thomas, while several familiar themes appear as well. The oil is “merciful,” as was the Spirit in the epicleses in chapter 27 (where “compassion” is directly adjured, and the “Mother” is identified as compassionate) and chapter 50,40 and as was “love” in the prayer in chapter 132. The oil helps people overcome their adversaries, a characteristic also of the “seal,” as we have seen, and this is explicitly attributed to the anointing in a prayer later in chapter 157; this idea and that of the crown in the next line are linked as well with the action of the feminine addressee in chapter 50, who shares in athletic contests. Just as the feminine figure in the epicleses provides “rest” (chapters 27 and 50) and “joy” (chapter 50), and bears the appelation “respite” (in chapter 50),41 the oil in chapter 157 is “symbol and joy of those who are weary.” It is linked with salvation here and in the prayer that accompanies the anointing itself in this chapter; elsewhere the idea of salvation, absent from the epicleses and other prayers over the oil, is found in the prayer to Jesus (chapter 25) that precedes the first initiation and in the appeal to the heavenly waters in chapter 52. Salvation is linked with the anointing also in the short prayer to Jesus spoken while the apostle is anointing the heads of the initiands in this chapter. And salvation is an important theme in the prayer and celebration of the Eucharist in this final initiation account (chapter 158). Finally, the oil gives light in darkness, surely an allusion to the ability of oil to provide light in torches and lamps, but also linked (especially through the use of oJ deiknuv") with the important characteristic of the Spirit and the oil to reveal what was previously unseen and unknown, a theme we have discussed at length.

39Suzanne Richard, “Olive,” in Harper’s Bible Dictionary, ed. Paul J. Achtemeier (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 727. 40The epicleses use ta; splavgcna and related forms, while the present passage employs oJ ejlehvmwn. The merciful oil here is also “heated by the force of the word,” perhaps an allusion to warm, soothing oils used for medicinal purposes. 41hJ ajnavpausi", hJ carav, and hJ hJsuciva, respectively.

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In a series of antitheses, the attributes of the olive tree are laid out: its leaves are bitter but its fruit sweet, it appears to be rough, but is smooth to the taste. Lastly, it appears to be weak, but bears power. Its power is that which contemplates everything, thus continuing the theme of revelation. The idea of power is, as we have seen, central to the oil in all the initiation scenes in the second half of the Acts of Thomas and a key theme in the prayer to Jesus that follows the prayer over the oil in chapter 157. Let us now turn to that brief prayer. The prayer just examined in chapter 157 is addressed to the “fruit,” but the apostle refers as well to the “wood” of the tree, in which dwells power. In the second prayer of chapter 157, the apostle asks Jesus to establish power in the oil. It is the power of the olive tree,42 a power that has already been established in the wood of the cross.43 It communicates a powerful message that overcomes the enemies of Jesus who crucified him. In this sense it bears the same attribute as the seal, which conquers adversaries. The apostle concludes with a request for the “gift” and a reference to Jesus’ powerful breath which the author understands is the force that made the guards arresting him fall to the ground (John 18:6). This same breath is the “gift” that the risen Jesus offers to his disciple in John 20:22, where it is explicitly identified as the Holy Spirit. When the apostle prays, in the Jesus prayer of chapter 157, that this power-bearing gift might dwell in the oil, he is praying precisely for the gift of the Spirit. Other references to “gift” in the Acts of Thomas, while less decisive, support this reading of Spirit as the anticipated gift. Mygdonia declares that she will receive a gift when she receives the seal (chapter 120). The bread of the Eucharist is declared worthy to receive 42Retaining the aujtou' (rather than emending to sou') before duvnami", in the section of the prayer that directly addresses Jesus (in opposition to Attridge, in his translation, n. 387). The aujtou' refers to the wood (to; xuvlon) rather than to Jesus. 43There is perhaps an allusion to the tradition that brings together the wood of the cross and the tree of life in the primordial garden, a tree sometimes envisioned as an olive tree. See the discussion, with abundant references, in Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 320–24. The identification of the tree of the cross and the olive tree, both associated with the tree of life in paradise, appears also, significantly, in the Gospel of Philip 73.8–19.

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a gift in a prayer of Thomas in chapter 133.44 And, although a different term is used (cavrisma instead of dwreav), the epiclesis in chapter 27 appeals to the feminine addressee as “highest charism.” The gift bestowed in all these instances would seem to be the Spirit. The prayer spoken by the apostle while he is anointing the heads of Vizan and the woman in chapter 157 provides a brief but telling understanding of the meaning of anointing. It provides remission of sins, a theme tied to baptism in the prayer in chapter 132,45 it gives defense from the adversary, a theme we have repeatedly noted, and provides salvation, elsewhere associated with initiation in general, the waters, or the Eucharist (as in the prayer in chapter 158 that follows). Of all the aspects of initiation in the rites narrated in the Acts of Thomas, the anointing clearly takes precedence, both in the rite described and in the prayers associated with the oil. The “seal” is most closely associated with the anointing, although it sometimes seems to indicate initiation in general. Accompanying the anointing are lengthy prayers, and the action of anointing the heads and bodies of the initiands is described in greater detail than is any other ritual. The prayers over the oil bear striking similarities to the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50; indeed, the oil not only has many of the same characteristics as the feminine addressee of those prayers (explicitly identified as the Spirit in chapter 27), but is clearly associated with the Johannine reference to the gift of the Spirit to the disciples. Spirit and oil are inextricably linked in the Acts of Thomas, a distinctive trait that carries through later writings in the Syrian tradition as well. The emphasis on the anointing, then, continues throughout the Syrian tradition, although eventually many of its characteristics are transferred to baptism, and a postbaptismal anointing is later added. There are, however, texts that share similarities with the Acts of Thomas that also emphasize the anointing. Two valuable sources are the Syriac

44In chapter 51, the eucharistic bread itself is a “gift” (cavrisma). 45But see my suggestion that this prayer might originally have been offered over the oil.

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History of John, the Son of Zebedee, and the Gospel of Philip from Nag Hammadi, a work evidencing a strong Thomas tradition. The Prominence of Anointing in Other Sources The Syriac History of John The History of John, the son of Zebedee is difficult to date, but the internal attribution of the work to Eusebius of Caesarea (who was certainly not its author) and the declaration that Ephesus was to be known as a “second sister to Urhai of the Parthians” suggest that it was written after the time of Eusebius, or at least after his publication of the conversion of Abgar, King of Edessa, became known.46 Its colorful descriptions of initiation center mainly on the consecration of the oil and water, but it also contains extensive information on the acts involved in the rite, including, in one scene, a double prebaptismal anointing. It is helpful as a witness to the development of the initiation rite and may contain traditional material embedded in its elaborate descriptions of baptism.47 There is no doubt that baptism figures prominently in the History of John, but the actual descriptions of initiation are more complex. Water is present in abundance and the baptism forms the core of the ritual, but it is preceded by elaborate activity over the oil and two anointings, one of the head alone and another of the whole body. The two accounts of initiation in the History of John bear similarities but are also distinct. Before the first account, a cistern must be cut, copious amounts of oil procured, and the vat filled. The apostle makes the sign of the cross over the oil and three times48 prays a

46On this dating, see William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, ix. See also the work of R. H. Connolly, “The Original Language of the Syriac Acts of John,” JTS 8 (1907): 24–61. Connolly dates the work no later than the end of the fourth century and possibly earlier. A. F. J. Klijn (“An Ancient Syriac Baptismal Liturgy in the Syriac Acts of John,” Novum Testamentum 6 [1963]: 216–28) criticizes the early dating but does not significantly alter it; he accepts a late fourth- or early fifth-century date. Wright believes that the tale was originally written in Greek, a version now lost, but Connolly convincingly argues for an origin in Syriac. 47This is the position of Klijn, “An Ancient Syriac Baptismal Liturgy in the Syriac Acts of John.” 48The first and third are identical. The sign of the cross over the oil follows the first doxology.

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doxology. After the third, a fire blazes over the oil, but the oil is not lit, since two angels, crying out the Sanctus, have their wings spread over the oil. Next, the water is signed and a doxology spoken; the angels then appear, again crying out, “Holy, holy, holy.” The initiation itself consists of a cross made in oil on the forehead, a whole-body anointing, a profession of faith, and a threefold immersion. Although the water is a prominent feature,49 and the angels hover over both oil and water, it is the consecration of the oil that is the more spectacular. The sanctification of the oil requires a prayer in triplicate, and results in a miraculous and awe-inspiring fire.50

49And, in fact, as the great multitude is initiated, baptism is all that is mentioned, although we may presume that the rite included anointing, since the crowd expressed concern that either the water or the oil might be depleted. 50In Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho 88.3, the water of the Jordan is ignited at Jesus’ baptism (“... and a fire blazed up in the Jordan”). As Jesus ascends from the water, the Spirit alights on him. The Spirit is not explicitly connected with the fire, but the fire seems to represent the presence of God. The light is found also in the Gospel of the Ebionites, as recorded by Epiphanius, Pan. 30.13.7: After Jesus’ baptism, the descent of the Spirit as a dove, and the sound of the voice from heaven, “a great light shone round about the place.” The presence of a bright light at the baptism of Jesus was a feature of the Diatesseron, suggesting the interesting possibility that Tatian learned it from Justin. Both the ninth-century Isho‘dad of Merv and Dionysius Bar Salibi, a twelfth-century Syrian bishop, quote the Diatesseron, using almost identical language: “And immediately, as the Gospel of the Diatessaron (i.e., the Mixed) testifies, a mighty light flashed upon the Jordan and the river was girdled with white clouds, and there appeared his many hosts that were uttering praise in the air; and Jordan stood still from its flowing, though its waters were not troubled, and a pleasant odor therefrom was wafted.” The translation is that of F. C. Burkitt, S. Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel (Texts and Studies 7.2; Cambridge: University Press, 1901), 68. For a critical edition of Bar Salibi, see I. Sedlacek and I.-B. Chabot, Dionysii Bar Salibi: Commentarii in Evangelia (CSCO 15–16, 77, 85, 95, 98, 113–114; CSCO Scriptores Syri 15–16, 33, 40, 47, 49, ser. 2, 98–99; Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1906–1940); the present reference is 15.159 (Syriac), 16.119 (Latin). For an English translation of Isho‘dad, see William L. Peterson, “Textual Evidence of Tatian’s Dependence upon Justin’s jAPOMNHMONEUMATA,” NTS 36 (1990): 512–34; translation on 516–17. The Syriac can be found in The Commentaries of Isho‘dad of Merv: bishop of Hadasha (c. 850 A.D.) (ed. Margaret Dunlop Gibson; 5 vols.; HSem 5–7, 10, 11; Cambridge: University Press, 1911–1916), 1.27. Burkitt points out that Bar Salibi may not be intending to claim that the entire passage is from Tatian, but only the first clause or the first few words. He suggests that the identical language in Isho‘dad probably indicates that the quotation comes from an early hymn, perhaps one of Ephrem’s. I think this is unlikely, given the context in Bar Salibi in which the quotation appears. Bar Salibi is providing a rabbinic style of commentary on the baptism of Jesus: “Some say …; Others say …; Still others say ….” As part of this list of quotations, Bar Salibi provides the above reference from the Diatessaron, before proceeding to quote the Gospel of John. He gives no indication that he is following anything but the Diatessaron itself, which he explicitly cites. The agreement between Tatian and Justin regarding the light (or “fire”) at Jesus’ baptism has long been recognized and forms part of the evidence adduced by William L. Petersen (“Textual Evidence of Tatian’s Dependence upon Justin’s jAPOMNHMONEUMATA”) in claiming that Tatian was dependent upon Justin, and that Justin most likely used a gospel harmony. See also Petersen’s work on the Diatessaron in his Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

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In the second initiation account, the font is prepared and tables assembled for the Eucharist. Only after the preparations are made is oil brought. Here John prays an epiclesis, directed to God, invoking the presence of the Spirit on the oil and water.51 Greater attention is given to the water, which is likened to the Jordan, a common motif in the classical Christian writers from Syria.52 But the presence of the fire and, in this case, the appearance of the angels, is associated only with the oil.53 In the description of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan in Jacob of Serugh, the sanctification of the water (and thereby all waters of the earth) is also described in terms of fire: “The Holy One came to the water to go down to be baptized; his fire kindled amongst the waves and set them alight.” See Jacob’s homilies in the edition ed. P. Bedjan, Homiliae Selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis (5 vols.; Paris: Harrassowitz, 1905–1910), 1.183. In one passage (1.174), it is the Holy Spirit who kindles the waters and makes them hot; usually, however, it is Christ himself. Fire is abundant in the description of Jesus’ baptism in Hymn 14 of Pseudo-Ephrem’s Hymns on Epiphany. Jesus himself is flaming fire, the air above the Jordan is fire, and the waters of the Jordan receive fire and Spirit from Jesus (14.32). “Watchers” are present, worshipping God. Ephrem himself in his Commentary on the Diatessaron 4.5 reads, “And when the splendor of light appeared over the water and the voice came from heaven ....” There is an echo here of the Diatessaron’s account of Jesus’ baptism. Light at Jesus’ baptism also appears in the “Gospel of the Hebrews” known to Epiphanius, Pan. 30.13.7: “And at once a great light illumined the place ....” In the Greek Acts of Paul and Thecla 3.34, in an example of Christian (self-) baptism, lightning flashes and a cloud of fire appears over the water when Thecla baptizes herself; the fire provides her with protection from beasts in the water and with modesty (Syriac History of Thecla, p. 137 [English] in Wright’s edition, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles). 51This differs significantly from the initiatory prayers in the Greek Acts of Thomas, none of which address God and only one of which addresses Jesus. Twice the Spirit is invoked, once the oil is addressed and once the “fruit” (probably the olive which produces the oil). In an initiatory Eucharist in chap. 133, Judas Thomas prays to the “bread of life.” Invoking God to send the Spirit becomes, of course, the standard form of prayer in initiation rites during and after the fourth century. See Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines.” 52This account perhaps provides an early example of what comes to be explicit identification of the baptismal font with the Jordan in which Jesus was baptized. The prayer alludes to the baptism of Jesus, but nowhere is the font clearly identified with the Jordan. Instead, appeal is made to the voice of God to sanctify the waters, just as God’s voice had spoken at Jesus’ baptism. The claim is made also that God was present at the Jordan and it is hoped that God will be manifest on the present occasion. Connolly (“Original Language of the Syriac Acts of John”) believes that this second baptismal ceremony in the History of John, in the prayer of John mentioning the Jordan, is alluding to the incident in the Diatessaron cited by Isho‘dad and Bar Salibi. But Connolly is misleading: The prayer is not that “God would manifest Himself as He did over Jordan,” although John does pray that God be made manifest, and allusion is made to the Jordan. Instead, the prayer is for sanctification of the water, accomplished, as at the Jordan, by God’s voice. Connolly may be correct in suggesting that some manuscripts of the Diatessaron, known to the author of the History of John, could have read “fire” (nura) for “light” (nuhra); the text known to Justin included a fire. But Connolly seems to forget that it is not over the water that the fire blazes, but over the oil. Connolly’s preference for “water” rather than “oil” in the manuscript tradition (see following note) does not affect this; both manuscripts of the History of John agree that in both initiation accounts it is the oil that is associated with the fire. It is likely that the accounts of initiation in the History of John reflect traditions that develop the theme of fire to signify the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is, then, possible that the presentation of the baptism of Jesus in the Diatessaron influenced the accounts of initiation in the History of John. But fire is elsewhere associated with the Spirit as well, most notably in the story of Pentecost in Acts. In the final

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I suggest that this represents an early tradition in Syria which gave emphasis to the oil and associated it with the coming of the Spirit. Indeed, in the early texts from Syria, “the oil is always very closely associated with the Holy Spirit.”54 It is the action of anointing that purifies, inspires, and draws the initiand into the heavenly realm, as is suggested by the use of the trishagion. In Isaiah 6:3ff, the Sanctus emphasizes the holiness of God, but the prophet is cleansed and made worthy to speak God’s word by an angel bearing a burning coal. The presence of the angels in the History of John testifies to the healing of the breach between heaven and earth, concentrated in the oil. It is there that God’s presence resides, understood elsewhere in the figure of the Spirit. The second initiation account in the History of John, while preserving much of the rite, probably represents a slightly later liturgical development, not only because of its greater emphasis on the water, but because the crowd joins in singing the Sanctus with the angels. No attempt is made, however, to balance the presence of the angels over both oil and water. Later tradition will present the Spirit hovering over the water as over the waters of creation. But in these primitive accounts, it is over the oil that God’s messengers spread their wings. The Gospel of Philip Numerous attempts to make sense of the sacramental system represented in the Gospel of Philip,55 a work perhaps contemporaneous with the Acts of Thomas and possibly stemming from the same region, have not resulted in a consensus regarding the meaning, or analysis, no claim of direct dependence can be firmly maintained, since the fire in the History of John is found over the oil, not the water, and since the references to the Diatessaron refer, not to fire, but to a great light. In addition, several early Christian authors, from the region of Syria and elsewhere, associate fire with Jesus’ baptism. Connolly’s suggestion, while intriguing, is not convincing. 53Connolly, “The Original Language of the Syriac Acts of John,” 256, disagrees with Wright’s choice of the reading in manuscript A; he prefers the reading of manuscript B, in which the angels spread their wings over the water rather than the oil. In this instance, however, manuscript A is to be preferred, since the same action in the first initiation account is over the oil, not the water. 54Sebastian Brock, “The Syrian Baptismal Ordines (with special reference to the anointings),” 181. 55For a thorough and recent treatment of the Gospel of Philip, see Hans-Martin Schenke, Das Philippus-Evangelium (Nag-Hammadi-Codex II,3) (TU 143; Berlin: Akademie, 1997).

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even the number, of sacraments represented in it. No attempt to clarify these issues will be made here. Instead, references, however oblique, to anointing and its relative value will simply be adduced, with attention also given to the practice of baptism. There is, again, no question that baptism is known in the work, as evidenced by the famous list on page 67: “The Lord [did] all things by means of a mystery: baptism, chrism, eucharist, ransom, and bridal chamber.”56 But the water is clearly less significant than the oil. Baptism and chrismation are often mentioned separately in the Gospel of Philip. More commonly, however, baptism and chrismation are joined. In a passage which clarifies the many images associated with the anointing, both water and oil are affirmed as necessary: “Through the holy spirit we are indeed begotten again, but we are begotten through Christ in the two. We are anointed through the spirit. When we were begotten we were united. None can see himself either in water or in a mirror without light. Nor again can you see in light without water or mirror. For this reason it is fitting to baptize in the two, in the light and the water. Now the light is the chrism” (69,4–14). Both water and oil are affirmed as necessary; neither is complete without the other.57 In the passage just examined, the anointing is associated with the Holy Spirit and with light; elsewhere fire is deemed an appropriate image. “It is from water and fire that the soul and the spirit came into being. It is from water and fire and light that the son of the bridal chamber (came into being). The fire is the chrism, the light is the fire” (67,2–6). And “there is water in water, there is fire in chrism” (57,27–28).58 The heavenly fire provides a 56Except for this quotation (trans. Martha Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 213), all translations from the Gospel of Philip are those of Wesley W. Isenberg, in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 139–60. Although bridal chamber receives a great deal of attention in some sections of the Gospel of Philip, in those sections compatible with the Thomas tradition, anointing takes on greater significance. 57Note that the term “baptism” is used to cover a rite involving both the water and the oil, a practice that may have been common elsewhere as well, suggesting that references to baptism alone cannot always be held to be exclusive of an anointing. 58This is another example of “sacramental exemplarism,” the idea that in the spiritual realm exist heavenly counterparts to the elements present in ritual actions. See M. Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 208ff.

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light that is put on, so that the person might become “perfect light” (76,26–27); when all wickedness is “removed from the midst of the seed of the holy spirit,” the “perfect light will flow out on every one” (85,22–27). There is a desired benefit to being clothed in the light; it is protective: “The powers do not see those who are clothed in the perfect light, and consequently are not able to detain them” (70,5–7). The light is necessary for salvation; the resurrected life that begins in the present is able to continue because of the protection afforded by the perfect light. No wonder it is said that resurrection is gotten from chrism (73,18–19).59 In addition to the hidden fire, there is also a “concealed” Holy Spirit and a “revealed” Holy Spirit (59,11–19). The Holy Spirit is necessary to make one a Christian; water alone is insufficient: “If one go down into the water and come up without having received anything and says, ‘I am a Christian,’ he has borrowed the name at interest. But if he receive the holy spirit, he has the name as a gift” (64,22–27; see also 67,19–24). The explicit claim that the anointing is superior to baptism is found in a passage that has been identified as stemming from the Thomas tradition native to Syria:60 “The chrism is superior to baptism, for it is from the word ‘chrism’ that we have been called ‘Christians,’61 certainly not because of the word ‘baptism.’ And it is because of the chrism that ‘the Christ’ has his name. For the father anointed the son, and the son anointed the

59This passage discusses an olive tree, from which the chrism is obtained. It is perhaps a tree in paradise, since it is contrasted with the tree of life in the middle of the garden (the garden planted, ironically, by Joseph the carpenter). On a tour of paradise in the Apocalypse of Paul, chap. 45, Paul sees a tree, the source of the four rivers of paradise, over which the Spirit hovers. It, too, is contrasted with the tree of life. Since elsewhere the Gospel of Philip associates the Spirit with the chrism (as is common in the Syrian tradition), there seems to have existed at one time a tradition of a primordial tree, inhabited by the spirit, that produces the oil—itself conveying the Spirit—used in anointing. The Apocalypse of Paul was known in Syria. 60Martha Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 74–75. The possibility of a Syrian provenance for the Gospel of Philip has been suggested. Clearly the collector of the various materials gathered in this work relied on Thomas materials, although probably at an earlier stage than that evident in the extant works associated with Thomas. For further discussion, see Martha Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 206–26. 61The idea that the anointing is what gives Christians their name is found as well in Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 1.12.

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apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He who has been anointed possesses everything. He possesses the resurrection, the light, the cross, the holy spirit” (74,12–21). Water baptism, although not left behind, has certainly taken a back seat. The anointing, then, is that which brings the Holy Spirit into the life of the initiate. Within the chrism is a light, donned by the initiate, that protects the person from hostile powers, probably understood to be those attempting to snatch the soul on its ascent to the heavenly realm.62 But the resurrection life, which is given in the chrism, begins on earth. The light of the chrism reflects a superterrestrial fire. And in a beautiful passage building on the Pauline teaching on love in 1 Corinthians, spiritual love is likened to a fragrant oil, which gives pleasure to those who are anointed and to those near them. Although anointing does not stand alone in the Gospel of Philip, I suspect that its dominant role is one element that the work inherited from the Thomas traditions in Syrian Christianity. The idea of a supernatural fire infusing the oil may, in addition, lie behind the stories of the fire over the oil in the Syriac History of John. Early in the Syrian tradition, oil clearly takes precedence over water.63 We have seen that the anointing is the most important element in the initiation rite in early Syriac-speaking Christianity. The oil is associated with the Holy Spirit, both in the prayers in the Acts of Thomas and in related passages from the region. Among other things, the anointing protects the initiates from adversaries, bears compassion, is associated with the

62Note that the seal provides this protection in the Acts of Thomas. 63Even in the classical Syrian tradition, in which baptism is celebrated, the anointing remains strikingly important, increasing in number to three and retaining a theological significance unique to this region. Both Ephrem and Aphrahat expound on Christ as the olive which produces life-giving oil (see Ephrem, Hymns on Virginity 6 and 7; Aphrahat, Demonstrations 23). In another work, difficult to date, that may stem from Syriac-speaking Christianity, oil is also prominent. In retelling the marriage between Joseph and the Egyptian woman Aseneth (generally known in the manuscripts as The Prayer of Aseneth), Aseneth leaves behind her former worship and prays to the God of Joseph. A heavenly figure approaches and promises her a new life, declaring that she will eat the bread of life, drink a cup of immortality, and be anointed with the ointment of incorruptibility. For an intriguing discussion of this text and its affinities with Syriac-speaking Christianity, see Ross Shepard Kraemer, When Aseneth met Jospeh: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and his Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York: Oxford, 1998), esp. chap. 9.

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name of Christ, reveals that which is hidden, and bears power, all attributes of the Spirit in the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50. In the distinctive imagery of Syriac-speaking Christianity, the many gifts of the Spirit given to Christians by Jesus are bestowed in the fragrant, healing oil of anointing. Eucharist Second in importance to the anointing in the initiation accounts of the Acts of Thomas is the Eucharist (often referred to simply as sharing in the bread and cup).64 The epiclesis in chapter 50 is spoken over the bread of the Eucharist, and the rite itself is intriguing. We will turn now to examine the rite, noting especially differences between the Syriac and Greek versions regarding the contents of the cup, followed by a brief examination of the meaning accorded the Eucharist in the Acts of Thomas. A sharing in some form of Eucharist is a feature in every initiation account, and is found almost exclusively in initiatory scenes. The only non-initiatory Eucharist in the Acts of Thomas is that in chapter 29.65 All five scenes, and that of the Lord’s Day Eucharist of chapter 29, mention that the apostle broke and distributed the bread, apparently the indispensable aspect of the rite,66 but never is the content of the bread specified.67 Only in

64For convenience, I speak of a “eucharistic rite” for these passages, even when the term “Eucharist” is itself absent. The term “eucharist” appears in chapters 26–27, 29 (the Lord’s Day Eucharist), 49–51, and 158. 65Andrew McGowan (Ascetic Eucharists, 115–16 and 192), suggests the possibility that the earlier meal of chapter 29, consisting of bread, oil, an herb, and salt, is a ritual meal, although he stops short of identifying it as eucharistic. It is clearly not eucharistic (the apostle, in the Greek, fasts from it in anticipation of the Sabbath, when Eucharist is celebrated, and, aside from the fact that the food is blessed, nothing would suggest a eucharistic context). The meal offers, rather, an example of ascetic cuisine. 66The distribution is described as making the participants partakers in the Eucharist (chapter 27) or sharers in the body of Christ and cup of Son of God (chapter 121). 67The content of the bread, unlike the content of the cup, does not seem to have concerned the Christians of the first several centuries. Enrico Mazza (The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of its Interpretation [trans. Matthew J. O’Connell; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1999]) suggests that, in general, one would expect the bread of the eucharist to be unleavened bread, if the celebration is based on the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper as told in the Synoptics (and therefore a Passover meal). But there is, of course, evidence of eucharistic rites that seem to know nothing of the Last Supper account; the best known is that of Didache 9. The bread of the poor was

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chapter 50 does the apostle make a cross on the bread, and only in chapters 133 and 158 does he bless the bread (and, in chapter 158, the cup), although it is identified as the “bread of blessing” in chapter 49. The first initiatory scene is the only one that specifies the time of day: the Eucharist is shared at dawn, after a nocturnal anointing that emphasizes the theme of illumination (chapter 27). The Lord’s Day Eucharist of chapter 29 is also early in the morning. Of the five scenes, only two involve a cup. The cup in chapter 121 in the Greek contains water, while the contents of that in chapter 158 are either not specified in the Greek manuscripts or the cup is said to contain water.68 Although a prayer is prayed over both bread and cup in chapter 158, the participants share only in the bread. The Syriac version alters references to the cup in an orthodox direction, as so often happens in the initiatory scenes in this work. The eucharistic rite itself is unaltered in chapters 27 and 50, but the British Library manuscript specifies the contents of the cup in the three remaining scenes. We have seen that, in chapter 120, after Mygdonia’s nurse offers to bring jugs of wine and loaves of bread, Mygdonia objects to the copious amounts, insisting that she needs only a “mingled” draft in a cup.69 The description of the rite itself in chapter 121 leaves the contents of the cup unspecified. But the Syriac shows signs of alteration here as well, since the cup is awkwardly made the object, with the bread, of the action of breaking, in contrast to the Greek which employs separate participles for the bread and the “cup of water.” After the baptism in chapter 133, the British Library manuscript specifies that the apostle brought forth both bread and wine (although the wine is ignored in both the prayer Judas speaks and the description of what is shared), and, in chapter 158, the simple “cup” made of barley and one might expect barley loaves in the eucharistic celebrations of an ascetic community, but the Acts of Thomas is silent in this regard. See the brief discussions of barley in McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, 37–38 and 95. 68Mss. KRU lack a specification of the cup’s contents, while P and V indicate, in different ways, that the cup contained water. 69In the Sachau manuscript, Mygdonia twice objects to the amount of wine offered.

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becomes a “mingled” cup. Significantly, both of these changes are missing from the earliest Syriac manuscript, that of Sinai. The Cambridge70 and Sachau manuscripts are also lacking the reference to wine in chapter 133.71 The only possible occurrence of wine or a mixed cup in the Greek tradition is found in the third initiation scene, in Mygdonia’s preference for tou'to de; movnon, krasi;n u{dato". What is included in the “mix,” besides water, is not specified but the simplest explanation is that of wine and water. Significantly, however, the important manuscript U, one of only two to contain this passage (the other is P, second only to U in comprehensiveness), evidences confusion at this point. In addition, both U and P specify that the apostle offers a cup of water to the participants in the eucharistic rite itself. It appears clear, then, that references to wine or a mixed cup in the initiatory scenes of the Acts of Thomas indicate alteration of the text.72 The only possible exception is in chapter 120, but the evidence is ambiguous and the accompanying rite clearly includes a cup of water only. It is safe to say that the eucharistic celebration known to the earliest authors and editors of the initiatory scenes in the Acts of Thomas was of an ascetic nature and wine was avoided.73 The understanding of the eucharistic rituals in the Acts of Thomas varies. The bread is regularly shared only after anointing and baptism (when the latter is present), and chapter 50 specifies that it was distributed to those who had received the seal. The eucharistic bread has the ability to convict one of wrongdoing; when a murderer approaches to receive it, his

70According to A. Smith Lewis (Acta Mythologica Apostolorum, xli). I have not had the opportunity to examine the unpublished Cambridge ms. myself. 71Sachau does include a “mingled” cup in chapter 158. 72The emphasis on bread and water in the eucharistic celebrations in the Acts of Thomas, and the variety in pre-Constantinian eucharistic practices in general, is noted by Cyrille Vogel, “Anaphores eucharistiques préconstantiniennes: Formes non traditionnelles,” Augustinianum 20 (1980): 401–10. 73McGowan (Ascetic Eucharists, 193), notes the general negative evaluation of wine in the Acts of Thomas, resulting from the “anti-sacrificial” character of the work (since wine was used in pagan sacrifice), and its relationship with the ascetic character of the work.

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hands shrivel up and he is unable to bring the bread to his mouth. Elsewhere the Eucharist is for “remission of sins” (chapters 50,74 133, 158) or brings “salvation” (chapter 158). No words are spoken over the bread (or cup) in chapters 27 or 121, but chapter 50 includes the epiclesis, chapter 133 has a prayer addressed directly to the bread as well as a second blessing, and chapter 158 includes a long prayer directed to Jesus. There is little in the theology of the prayers that they share in common. References to the bread and wine as Jesus’ body and blood appear in the Acts of Thomas, but not with great frequency. Prior to the epiclesis over the bread in chapter 50, the apostle offers a prayer to Jesus in which he asks that the participants might “partake of the Eucharist of your sacred body and blood.” This prayer is problematic, addressed as it is to Jesus (the epiclesis is clearly directed to a feminine figure), although it incorporates elements characteristic of the epiclesis (calling on the holy name, the appeal to “come”).75 We have already seen that the epiclesis itself arose in a setting independent of the Acts of Thomas and was inserted here, most likely by the author of the second half of the work. Perhaps the appeal to “Come and partake with us” led this redactor to insert the epiclesis, with its repeated adjurations, in this context. Except for the closing line, nothing in the epiclesis corresponds with a eucharistic setting. In that final line, the Eucharist is said to be in “your name,” just as the earlier Jesus prayer declared that the participants were calling upon Jesus’ name, and the appeal is made to share in the ajgavph. There are two possibilities for reconciling the conflicting references to the “name” and for determining the original form of the prayers. Either the epiclesis originally appealed to the Spirit rather than Jesus to share in the Eucharist, necessitating, in the present form of the prayer, that the Eucharist be understood to be offered in her name, or the Jesus prayer was inserted prior to the epiclesis.

74The awkward phrase, “for the remission of sins and eternal transgressions,” in the Greek becomes “for the remission of transgressions and sins and for the everlasting resurrection” in the Syriac. 75In ms. P, the prayer is shortened: immediately after “body and blood,” the apostle cries out, “Come and partake with us.” It is tempting to see some sign of greater antiquity in this more direct appeal, although the address to Jesus remains awkward just prior to the epiclesis.

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There has clearly been tampering with the text although the precise location and theological direction of it are not entirely evident.76 The eucharistic scene of chapter 121 includes as well the statement that Mygdonia becomes a “sharer in the body of Christ and in the cup of the Son of God.” Perhaps because the cup contains water only,77 a reference to Jesus’ blood would be inappropriate. At any rate, these are the only terms by which this part of the third initiation ritual is identified. Chapter 158 includes a long prayer of the apostle over the bread and cup. In it appears a developed eucharistic theology, in which the participants eat “your holy body that was crucified for us” and drink “your blood that was shed for us.” A series of antitheses follows, in which the various trials endured by Jesus in his passion are contrasted with the hopes of the celebrating community. The prayer declares that the “body” can be for salvation and the “blood” for remission of sins. Of all the prayers offered in a eucharistic context, the first one in chapter 133 might have the greatest claim to antiquity. The prayer directly addresses the bread, calling to mind the prayer to the “fruit” in chapter 157 and that to the “holy oil” in chapter 121.78 The bread is “bread of life,” bestowing incorruptibility and immortality on those who consume it. It brings “remission of sins,” a theme appearing also in chapters 50 and 158. The bread is, as well, worthy to receive a “gift.” I argued above that the “gift” requested in a prayer over the oil in chapter 158 is precisely the Spirit, which brings power; in that context it is the

76I am inclined to think that the final line of the epiclesis was changed to fit the context. This does not preclude the possibility that the Jesus prayer is itself a later addition or has been altered. 77This is clear in the immediate context, but see the discussion above regarding the contents of this cup. 78See the discussion of these prayers and the notion of “sacramental exemplarism” in M. Turner, The Gospel According to Philip, 208–18. The best example of “sacramental exemplarism” in the Acts of Thomas is the prayer over the water in chapter 52, which appeals to heavenly waters to come dwell in these earthly waters. Turner argues convincingly that the other prayers to ritual elements may originally have shared that form, but, occuring as they do in initiatory contexts, suffered revision at the hands of subsequent editors.

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power of the oil which is akin to that of Jesus in vanquishing his enemies. The “gift” here is also that of the Spirit and links this prayer with the epicleses, as is also evident in the pronunciation of the name of the “Mother” over the bread.79 Also pronounced is the name of an “ineffable mystery” and of “hidden authorities and powers.” Recall that the “Mother” in the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 is precisely the figure who knows and reveals hidden mysteries and the Spirit is associated with power in chapter 158 and in the epiclesis of chapter 27. The second prayer over the bread in chapter 133 also shows signs of antiquity, as well as signs of having been updated. The apostle prays that the “power of the blessing” might come, a power that we have seen is associated elsewhere with the Spirit. The thirdperson appeal to “come” may be secondary, perhaps to accord with the address to Jesus in the final line of the preceding prayer. We have seen that the physical elements of bread, water, and oil are themselves addressed in the most ancient prayers; only later does an appeal to Jesus develop and, eventually (in other texts), to the Father. The apostle also requests that the bread be “established” (ejnidruvsqw), a term that was applied to the power of the wood that was to come into the oil in chapter 157, and the power that was to be established in Mygdonia, as the result of anointing, in chapter 121. The close association of the term “power” in this prayer in chapter 133 as well suggests that the prayer originally sought that the power might be established in the bread. The power also releases the recipient of the bread from sin, a claim similar to that made (“remission of sins”) in the previous prayer and applied as well to sharing the bread in chapter 50 and the “blood” in chapter 158, and of the anointing in chapter 157 and baptism in chapter 132.

79The awkward change of address to Jesus in the last line suggests that the prayer was altered here to clarify the bearer of the powerful name. The Syriac editor of this passage was exceedingly uncomfortable with the entire direction of appeal and changed it to a triadic statement, eliminating reference to the “Mother” here as elsewhere in the work.

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Participation in the Eucharist leads to happy ends. In addition to “incorruptibility” and “immortality” (chapter 133),80 the “bread of life” (chapter 133) brings “salvation, joy, and health of soul” (chapter 158).81 The apostle prays in chapter 29, at the Lord’s Day Eucharist, that the Eucharist might produce “compassion and pity and not judgment and retribution”;82 “just judgment” is a theme as well in the prayer over the bread and cup in chapter 158, where it is associated with Jesus’ resurrection. These themes recall the emphasis on compassion in the epithets for the Spirit in the epicleses, and the protection offered by the seal against heavenly adversaries. The eschatological allusion recalls, as well, the similar forward-looking understanding of the Eucharist in Didache 9.83 Finally the theme of “sharing” or “partaking” of the eucharistic elements is found in three initiatory Eucharists. It is absent from the description of the Lord’s Day Eucharist in chapter 29, and missing as well from the last eucharistic celebration in chapter 158. Although the participants are not said to be “sharers” in chapter 50, the closing line of the epiclesis in chapter 50 asks the addressee to share with them in their Eucharist and in their ajgavph. Although the rest of the epiclesis has been addressed to a feminine figure, this final

80Characteristics also of the “true marriage” in chapter 124 which leads to eternal life; and see the similar theme in chapter 15. 81After Mygdonia has received anointing, baptism, and Eucharist in chapter 121, the apostle declares, “You have received your seal and acquired eternal life for yourself.” Although the statement itself does not differentiate between the various aspects of the rite, it is tempting to view the “seal” in chap. 121, as elsewhere, in reference to the anointing, and to associate “eternal life” with the Eucharist. Elsewhere, however, eternal life is connected with the Christian life in general and not limited to sacramental actions (e.g., chapters 139 and 150, where it is coupled with “rest”; the use in chapter 120, however, in the context of preparing for initiation, suggests an association with the ritual actions). 82The apostle, in the Syriac of chapter 50, prays that the Eucharist might be for “life and rest,” key themes found elsewhere in the work, “not for judgment and vengeance.” 83Did. 9.4: “As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, but was brought together and became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom, for thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.” ET Kirsopp Lake in The Apostolic Fathers, LCL.

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line could form an inclusio with the earlier prayer addressed to Jesus and be, in its present form, an appeal to him.84 The celebration of Eucharist in the Acts of Thomas is an important aspect of initiation, although descriptions of it are brief and themes and terminology vary. The most elaborate eucharistic prayer, that in chapter 158, incorporates several key themes (power, newness of life) but does so in a detached manner (the prayer is directed to Jesus, but he is nowhere named; the bread and cup are touched on only briefly in the prayer), suggesting that it is rather late and was originally independent of its present location. The prayer with the strongest claim to antiquity, the first in chapter 133, is addressed directly to the bread and has several themes in common with the epicleses. The prayer immediately following it, also evidencing themes found in the epicleses, is similar to that concerning the oil in chapter 157 and emphasizing the power of the Spirit. Although the Spirit is associated, first and foremost, with the oil of anointing, she is also present in the eucharistic rites. It is difficult to know if the eucharistic epiclesis in chapter 50 was always employed in a eucharistic context in its use by Christians85 or if it was originally associated with anointing. In its present context, however, it fittingly appeals to the Spirit, elsewhere called the gift of Jesus, who comes in power to transform those who have a share in her. She is present in the oil, but also, at least at a final stage of redaction of the Acts of Thomas, in the bread of the Eucharist as well.

84Thus, “your name” would refer to that of Jesus. But the “name” of Christ seems to apply to the Spirit as well, as in the epiclesis in chapter 27. 85The epicleses may have originated in a non-Christian setting before being adopted by Christians and employed in the Acts of Thomas. See the suggestion of Bornkamm that the prayers were initially addressed to the Dea Syria or another Mother goddess figure (Mythos und Legende in den apokryphen Thomas-Akten, 89–103).

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Baptism Baptism is relatively unimportant in the initiatory scenes of the Acts of Thomas.86 It is completely absent from the first two accounts of initiation in the Greek, and touched on only briefly in the descriptions of the rite in chapters 121, 132, and 157. Only in a prayer in chapter 132 is much attention given to baptism in the Greek. This pattern changes significantly in the Syriac, in which elaborate—but clearly secondary—descriptions of baptismal preparations appear. In chapter 27, the king, one of the initiands, orders the preparation of a bathhouse for the rite, and in chapter 50, a nearby river provides the water. The three baptismal scenes in the second half of the Acts of Thomas in Syriac follow those in Greek, with relatively minor variations. The water rite in chapters 121, 132, and 157 is quite similar and strikingly simple. The initiands, already undressed,87 are baptized with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the lack of clothing would suggest a baptism of immersion, only in chapter 157 do they go “down” into the water. A basin, the size of which is unspecified, apparently holds the water in chapter 132, while a fountain supplies it in chapter 121. The understanding of the rite is unembellished as well. No prayer is ever spoken over the water, nor is there any pronouncement of its meaning, except in chapter 132. Here,

86In the Greek, “baptism” occurs in the title of the tenth act (no corresponding title exists in the Syriac), while the verb baptivzw is employed twice in that act, in the initiation ceremony of chap. 121. The Syriac ‘bd is used in the first instance; the second does not occur in the Syriac (Mygdonia is said simply to “come out” of the water). The term for “baptism” is used repeatedly in the initiation scene of chaps. 132–133, especially notable in the prayer of Judas in this context. Not only does the Syriac match each occurrence with some form of ‘bd, it even adds another reference, in the prayer of Judas. Again, the term “baptism” is used in the title of Act 13 in the Greek; the title is not found in the Syriac. Two additional references to baptism (in chaps. 16 and 27) are found in some Greek manuscripts, those evidencing an abbreviated form in the first two acts. In the first instance, “joining” the apostle is assumed to require baptism: “they went away and joined him” becomes “they went away and were both baptized.” The epitomizer also ignores the interesting complexity of the initiation rite in chap. 27, leaves off the prayer entirely, and summarizes the entire action by supplying a familiar ritual, saying that “the apostle, pouring [presumably water], baptized them in the bath of grace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” 87This is made explicit in chapter 157; in chapter 132–133, no mention is made of disrobing, but there is need for them to dress after the water rite. In chapter 121, Mygdonia removes her usual clothes, but wears a light garment for baptism.

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the apostle speaks about baptism, then prays to one who is variously represented by masculine and feminine terms.88 The prayer appears in only two manuscripts, U and P, which differ in content. Finally, the prayer precedes the initial ritual action, that of the anointing. The entire section is problematic. Baptism is described in this chapter by means of terms and images elsewhere used of the anointing and, sometimes, of Eucharist. Baptism is “remission of sins,” which we have seen elsewhere to apply to anointing and Eucharist. In U, baptism gives birth to the light and to a new person and puts the Spirit into a person. Although the theme of newness of life applies to the Christian life in general and especially to initiation into that life, the mention of light and, as we have seen, Spirit, fit more properly with anointing in this work. Both U and P include an ambiguous reference to a triple generation, which would seem to be an allusion to the threefold name spoken over the baptizand. U then proceeds to repeat the claim that baptism involves “remission of sins” before beginning the “Glory to you” prayer, but, according to P, one whose soul is thus triply generated has a share in the Holy Spirit. Whatever the triple generation might mean, the mention of sharing the Holy Spirit certainly points toward anointing more readily than toward baptism. The “Glory to you” prayer in both U and P clearly mentions baptism. U addresses an “ineffable one” and “renewal,” a term contrasted, in chapter 158, with Jesus’ tomb and burial. In contrast, P declares glorious the one who puts on the “bath of baptism,” and lauds the one who ransoms people from error and makes them sharers in koinwniva; the final line of P recalls the effects of baptism and links this prayer with the closing lines of the eucharistic epiclesis in chapter 50. Both U and P, significantly, share one epithet: both praise the “hidden power” (U: “in baptism”), a characteristic, as we have seen elsewhere, of the Spirit.

88The prayer is represented by only two manuscripts, U and P. While P appears to be somewhat more corrupt than U (but both require emendation), both manuscripts have a threefold address in the prayer; one element in both is the feminine “power,” while the other two elements take the form of masculine participles.

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The Syriac of this prayer may be of interest. The British Library manuscript89 includes essentially the same introductory comments regarding baptism, but proceeds with an embellished version of the “Glory to you” prayer, a version that emphasizes even more (three times) the hidden power revealed in the sacrament. The prayer over the oil is significant in this regard as well; it is directed to the “fruit,” the name of the Messiah, and the “hidden power that dwells in the Messiah.” The address to the “fruit” ties this prayer even more closely to that over the oil in chapter 157, in which “power” is emphasized and which is followed by a prayer that asks the power to enter the oil. The power here, in the Syriac of chapter 132, is clearly linked to the name of Christ, the initial epithet in the Spirit epiclesis of chapter 27. The speech and prayer regarding baptism in chapter 132 is difficult to analyze, both because of the garbled Greek in U and P, and because of the intriguing differences found in the Syriac. I have argued above that I think the prayer praising baptism was originally linked with the prayer over the oil and itself addressed to the oil, because of its location prior to the anointing, its image of light, and the mention of the Spirit. The difficulties in the Greek, and the clarity of the Syriac, suggest as well, that something has been lost from or altered in the Greek. The Syriac, it must be noted, clearly contains two prayers, the first of which addresses baptism, but the elements of this prayer accord better with what can be said of the effects of anointing. The most that can be said about the theology of baptism in the Acts of Thomas, then, is that it shares in several of the characteristics of anointing. If the prayer of the apostle in chapter 132 was originally applied to anointing, then we can know nothing about the understanding of the water rite in the Greek version of this work. At any rate, baptism is of little significance, even when it is present in the initiatory scenes in the Acts of Thomas.

89Sinai begins in the same way as the London ms., but has only one mention of “hidden power” (following “forgiveness” instead of “glory,” an understandable scribal error in Syriac) “in the Messiah.” Although it is intriguing that almost the entirety of both “Glory to you” prayers is missing in Sinai, this was most likely due to a simple case of homoioteleuton.

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Conclusion The priority given anointing in the intiatory scenes of the Acts of Thomas has long been noted, beginning in antiquity. Other works with material stemming from the region likewise emphasize the anointing and even declare its superiority. Only the extant Greek Acts of Thomas suggests that the water rite may not always have been required for initiation in the region, and this was clearly uncomfortable to some, as embellishments in the initiation accounts of the Syriac version make clear. The oil of anointing is, as we have seen, associated with the Spirit in the Acts of Thomas. It is merciful, revelatory, and bears power. The oil is capable of bearing a gift, and the gift is precisely that of the Spirit. The term most often used to discuss initiation in the Acts of Thomas is that of “seal” (or “sign”). Most often it applies to anointing, although sometimes it seems to refer to initiation in general, but in all cases, the anointing is the central element of the iniation rites. The seal identifies ownership, protects, illuminates, and is life-giving. The seal is also that which admits one to share in Eucharist. Although the eucharistic rite in the Acts of Thomas sometimes includes a cup, originally containing only water, the participants always partake only in the bread. References to Jesus’ “body” and “blood,” therefore, appear to be rather late. The Eucharist leads to immortality, and results in compassion. The bread can also receive a “gift” of power, that is, the Spirit. Baptism, despite common assumptions to the contrary, is of little significance in this work. If it bears any meaning at all, it is for remission of sins and brings about a new birth. Although the original Sitz im Leben of the epicleses in Christian contexts appears to have been liturgical, it is not entirely clear if they were both employed in initiation or, if so, precisely what aspect of initiation. What is clear is that they are addressed to a feminine figure, the Spirit of God. It is intriguing that the theology of anointing and that of Eucharist evident in the initiatory materials of the Acts of Thomas both include elements found in 171

these epicleses. The charismatic Spirit, which transforms the ritual elements and the recipients of the rites of anointing and sharing in the bread, is a Spirit of power in the epicleses and in other initiatory prayers. The redactor of the first half of the Acts of Thomas seems to have taken two prayers from a common context and skillfully employed them in the initiatory settings that prove most appropriate, given the significance accorded to anointing and Eucharist in the region. It is, perhaps, impossible to say if the theology associated with anointing and Eucharist in the second half of the work grew out of the use of the epicleses in initiation, or if the understandings already accompanied the rites, leading the redactor to choose the epicleses to illustrate a theology already present. But, despite the complicated textual and redactional history of the Acts of Thomas, the understanding of anointing and, to a lesser extent, of Eucharist, is remarkably consistent in the work, and can be summed up by examining the key claims found in the two Spirit epicleses. An analysis of important aspects of the epicleses themselves, and their relationship to other materials external to the Acts of Thomas, will, I hope, illuminate even further the meaning of these two fascinating prayers. Excursus: The Development of Anointing Rituals in Syriac-Speaking Christianity In the Acts of Thomas, as in the other representatives of Syriac-speaking Christianity, an anointing precedes baptism. Sometimes a second anointing is included. When two anointings are present, the first is usually understood to be of the head only and the second of the entire body. Eventually, a postbaptismal anointing developed as well. The number and meaning of the anointings have been central concerns. It is generally agreed that there was originally no postbaptismal anointing in the region of Syria, and the prebaptismal anointing was with olive oil, not with myrrh.90 Chrysostom, from western Syria, in a homily of 388, did not know a postbaptismal anointing but by 400 it is

90See Sebastian Brock, “The Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” 215.

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specified in the Apostolic Constitutions.91 In eastern Syria, an explicit postbaptismal anointing is not known until the seventh century.92 Due to the varying accounts of initiation in the Acts of Thomas, it has been suggested that there was originally an anointing of the head, followed by a full-body anointing by a woman or man.93 It should be noted, however, that anointing of the entire body is mentioned in the Acts of Thomas only when women are being initiated and Thomas needs to ask a woman to anoint the other women while he anoints the men.94 It is possible that such occasions gave rise to the mention of the fullbody anointing and that the other accounts of anointing assume that the entire body is anointed as well as the head.95 A. F. J. Klijn96 assumes that the original anointing was of the entire body. It is also possible, of course, that the rite was not uniform at the time in question or that different stages of the tradition are represented in the work. Gabrielle Winkler97 believes there was a gradual and linear development in the form of the rite, beginning with a prebaptismal anointing of the head, to which was added an anointing of the body and eventually a postbaptismal anointing. She rejects the suggestions of E. C. Ratcliff98 that the adoption of a postbaptismal anointing in the churches of the east

91Brock, “The Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” 215; also Bernard Botte, “Postbaptismal Anointing in the Ancient Patriarchate of Antioch,” Studies on Syrian Baptismal Rites (ed. Jacob Vellian; The Syrian Church Series 6; Kottayam: C.M.S. Press, 1973), 63. 92Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 21. 93Edward J. Duncan, Baptism in the Demonstrations of Aphraates the Persian Sage (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1945); also Brock, “Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” 216. 94The Didascalia (3.12) specifies that a woman is to anoint the bodies of the other women, but if no woman is available, the bishop himself is to anoint them. 95 So Harold W. Attridge, in his unpublished Introduction to the Acts of Thomas, 15. 96“An Ancient Syriac Baptismal Liturgy in the Syriac Acts of John,” 227. 97“The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and its Implications,” 27. 98“The Old Syrian Baptismal Tradition,” 85–99.

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occurred as a result of influence from Jerusalem, and of Bernard Botte,99 who suggests that the postbaptismal anointing originally was used to reconcile heretics who wanted to join the Great Church. Botte considers it “absurd” to think that the ancient Syrians understood the prebaptismal anointing to confer the Spirit; he believes it signified only the intention of conferring the Spirit. Unfortunately for his argument he can find no literary evidence to support his theory. Sebastian Brock100 argues that the postbaptismal anointing was introduced, in part, as the baptism of Christ became increasingly seen as the model for the baptismal rite as a whole. Since the gospels record that the Holy Spirit appeared only after Jesus emerged from the water, the Holy Spirit, associated with the oil, would have to be conferred on the believer after the baptism in water as well. He also sees the duplication of the prebaptismal anointing as a result of contact with the traditions of the west,101 influence of bathing practices during which the body was anointed, and divisions of labor in the sacerdotal offices.102 Brock’s acceptance of the centrality of the baptism of Jesus in influencing the Syrian rite follows the thesis of Winkler. She posits that the prebaptismal anointing in the Syrian churches was originally understood to convey the gift of the Spirit because it resembled the anointing of the head of Israelite priest-kings, an anointing which also conferred the Spirit. In Jesus’ baptism, at which he is anointed priest and king, the anointing with God’s Spirit is signified by the presence of the dove. Since the believer’s baptism recalls that baptism of Jesus, the anointing became the “visible gesture for the central event

99“Postbaptismal Anointing,” 63–71. 100“Transition to a Post-Baptismal Anointing in the Antiochene Rite,” 221. 101He accepts the thesis that it was introduced from Jerusalem. See “Baptismal Themes in the Writings of Jacob of Serugh,” Symposium Syriacum 1976 (OrChrAn 205; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1978), 344 n. 117. 102Brock, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (The Syrian Churches Series 9; Poona: Anita Printers, 1979), 25.

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at Christ’s baptism: his revelation as the Messiah-King through the descent of the Spirit.”103 The loss of this symbolism began with the introduction of the anointing of the whole body, eventually resulting in the reinterpretation of the prebaptismal anointing as an apotropaic ritual. Baptism was no longer seen as a birth but as dying with Christ; the catechumen could not be understood to receive the Spirit in the anointing without first being cleansed of sin through the water rite. The postbaptismal anointing therefore took on the meaning originally associated with the prebaptismal oil. Winkler claims that, in the oldest Syriac documents, “Christian baptism is shaped after Christ’s baptism in the Jordan.”104 But she fails to address why, if baptism was originally seen as a mimesis of the Jordan event, the prebaptismal anointing was ever understood to confer the Spirit,105 since the dove appeared at the baptism of Jesus, as later Syrian poets relish pointing out, only after his emergence from the water. She is correct in understanding the prebaptismal anointing as conferring the Spirit and also correctly notes that, at some point, the baptism of Christ comes to serve as the basis for Christian baptism, but the order of events and their signification cannot be taken so literally. She herself also points out that the traditions of baptism known to Semitic Christians (even if Romans 6 was intentionally or unintentionally ignored) included, in addition to the charismatic elements of

103Winkler, “The Original Meaning,” 37. 104Winkler, “The Original Meaning,” 36. 105Winkler’s thesis that the Syrian baptismal tradition is patterned on the baptism of Jesus has rightly been criticized, sometimes, however, with similar untenable conclusions. Simon Jones rejects the thesis that the anointing was understood to confer the Spirit (arguing instead that the Spirit is active throughout the process of initiation); see Jones, “Womb of the Spirit” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1999). Jones also criticizes Winkler’s idea of a line of development from the understanding of baptism as a birth to seeing it in terms of Rom 6 theology. While the argument for diversity of practice in the region is a welcome one, and the image of “womb” emphasized by Jones is surely an important one in Syrian authors, especially of the classical period, Jones unfortunately fails to differentiate between works of different eras and regions. Even within a single early work (the Acts of Thomas), we have seen development in the second half of the work and, at the same time, diversity. Jones also relies solely on the Syriac Acts of Thomas, following, in this regard, the work of Winkler, whom he harshly, and sometimes unfairly, criticizes.

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Jesus’ baptism, the purificatory aspect stressed in the baptism of John. Perhaps, then, the elements cannot be so sharply distinguished. Winkler is certainly correct in noting the importance of the oil in initiatory rites of early Syriac-speaking Christianity. She sees the anointing as the “distinctive ritual high point of Christian initiation in the early Syrian tradition.”106 Winkler bases her argument that the prebaptismal anointing originally was understood to confer the Holy Spirit, to a large extent, on the initiation described in the Acts of Thomas 27, and repeatedly refers to the use of the oil there as a prebaptismal anointing. In fact, however, water baptism does not exist in the rite described. I suggest that water was an optional element in the initiation rituals of the earliest Christian church in eastern Syria.107

106Maxwell E. Johnson, “The Origins of the Anaphoral Use of the Sanctus and Epiclesis Revisited: The Contribution of Gabriele Winkler and its Implications,” in Crossroad of Cultures: Studies in Liturgy and Patristics in Honor of Gabriele Winkler (ed. Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Elena Velkovska, and Robert F. Taft; OrChrAn 260; Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2000), 405–42. The quote on 423 refers to Winkler’s Das armenische Initiationsrituale and several essays. 107For a development of this argument, see my “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity.”

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CHAPTER 5 PRAYER IN ANTIQUITY AND THE EPICLESES IN THE ACTS OF THOMAS The prayers found in chapters 27 and 50 of the Greek Acts of Thomas are intriguing because of their colorful language, but also appear to be unique in ancient Christian literature with regard to form. Both prayers are set in the context of initiation (“sealing,” followed by Eucharist), and both appear to be addressed to the Spirit. In each, the continual appeal to “come” orders the prayer; each request to “come” is followed by an appellation, usually in the feminine, to a presumably divine figure. Finally, the prayers conclude with an appeal to the divine to do something: commune with the initiates and cleanse and seal them (chapter 27; sealing is not mentioned in the Syriac) and share in the Eucharist (chapter 50). This pattern is not found elsewhere in early Christian literature. A single request for the Spirit’s presence is usually sufficient. These prayers are unusual also in their direct address, since most Christian epicleses, especially from a later date, make indirect appeal for the Spirit's presence. They are, as well, unusually long (epicleses are typically only one or two lines in length) and striking in their content. Nowhere else, to my knowledge, are such vivid images used of the Spirit in any Christian prayer. Perhaps as a result of this uniqueness, there has been some discussion regarding the addressee of the epicleses. Scholars of early Christian apocryphal literature have assumed that a feminine divine figure is addressed, identifying her, somewhat blithely, with Sophia or other figures known to inhabit gnostic mythology, as reconstructed from the heresiologists. If she is addressed to a figure from Christian thought, she is identified with the Holy Spirit.

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But some liturgical scholars have, of late, struggled anew to identify the figure, necessitating a brief review of the issue. Another recent study has attempted to find parallels to the epicleses in other ancient prayers. In the Harvard Divinity School volume on the apocryphal acts (1999), Caroline Johnson1 seeks to find, elsewhere in early Christian literature, prayers similar to the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas. In the end, she concludes that the closest parallels to these prayers are to be found in the adjurations to deities located in magical texts. I make no attempt to duplicate her efforts, but instead note several sources, some already noted by Johnson, that may prove informative—if not exactly parallel—to the prayers in question. After discussing the addressee of the epicleses, this chapter seeks to find parallels in form to the prayers by examining prayers found in other literature. In general, I attempt to examine material which is older than or contemporary with the Acts of Thomas, but later material is included when appropriate. Significantly later material, while clearly not providing evidence of traditions from which the Acts of Thomas were developed, might be valuable for tracing similar but independent types of prayer. And Christian prayers from other regions and eras, while not entirely parallel, may provide hints as to the development of the form used in the prayers in question. The Addressee of the Prayers in Chapters 27 and 50 In recent years, attention has been directed to the prayers in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas in an effort to describe their place in the history of epicletic prayers. Central to the concerns regarding the development of the epiclesis is the identity of the divine figure being addressed. Sebastian Brock, in a study of eastern eucharistic liturgies,2 examines the epicleses in texts from the Syrian region and concludes that “requests to

1“Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas.” 2“The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines.”

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‘send the Holy Spirit’ are a comparatively late introduction in consecratory epikleses,”3 although use of the verb “come” is of great antiquity. Brock notes that baptismal epicleses were originally addressed to Christ, appealing that he be present, then changed to an address to Christ to send the Spirit. Finally, “in the latest stage the Father is addressed and the request is made that the Spirit ‘may come.’”4 Brock bases his argument regarding the first two stages solely on material from the Acts of Thomas and traces the direct address to Christ back to the New Testament use of maranatha. But Brock relies on the Syriac version of the Acts of Thomas, although the Greek, especially in these prayers, is to be preferred. The earliest form of the prayers directly addressed, as we have seen, not Christ, but the oil, water, or bread itself, while the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 evidence an alternative: direct address to the Spirit to come and be present in the ritual. Apart from the differences in the Syriac and Greek versions of these prayers, there is good reason to be confused regarding the addressee, especially of the prayer in chapter 50. In chapter 27, the final ejlqev is addressed directly to the “Holy Spirit.” Since many of the same images are used in chapter 50, and the form in both corresponds (ejlqev usually followed by an appelation in the feminine), it seems likely that one could assume that the prayer in chapter 50, like that in chapter 27, is addressed to the Spirit. But the issue is complicated by the surrounding narrative in the second story. Thomas has already given the seal and is preparing to celebrate the Eucharist. He begins with a prayer to Jesus, which ends with an appeal to come (ejlqev) and partake in it as well. After a second introductory phrase (kai; h[rxato levgein), the apostle then delivers the prayer in question with its numerous feminine epithets. Never is the addressee clearly identified, but the close proximity of an address to Jesus, together with the similarity in the requests, both in form (ejlqev) and in content (a request to share in the Eucharist and, in the prayer in chapter 50, the

3“The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines,” 213. 4“The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines,” 213.

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statement that it is made “in your name”), would suggest that it is actually Jesus who is addressed throughout. This confusion is evident in some recent discussions of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Robert Taft5 has identified the prayer in chapter 50 as a “Logos epiclesis,” as part of Taft’s attempt to establish that epicleses were originally addressed to the Logos and only later to the Spirit. Taft, although entirely mistaken in his designation of the prayer in chapter 50 as a “Logos epiclesis,” has probably been misled by the fact that the epiclesis is embedded in the prayer to Jesus that precedes the ritual action. Only in the final line of the epiclesis itself is there any indication that Jesus might be the addressee. It is possible that the final line was originally part of the Jesus prayer. I suspect, rather, that the redactor included both the Jesus prayer with its closing line (“Come and partake with us”)6 and the more elaborate epiclesis, with its final appeal to “come and share with us in the Eucharist,” to correspond with one another. At any rate, no Logos theology appears here; it is almost entirely foreign to the Acts of Thomas. In only one section (chapter 80), itself a traditional prayer taken over by the author and inserted into the apostle’s mouth, is Jesus addressed as the “Word.” Taft’s entire thesis, that early epicleses were always addressed to the Logos, is severely weakened by his misreading of the prayer in chapter 50. Gabriele Winkler has responded to Taft by looking at the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, initially arguing that the prayer in chapter 27 oscillated between addressing the Messiah and the Holy Spirit; she has more recently taken the position that the prayer is

5“From Logos to Spirit: On the early history of the epiclesis,” esp. 491. 6Whether or not this was originally all one prayer. It seems quite likely that “Come and partake with us” was the original ending of the epiclesis, but was displaced and extended into a Jesus prayer, while the final line of the epiclesis was made to correspond as well. Unfortunately, the Greek gives no concrete evidence to support this contention, and the initial Jesus prayer in the Syriac has been so expanded that any hints that might have been present in it (such as the form of the verb “come”) have been lost.

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directed, in the address to the Name of the Anointed, toward “the Spirit, the Mother, who reveals herself and is made present by calling down the Name of the Anointed.”7 Winkler bases her final argument on the claim that the address to the “name of the Messiah” refers to the Spirit, who is the power hidden in the name. She is correct that the Spirit is intended, and in the assertion that the “name” is the revelation of that which is named; with reference to God it becomes, in Philo and elsewhere, a “distinctly personified entity.”8 But the phrase appears not in chapter 50, but in chapter 27, which closes with a clear reference to the Holy Spirit.9 It is not a helpful argument, then, for determining the addressee of the prayer in chapter 50. The addressee of the epiclesis over the eucharistic bread is indeed the Spirit. This will become evident by examination of the feminine epithets used in the epiclesis in chapter 50 and in the striking similarity between this prayer and that in chapter 27, which is clearly addressed to the Spirit. Since the third line of the Syriac of chapter 50 is addressed to the Spirit of holiness, providing clear referent for the rest of the epiclesis, it is to the Greek prayer only that attention must be given. We have seen that, although the Acts of Thomas was probably written in Syriac, the Greek is more primitive than the extant Syriac, and that questionable

7Gabriele Winkler, “Further Observations in Connection with the Early Form of the Epiklesis,” 79. Winkler asserts that the epiclesis was originally developed in conjunction with an anointing ceremony and a fully developed eucharistic epiclesis came later. 8The phrase is that of Jarl Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1985), 107. 9Winkler’s initial assessment, that there is oscillation between the Messiah and the Spirit in these prayers, deserves attention. It is anachronistic to distinguish sharply between Spirit and Jesus at this time, especially in liturgical texts which give evidence of greater antiquity than the rest of the work. Many of the same titles and images applied here to the Spirit are used elsewhere of Jesus (in chapter 47, for example, Jesus is addressed thus: “Jesus, the hidden mystery that has been revealed to us”). In the Syriac, the phrase is “to me.” The Thomas tradition includes a claim that the apostle had received a secret revelation from Jesus. It appears in the Gospel of Thomas 13, in which Jesus is said to have given Thomas three secrets; this tradition clearly lies behind the prayer in chapter 47 of the Acts of Thomas, although the Syriac lacks the number three. An allusion to a secret revelation appears again in chap. 131, when Judas Thomas indicates that he cannot divulge the knowledge he has.

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terms (e.g., “Mother”) have been deleted or changed, triadic doxologies inserted, and initiation rites altered to conform to the patterns of the rituals developed later. The Greek, on the other hand, retains characteristics that indicate its origin in a Semitic milieu and provide preliminary evidence for the supposition that the addressee of the prayer is the Spirit. The structuring appeal to “come,” the Greek ejlqev, is addressed almost exclusively to a feminine concept: three times a feminine noun, such as “Mother,” is used, three times a feminine participle, and once the feminine article followed by an adjective in the feminine (“the one who is manifest”); in the same line, joined to the earlier clause by kaiv, also occurs a feminine participle.10 Only once is something other than a feminine employed; the first line is addressed to the “perfect compassion.” The Greek term ta; splavgcna is employed where the Syriac has rachme, similarly a plural noun with a singular sense. It is conceivable, although impossible to prove, that the text from which the Greek translator/redactor was working included the feminine ruha, as does the extant Syriac, but the translator chose to leave it out, since the neuter pneuma would have proved confusing with all of the feminine participles. Of course, it is also possible that the Syriac redactor decided to clarify an ambiguous passage by supplying the missing term. In any case, the epiclesis in the Greek of chapter 50 is addressed to a decidedly feminine figure, explicitly identified in the Syriac as ruha. The appellations in the prayer in chapter 50, then, are all, with one exception, in the feminine gender, a fact that makes it unlikely that Jesus is the intended recipient of the prayer. A feminine addressee would be expected, though, in an appeal to the feminine ruha. In addition, the titles employed correspond closely to those used in chapter 27 which is clearly addressed to the Spirit; those epithets which do not directly correspond still fit the identity of the Spirit (e.g., as compassionate one, as revealer of mysteries).

10Another feminine can be added, if hJ peristerav in line 7 is understood as the addressee of a missing ejlqev.

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In the prayer in chapter 27, which employs the same pattern and many of the same images as that in chapter 50, the addressee of the Greek ejlqev is usually feminine (six times), three times neuter, and once masculine. Of the neuters, one is to; a{gion pneuvma, rendering unmistakable the author’s appeal to the Spirit. The striking similarities between these two prayers suggests that the same figure is addressed in both. The epithets that are employed are remarkably ambiguous. What is clear is that the addressee is a revealer figure (“Come, Lady, you who make manifest what is secret and render visible what is hidden”). If the evidence from the Coptic-gnostic Gospel of Philip, discussed more fully above, can be adduced, that which sheds light and makes visible what is hidden is the light, hidden in the oil, and identified also with the Holy Spirit. There are, of course, many revealer figures, and Christ is addressed in a similar manner elsewhere,11 but, if the epithets in the epicleses are intended to refer to Jesus, the use of the feminine would then have to be explained. The simplest solution is to see an appeal, originally in a Semitic language, to the Spirit. The epithets themselves may point, as well, to the identity of the Spirit as the intended recipient of the prayer. The use of the term “dove” calls to mind the story of Jesus’ baptism, and the appearance of the Spirit in the form of a dove. God’s Spirit, as well, hovered, as does a bird, over the waters of creation. The image will be used often by the Syrian writers of the classical period.12 The present reference, to the dove giving birth to twin nestlings, is, however, unusual. The reference to twin nestlings must have had meaning in the original context of the prayer, and the mention of “dove” recalled to a Christian author the symbolism of a dove for God's Spirit in familiar scriptural texts. But the reference to the “Mother” is one found elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas, always referring to the Spirit. The clearest example is found at the close of a prayer to Jesus

11See especially the prayer in Acts of Thomas 39, which uses many of the epithets, including several in the feminine, from the epicleses. 12See Aphrahat, Dem. 6.

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in chapter 39, in which Thomas says, “We praise and hymn you, your unseen Father, and your Holy Spirit and13 the mother of all creation.” It is also the “Mother” whose name is pronounced over the eucharistic bread in the prayer in chapter 133. The hymnic materials inserted into the Acts of Thomas also employ “Mother” language. In the famous Hymn of the Pearl, the protagonist receives a letter from his father and mother (chapter 111); of the many possible interpretations of this poem, one with a Christian slant could surely understand this as a reference to God as Father and the Spirit as Mother. More important, the Hymn of the Bride closes with a declaration of praise given to the “Father ever truthful and the Mother ever wise” (chapter 7). These two images, that of the dove and of the Mother, are brought together in Ode 28 of the Odes of Solomon. The wings of the Spirit are over the speaker’s heart, which leaps for joy, “like the babe who leaps for joy in the mother’s womb” (28:2). Although the Spirit is not explicitly identified as Mother here, the heart is likened to an unborn baby, and the wings of the Spirit enfold the heart, just as the baby is held within the womb of the mother. In Ode 24:1, “The dove fluttered over the head of our Lord Messiah,” while in Ode 36:3, the Spirit gives birth to the Christ. And in the striking imagery of Ode 19, the Holy Spirit is said to open her bosom, although the breasts which provide the sweet milk are those of the Father. But it is from the Spirit that the Virgin is said to have received the milk, conceiving and giving birth. Thus receiving from the Spirit, “the virgin became a mother with great mercies” (19:7). The term rachme is the same as that used in the Syriac of chapter 50, as we have seen; here it is a characteristic of a mother, who becomes such by the action of the Spirit.

13The conjunction leads to the mistaken conclusion that there are two separate figures following mention of Father.

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The idea of the Spirit as Mother is developed especially in Aphrahat,14 apparently building on the biblical image of the dove for the Spirit. Discussing Gen 2:24, Aphrahat asserts that “as long as a man has not taken a wife he loves and reveres God his father and the Holy Spirit his mother, and he has no other love. But when a man takes a wife he leaves his father and his mother, those whom I have designated above” (Dem. 18). It is this idea of the Spirit as Mother which informs the prayers of the Acts of Thomas as well. The emphasis on the feminine nature of the addressee in the prayer in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas, and the similarity of this prayer to the one in chapter 27 which explicitly addresses the Spirit, clarify that the figure invoked by the prayer is indeed the Spirit. This is supported as well by the appearance of the phrase “spirit of holiness” in the Syriac of chapter 50, and the meaning of at least some of the epithets employed in the prayer. Finally, the double introduction of Thomas’s speech points to a seam in the text. The epiclesis of chapter 50 was probably originally a separate prayer, addressed to the Spirit. The appeal to Jesus earlier to “come and partake with us” apparently suggested a fitting context for this longer prayer. It is possible, in fact, that the final ejlqev line of the prayer in chapter 50 was part of the original prayer addressed to Jesus, since there is nothing in it specifically suggesting the Spirit, but was moved to its present location to close the longer prayer. There is no external or textual evidence for this suggestion, but the claim that the Eucharist is made “in your name” and that the participants are “united at your summons” fits well with an address to Jesus. The idea that an originally separate epiclesis was inserted into a coherent narrative corresponds with the composite nature of the Acts of Thomas as a whole. The liturgical character of the prayer suggests, as well, that it had an independent existence apart from this

14Ephrem, on the other hand, mocks Bardaisan’s Mother-spirit language. See Murray, Symbols, 318. The motherhood of the Spirit does occur in the Macarian homilies (Murray, 318): After the fall, “They did not look on the true, heavenly Father, or the good kind Mother, the grace of the Spirit, nor the sweet and longed for Brother, the Lord.”

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story. The story in chapter 27 would also flow nicely without the prayer found there, but the prayer is less disruptive in that context that is the one in chapter 50. The prayer in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas is, then, the earliest eucharistic Spirit-epiclesis in existence. The traditional assumption of many scholars that Spiritepicleses do not come into existence until the middle of the fourth century can no longer be upheld. Ancient Prayers We have established that the epicleses in their present context are addressed to the Holy Spirit. Confusion regarding the addressee stems, as we have seen, in part from the uniqueness of the prayers. The form of the prayers—the repeated “come” followed by epithets to a feminine divine—sets them apart from other contemporary prayers. These distinctive elements, however, while not appearing in other prayers to the same extent that they are found in these epicleses, are not entirely foreign to ancient prayers. We shall turn to an examination of Hebrew prayers, of specifically Christian prayers, and finally to an examination of other types of prayers from the Greco-Roman world, in an attempt to find literary parallels to some aspects of the Spirit epicleses from the Acts of Thomas. Hebrew Prayers15 It has often been claimed that the Christian eucharistic anaphora, with its inclusion of an epiclesis, is a development of the Jewish cult blessing, the berakhah. Since Christianity develops within and out of Judaism, it would appear that an examination of Jewish prayers might prove to be fruitful in the search for an antecedent of the epicleses in

15On the relationship between early Jewish prayer and Christian liturgy, see Stefan C. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History, (Cambridge: University Press, 1993); Benedict Thomas Viviano, Study as Worship: Aboth and the New Testament (SJLA 26; Leiden: Brill, 1978); Jakob J. Petuchowski and Michael Brocke, eds., The Lord’s Prayer and Jewish Liturgy (New York: Seabury, 1978); William Horbury, “The Benediction of the Minim and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy,” JTS n.s. 33 (1982): 19-61; David A. Fiensy, Prayers Alleged to be Jewish: an examination of the Constitutiones apostolorum (BJS 65; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1985); Paul Bradshaw and Larry

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the Acts of Thomas.16 Indeed, the berakhah regularly begins with essentially the same introductory phrase (“Blessed are you” or “Blessed be God,” etc.)17 and then recounts the deeds of God and asks God to remember and continue granting favor to the petitioner or petitioner’s community. The prayers in chapter 8 of Tobit illustrate the character of the berakhah. Each prayer begins with the stylistic “Blessed are you,” and the prayer of Raguel (verses 15–17) repeats this phrase three times. God is directly invoked in both the prayer of Tobias and that of Raguel, but the mention of God does not consistently follow the initial blessing. The prayer of Tobias recalls God’s creation of Adam and Eve and their union, especially appropriate in a wedding prayer, while Raguel expresses personal gratitude for God’s blessings (in protecting the life of Tobias) and asks for continued blessings on the couple. Nowhere is God addressed with a descriptive epithet. The best example of a developed berakhah, however, is that of the Song of the Three Young Men, one of the additions to the Book of Daniel. This prayer displays a markedly repetitive style; almost every line begins with “Blessed are you” or “Bless the Lord.” The first section of the prayer, addressed to God, notes God’s presence in various locales, but does not actually recount God’s deeds or mention God’s attributes. The bulk of the prayer contains lines beginning “Bless the Lord,” but the beings addressed are the created works of God, who are adjured to give praise to God. Although there is a strikingly regular style to the prayer, with the inclusion of an anaphoral blessing, the Song of the Three Young Men does not contain epithets of the divine. The berakhah, then, does not directly parallel the prayers in the Acts of Thomas. There is no appeal to “come” and, aside from the notable exception of the Song of the Hoffman, eds., The Making of Jewish and Christian Worship (Two Liturgical Traditions 1; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991). 16This holds true even when a direct link between the berakhah and Christian liturgical prayers are denied.

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Three Young Men, the introductory phrase is rarely repeated as often as is the ejlqev in the prayers in the Acts of Thomas. Finally, a berakhah usually includes narrative descriptions of God’s activity rather than descriptive epithets. With the publication of manuscripts discovered at Qumran, the availability of information on ancient Hebrew prayer has increased dramatically. Scholars have recently shown special interest in the poetic and liturgical materials among the Dead Sea Scrolls, shedding valuable light on the prayer patterns of the Qumran sectarians.18 The prayers do not resemble the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas in any formal sense, but do contain interesting aspects worth mentioning. There is, among the prayers from Qumran,19 no appeal to God to “come” to be present with the speaker or the community. Instead, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,20 a

17There was some discussion among the rabbis about the proper way to begin the prayer, as well as whether God was to be mentioned in the second person or the third. See the discussion in m. Ber. 7:3. 18In addition to the recent publication of DJD 11 and 29 (Poetical and Liturgical Texts from Cave 4, which added to the material already available in DJD 1, including the Hodayot, and DJD 7), there have been several recent studies of the liturgical material from Qumran. Eileen M. Schuller reviews the available texts and discusses the various categories used for prayers and hymnic materials in the Qumran corpus (psalms, songs, hymns, etc.) and calls for greater refinement of the terminology in her “Prayer, Hymnic, and Liturgical Texts from Qumran,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Eugene Ulrich and James Vanderkam; Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 10; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 153–71. Daniel K. Falk concentrates on cycles of prayers found at Qumran in his Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 27; Leiden: Brill, 1998). In a broader examination of fixed prayers in Judaism, but with a concentration at Qumran, Bilhah Nitzan looks at blessings, curses, and praise prayers, as well as at magical poetry and mystical poetry in Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (trans. Jonathan Chipman; STDJ 12; Leiden: Brill, 1994). Finally, a recent conference included an examination of prayer materials from Qumran. The conference proceedings are included in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo, 1998, published in memory of Maurice Baillet, ed. by Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller (STDJ 35; Leiden: Brill, 2000). The DJD volumes of greatest interest are: Qumran cave I, ed. D. Bartholélemy and J. T. Milik (DJD 1; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955); Qumran Grotte 4: 3: (4Q4824Q520), ed. Maurice Baillet (DJD 7; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982); Qumran cave 4. VI. Poetical and liturgical texts, Part 1, ed. Esther Eshel, et al. (DJD 11; Oxford: Clarendon, 1998); Qumran Cave 4. XX, Poetical and liturgical texts, Part 2, ed. Esther Chazon, et al. (DJD 29; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). 19The liturgical texts from Qumran are conveniently gathered, in English translation with commentary, in James R. Davila, Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000). Another convenient edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in English is The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (ed. Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1997–1998).

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collection of thirteen songs to be used on the Sabbaths in the first quarter of the year, are accounts of the prayers taking place in the heavenly temple, and thus transport the speaker (and reader) into the heavenly realm. Most of the prayers at Qumran, however, include praises (or curses) and often recount God’s deeds. There are patterns of repetition in the prayers from Qumran. Most common is the berakhah formula, although the blessing does not begin the prayers, and sometimes comes near the end. This is the case especially in the Festival prayers, in which the closing benediction includes “Blessed be the Lord.”21 The Daily prayers22 often include “Blessed be the God of Israel,” or Blessed are you, God,” found near the beginning of the prayer, after the designation of the day on which the prayer is to be offered. The Words of the Luminaries, giving prayers for each day of the week,23 offer praise to God by proclaiming, “Blessed be the Lord,” or “Blessed, O Lord, be your holy name.” These prayers recount God’s activity in the history of Israel, but do so in narrative form, rather than with short epithets. A prayer for Friday, after recounting God’s deeds, appeals to God not to be angry; this appears to be the only direct request made of God in these prayers. Finally, the purification liturgies include a standard opening formula, stating what the person being purified does. The action includes offering the prayer, “Blessed are you, God of Israel,” followed by a statement of God’s activity in cleansing and purifying. The Hodayot from Qumran represent the most sustained personal prayers found within the Dead Sea Scrolls. The prayers are spoken by an individual hymnist24 who offers

20Also known, appropriately, as the Angelic Liturgy. 21The Festival prayers, found in Caves 1 and 4, are gathered together in Davila, Liturgical Works, 15–40. See, for example, the fragmentary prayers in 4Q507, found on p. 25. 22Davila, Liturgical Works, 208–38. 23Davila, Liturgical Works, 239–66. 24The hymnist’s leadership role, as well as claims to having been persecuted, support the assertion that this hymn was written by the Teacher of Righteousness himself. The theory of personal authorship of

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thanks to God, with the initial and repeated “I give you thanks,” for the many blessings bestowed by God. The hymnist recounts the deeds of God for the sake of Israel, but, more often, speaks of God’s activity in his own life. Although there is occasionally a prayer that the hymnist remain faithful, the title Hodayot appropriately indicates the nature of the prayers as offerings of thankfulness. Many prayers from Qumran, then, are stylized in individual ways, but not in the manner of the epicleses. Prayers from Qumran often include a standard phrase in praise of God, but the phrase, while repeated on subsequent days or in subsequent prayers, is not repeated regularly within an individual prayer, as is the “come” of the epicleses. The Qumran prayers often refer to God’s identity and activities, but not in the short nouns or participial phrases used in the Acts of Thomas. Finally, it is rare to find an appeal for God to perform a particular action, and there is never a request that God be present in a ritual action. It is, however, possible for those uttering the prayer to enter the heavenly realm, as in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Early Christian Prayers The most striking aspect of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas is the repetition of the appeal to the deity to “come.” Although other early Christian prayers do not repeat the request as often as do the epicleses, the appeal to “come” is found in liturgical prayers and can claim great antiquity in Christian usage. The Christian request to a heavenly figure to “come” is a development of the eschatological appeal to Jesus found explicit in Rev 22: 20. The phrase e[rcou kuvrie ( Ij hsou'), in turn, seems to be a translation25 of the Aramaic maranatha, found in both Paul and the Didache. Although the use of the phrase in Revelation, in which it is a response to some of the hymns by the Teacher of Righteousness, originally suggested by Eleazar Lipa Sukenik (see, e.g., his The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955], 39), is expressed forcefully by A. Dupont-Sommer, “Les Livre des Hymnes découvert près de la mer Morte (I QH)” Sem. 7 (1957): 1–120, esp. 10–12, and with careful analysis by Gert Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (SUNT 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), esp. 168–77. 25Absent the personal pronoun, and with the addition of the name “Jesus.”

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Jesus’ cited promise to return soon, is clearly eschatological, such is not as clear in the Aramaic examples. These have, however, been understood to occur in a liturgical, especially eucharistic, context.

;

The term itself can be understood either as a perfect (thus at;a} nræm ), or an

;

imperative (either at; an…ræm; or at;a‘ nræm , depending on which form “our Lord” took in first-century Palestinian Aramaic).26 That it is an appeal to Jesus to return in glory could be argued from the eschatological character of its context in the Didache (Did. 10.5: “gather [your church] together in holiness from the four winds to your kingdom which you have prepared for it”) and Paul’s similar outlook (e.g., 1 Thess 4:13ff.). But its presence in a eucharistic context in the Didache, and the possibility of prayer language in 1 Cor 16:22 as well,27 might suggest an understanding of the term as a statement, a claim that Jesus is present in the community gathering, especially in a celebration of Eucharist.28 Paul, to be sure, hands on a liturgical tradition that looks back to Jesus’ meal with his friends (1 Cor 11:23–26), although the final phrase (“until he comes”) expresses an eschatological hope even as the community is instructed to “proclaim the Lord’s death.” Because the term appears near the end of the works or sections in which it occurs, and is explicitly associated with a curse in 1 Cor 16:22 and a statement of the need for repentance in Did. 10.6, it could also be seen as reinforcing a preceding anathema or warning (as found in Rev 22:18ff.).29 But examples of its use as a curse formula are all late and clearly dependent on 1 Cor 16:22.

26See the excellent discussion of the difficulties of the phrase generally, and the linguistic and interpretive options, in K. G. Kuhn, “maranaqav,” TDNT 4.466–72. 27J. A. T. Robinson, “Traces of a liturgical sequence in 1 Cor 16.20–24,” JTS n.s. 4 (1953): 38–41. 28Some attempts to reconcile these conflicting interpretations are awkward at best; see, e.g., Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship (SBT 10; London: SCM, 1953), 14. 29This is the position of C. F. D. Moule, “A Reconsideration of the Context of Maranatha,” NTS 8 (1959–1960): 307–10, following Erik Peterson, EIS QEOS: Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Göttingen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926), 130ff. Moule’s contribution is in suggesting that the ban need not be antithetical to a eucharistic context.

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There can be no doubt that maranatha is a term stemming from the very early Christian period, perhaps from the community in Palestine. Because of the fervent hope that Jesus was to return soon, it seems likely that its original use was as a petition for eschatological fulfillment. It is not surprising that it found its way into liturgical prayers, especially that in the Didache with its orientation toward the future, although I am skeptical that such is really the context in 1 Cor 16.30 Because the term retains this eschatological orientation when translated into Greek in Rev 22:20, it seems likely that such was its original meaning, despite Paul’s apparent departure from this use.31 The appeal to come eventually developed into an address to the Father to send the Spirit, and became a fixed part of the eucharistic liturgy. In the Acts of Thomas, it is striking both with respect to its addressee and, especially, with regard to its length and complexity. Although mention is sometimes made in other early Christian texts of the presence of the Spirit in ritual action,32 formal epicleses are relatively rare in early literature. When they do appear, they are most often found in a eucharistic context. Although there are requests in the third person that “your Holy Spirit may come upon us,”33 it is more

30The greeting and “holy kiss” and the “grace be with you” are stock phrases in closing letters in the Pauline corpus. They are not, it should be noted, found in other explicit liturgical passages in Paul, such as 1 Cor 11:23ff. While it is certainly possible that they are employed in a liturgical context, we simply have no evidence for such and are left to speculate. 31But both 1 Cor 16:22 and Did. 10.6, and to a lesser extent Rev 22:20, display a fondness for piling up brief statements that could have been catchwords or greetings for Christians. They are “the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Paul and Revelation), “Amen” (found in all three), “Hosanna” (in Didache), to name the most striking ones. While these are most likely employed in liturgy, their use is not limited to that context. 32See, for example, Ap. Trad. 22 and Tertullian’s De baptismo 8, both of which mention the presence of the Holy Spirit in the neophyte at baptism. Hippolytus records an actual prayer that the believer be worthy to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but it does not parallel the prayers in the Acts of Thomas either in form or content. 33The Anaphora of Basil of Caesarea X.28–29, in the text of John R. K. Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St. Basil and St. James: An Investigation into their Common Origin (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale, 1992), 168–69. All of the representative versions of the anaphora of Basil include essentially the same phrase. See also the third-person epiclesis in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari: Bryan D. Spinks, Addai and Mari—The Anaphora of the Apostles (Grove Liturgical Study 24; Bramcote: Grove Books, 1980), 22–23. See also the discussion of the development of the epicletic address in Syrian ordines in Sebastian Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines.”

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common to find a prayer addressed to God (or the “Father,” occasionally to “Christ”) to “send” the Spirit, as is the case in Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition (4.12) and the Apostolic Constitutions. A direct address to the Spirit to “come” seems to be limited in this period to the prayers in the Acts of Thomas.34 Other Christian epicleses are also significantly shorter (usually one line) than those found in the Acts of Thomas. Barbara Bowe and John Clabeaux note35 that the prayers of Christians were originally modeled on Jewish prayers and evidence similar style (especially doxologies) and address. Over time, however, Christians became more comfortable with borrowing from the Greco-Roman tradition, by “heaping up epithets for the deity” and adopting other stylistic features. It will prove to be fruitful, then, to examine non-Christian Greco-Roman prayers that bear some resemblance to the epicleses of interest to us. Prayers from the Greco-Roman world According to Larry J. Alderink and Luther H. Martin,36 a formal structure, consisting of an invocation of a deity,37 an argument justifying the petition, and the request itself, can be discerned in Greco-Roman prayers. The prayers were spoken while standing

34Brock, “The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines,” 195, notes that all of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas are addressed to Christ. This is true only in the Syriac version of the work. 35Barbara E. Bowe and John Clabeaux, “Post New Testament Christian Prayers,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology (ed. Mark Kiley et al.; London: Routledge, 1997), 252. 36In their introductory material (pp. 123–27) on “Prayer in Greco-Roman Religions,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 123. 37Alderink and Martin note (p. 124) the need for precision in identifying the god: “asking Mars for health or Isis for victory in war could be disastrous for a well-meaning but misinformed suppliant.” In later antiquity, however, originally separate deities (usually from various regions) come to be identified with one another. The result is a profusion of names in the invocation, in order to avoid offending the deity by leaving unmentioned an appropriate—or perhaps chosen—title (see, for example, the response of Isis, noting her correct name, to the prayer of Lucius in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses). A similar phenomenon can be witnessed in the magical papyri, in which the names of gods of various regions and religions are invoked, often as voces magicae, in order to increase the odds that the petition will be heard and answered. As Alderink and Martin note, the importance of correctly naming the deity lessens in monotheism (although one could argue that proper “naming” remains significant, as well as respect for the “name”; witness the Jewish reverence for, and avoidance of, the name of God, whether spoken or written). It is for this reason all the more interesting that the prayers in the Acts of Thomas provide so many titles/descriptions of the Spirit, without adopting the practice of appealing to the deity under various names.

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and facing the domain of the deity addressed; although actions associated with the prayer were often prescribed, the words themselves were usually more fluid. Always, a proper respect for the boundaries between the divine and human worlds had to be maintained. A common feature of prayers to divine figures in the Greco-Roman world is the use of multiple epithets in an attempt to address all aspects of the deity in question, or, given the syncretism of late antiquity, to employ all known titles of the deity. Gods and goddesses originally revered locally came to be seen as one god(dess) with various titles in different regions of the Mediterranean world; this is especially evident in the prayer addressed to Isis below. Leaving no title unmentioned serves to increase the odds that the deity will hear and respond.38 This practice, evident as well in the prayers under examination in the Acts of Thomas, will be noticed in all of the following examples.39 Multiple descriptive epithets. Because of the feminine gender of the addressee in the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, I am especially, but not exclusively, interested in prayers to female deities, which abounded in pagan antiquity. Of the numerous prayers in the ancient world addressed directly to a feminine deity, many contain descriptions of the goddess’s activities. But they usually lack the appeal to “come” and have much lengthier accounts of what the goddess has done. Titles are frequently applied to the deity, but, in the manner of the religious sycretism which characterized late antiquity, they are most often names of various divinities from different regions who have come to be identified as one god(dess) known under various names. That a divinity could be called by multiple names is hardly surprising in late antiquity. But several prayers from much earlier times attest to the phenomenon as well. The 38Fritz Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual," in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (ed. Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink; New York: Oxford, 1991), 189. 39For many of these examples, I depend on the collection of prayers entitled Prayers from the Ancient World: Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Prayers (ed. Gregory E. Sterling and P. W. van der Horst; Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003). Another very useful collection of ancient prayers is Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology (ed. Mark Kiley et al.; London, New York: Routledge, 1997).

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4th-century BCE Stoic philosopher Cleanthes of Assos,40 in his Hymn to Zeus, calls the god poluwvnume: “Most eminent of the immortals, many-named, always almighty, / Zeus, guide of nature, directing everything with law, / hail.”41 Since the hymn itself does not apply appellations other than Zeus, it is not entirely clear if Cleanthes had in mind actual names for the god, or was thinking of the descriptions he employs of Zeus and his activity. Due to the survival of this prayer (and the fact that most of his works are lost), Cleanthes is sometimes remembered as the most “religious” of the Stoics, but it is important to remember that his notion of Zeus is that of “the embodiment of logos (reason) that pervades all creation”42 and not of an independent deity. The purpose of the prayer, then, differs from those in the Acts of Thomas but there is limited similarity in form. Like the prayer in Acts of Thomas 50, the hymn not only addresses the god directly and makes use of descriptive appellations, it also describes the activity of the god by using a participial construction (something the prayer in chapter 50 employs seven times; it is used only once in chapter 27). Similar claims of “many names” for divinities can be found in the third-century B.C.E. writers Theocritus and Callimachus. In Idyll XV of Theocritus,43 a singer describes Aphrodite as “goddess of many names and many shrines,” while Callimachus puts in the mouth of Artemis a plea to be given many names: “Give me, papa, my virginity / to keep 40331–232 B.C.E. Cleanthes uses for this hymn the classical epic form. It is the longest of his works to have survived, in the fifth-century C.E. anthology of Ioannes Stobeus (Stobaeus), although Diogenes Laertius reports that he wrote numerous lengthy works. 41Translation from Prayers of Antiquity: Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Prayers. The complete hymn is Stobaeus 1.25.3–27.4 (= Stoicorum veterum fragmenta 1.537), in Hellenistic Philosophers (ed. A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley; 2 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 2.326-27. The standard edition of Stobaeus is in H. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–1924). See discussion of Stoicism in Luther Martin, Hellenistic Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 38–40. 42William Cassidy, in his introductory essay on “Cleanthes—Hymn to Zeus,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 133. 43Translated in Barbara Hughes Fowler, Hellenistic Poetry: An Anthology (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 30. Theocritus was born in Syracuse, lived in Alexandria and probably Cos; he flourished around 280 B.C.E.

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forever, and give me many names / that Phoebus Apollo not contend with me.”44 Again, multiple names themselves do not appear, suggesting that what may be meant are descriptions of activity. It is certainly possible, however, that goddesses from varous regions, with identities similar to the named goddesses, were known to these authors. Having “many names” appears to be an honor for a deity. In the Argonautica 45 of Apollonius of Rhodes, the god of the sea is addressed with actual names of various sea gods: “O god, who appeared upon the shores of this lake, whether the sea-born daughters [nymphs] call you Triton, wonder of the brine, or Phorcys, or Nereus, be gracious and grant to us the end of the voyage home that is our hearts’ desire.”46 Although originally distinct, the three gods named had come to be identified with one another, so that the petitioner feels compelled to address them with all possible titles in order to avoid error. A similar phenomenon appears in the Roman poet Catullus’s47 prayer to Diana.48 In Diana’s care are we … In pangs of birth you are hailed Lucina Juno You, with Trivia’s power, with borrowed light, as Luna are hailed. Under whatever name you please, may you hallowed be, and save, as ever of old, the race of Romulus through your goodly aid.

44Translation from Fowler, Hellenistic Poetry, 45. Callimachus was born in Cyrene, North Africa and lived in Alexandria. He was cataloger of the library there from 260 BCE until his death ca. 240 B.C.E. 45A work in which the musician and god Orpheus figures prominently. Orphism and Orphic prayers are discussed below. 46Argonautica 4.1598–1601. Trans. in Fowler, Hellenistic Poetry, 226. The poet Apollonius, who flourished between 222 and 181 B.C.E., was a pupil of Callimachus. He first taught rhetoric in Rhodes before becoming chief librarian in Alexandria. 47Ca. 84–54 B.C.E. 48Translation by Frederick W. Danker, “Catullus 34: A Prayer to Diana by C. Valerius Catullus,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 140.

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Diana’s ability to answer the prayer is ensured by appealing to her in her three realms of jurisdiction, two of which are borrowed from other goddesses: on earth, she cares for childbearing women as Lucina Juno (a combination of Artemis/Lucina and Juno, who together guide women in childbirth); in the netherworld she is Trivia, goddess of the crossways; and in the heavens she bears her own name as goddess of the moon.49 Finally, as is so common in Greco-Roman prayers, Catullus acknowledges that she can go by “whatever name,” a typical “escape clause” which allows for correction of errors in the address. Thus far we have been examining prayers that antedate Christianity. In an example from a contemporary of the author of the Acts of Thomas, we are given instructions for composition of a prayer. The third-century rhetorician Menander wrote two works on epideictic orations; the following prayer appears near the end of the second work. When you are about to finish your subject, you should use the names of the god [Sminthian Apollo] that recall his deeds as follows: “Now, O Sminthian and Pythian, from you my speech began and to you it will end. With what titles shall I speak to you? Some people name you Lycian, some Akraion, others Actian. The Lacedemonians address you as Amyclaean, the Athenians as Patroan, the Milesians as Branchiate. Every city and every land and every nation do you control: and just as you dance around the heaven having the choruses of stars around you, so you also control the entire inhabited realm of humankind. As Mithras the Persians address you, as Horus the Egyptians…. Therefore, whether you rejoice in these appellations or in titles better than these, keep granting that this city may always flourish at the height of blessedness, and that this cultic assembly may forever by joyfully organized for you.”50 With Menander, we have the unique opportunity of reading not only a prayer, but the author’s own instructions regarding it. This section, near the end of the prayer, illustrates once again the numerous titles by which a god may be addressed, and the international jurisdiction of the originally Greek god. There is some description of activity on the part of the god, but not to the same extent as the prayers in the Acts of Thomas. The titles evidence

49Frederick W. Danker, “Catullus 34, 141–42. 50Translated and introduced by Edgar Krentz, “The Prayer in Menander Rhetor 2.445.25–446.13,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 187.

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syncretism, the ability of the god to be known by different names in different regions, rather than the multifaceted descriptive titles, apparently arising from a single tradition, applied to the Spirit in the Acts of Thomas. The prayer acknowledges that there may be more appropriate titles applied to the god than these.51 The deity best known as incorporating numerous titles into her identity, adopting and adapting the attributes of other goddesses, is the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose cult spread in the Hellenistic period throughout the Mediterranean world. The second-century North African Apuleius, in his Metamorphoses, describes the wanderings of the protagonist Lucius (transformed, due to his curiosity in the magical arts, into an ass) on his journey to

51Two (of many) other examples illustrating multiple divine epithets could be mentioned. The first is that of a human, Antiochus I of Commagene, honoring himself as a god. The inscription was recorded between 50 and 35 B.C.E. (Dittenberger, OGIS 383; translation in Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 21.) The Great King Antiochus, the God, the Righteous One, the Manifest [Deity], the Friend of the Romans and the Friend of the Greeks, the Son of King Mithridates the Victorious and of Laodice the Brother-loving Goddess, the Daughter of King Antiochus Epiphanes, the Motherloving, the Victorious, has recorded for all time, on consecrated pedestals, with inviolable letters, the deeds of his clemency. The second example is late, a hymn in honor of Hecate and Janus by the fifth-century Neoplatonist Proclus (412–485); his seven hymns are found at the end of the collection of Orphic hymns. See Eugene Abel, Orphica (Leipzig: Freytag, 1885), 276ff.; see also Grant, Hellenistic Religions, 172. It is of interest not only because of the divine epithets employed, but also because of the structure supplied by the repetitive “hail!” It is interesting that Hecate is here called “mother of the gods”; she was an underworld goddess also identified with the moon, perhaps because of her association with the nocturnal practice of magic. Hail, Mother of the Gods, the many-named, the nobly born! Hail, Hecate, guardian of the gates, the Mighty one! And thou too, Hail, O Janus, the Forefather, Zeus the Immortal! Hail, Zeus supreme! Be it mine to enjoy a life radiant on its journey, weighed down with good things! Keep far from my body the sickness that destroys, And upward lead my soul, from wandering in error here below, After it has cleansed itself in soul-awakening mysteries! Reach out to me your hands, I pray you, and show to my yearning heart The path divine, that I may behold [its] glorious light And find an escape from the bane of gloomy Becoming! Reach out to me your hands, I pray, and with favoring winds Bring me at last, and weary, to safe anchor in the harbor of devotion! Hail, Mother of the Gods, the many-named, the nobly born! Hail, Hecate, guardian of the gates, the Mighty one! And thou too, Hail, O Janus, the Forefather, Zeus the Immortal! Hail, Zeus supreme!

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healing. Lucius is finally restored to his true nature by the grace of the goddess Isis, herself no stranger to the plight of the wanderer.52 The following prayer (Metamorphoses 11.2) is spoken by the protagonist of the Metamorphoses, Lucius, when, exhausted by his many adventures as an ass, he appeals to the moon goddess to reverse the spell which resulted in his present condition. Although the goddess will later reveal her true identity as the goddess Isis (Metamorphoses 11.4–6), she is here called by numerous titles, each followed by a description of that particular goddess’s activity. There is, as well, a direct appeal for aid and a description of the desired consequence of the encounter. Although the prayer in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas asks that the Spirit come to share in the Eucharist, it is the prayer in chapter 27, with its appeal that the Holy Spirit “cleanse their minds and their hearts, and seal them,” that is more closely aligned with Lucius’s prayer. Although separated geographically from the Acts of Thomas (Apuleius writes in North Africa), this composition, from the late second century C.E., is almost contemporaneous with it. Queen of heaven—whether you are Ceres, the food-granting primal mother of crops, who, rejoicing at the recovery of her daugher, did away with the beastly food of the ancient acorn and allotted us a milder fare, and now honor the earth of Eleusis; or, whether you are the heavenly Venus who at the very beginning of the world united the different sexes by creating Amor, and who, after having propagated the human race through a never-ending progeny, now are worshipped in the sea-encircled sanctuary of Paphos; or whether you are the sister of Phoebus, who, after having alleviated the childbearing of the pregnant with soothing means and having raised so many peoples, are now honored in the famous temple of Ephesus; or whether you are the terrifying Proserpina with her nightly wailing, who ward off the attacks of evil spirits with your three-headed visage and thus keep closed the changers of the underworld, who wandering here and there through forests are placated with various forms of worship … by whatever name, by whatever rite, in whatever form it is correct to invoke you: come to my aid in my deepest misery, strengthen my fallen fortunes, grant me rest and peace, now that I have withstood so many cruel misfortunes. Let this be enough misery, let this be enough danger! Remove this

52See the interesting discussion in Martin, Hellenistic Religions, 16–34, regarding the wandering motif. Martin suggests that, not only did Apuleius create the character of Lucius to echo, in his journeys, the searching of Isis for her murdered and dismembered husband Osiris, but the labyrinthian world Lucius encountered reflected the experiences of many, buffeted by the capricious Fortuna, in the late Hellenistic world. Only in recognition of the goddess and participation in the cult of Isis could one find protection and truly be “at home” in the world.

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awful animal form, restore me again to the sight of my loved ones, restore me to myself as Lucius.53 The prayer of Lucius, still in the form of an ass, to the moon, illustrates both the syncretism of the age54 and the need of the suppliant to address the divine with as many titles as possible in order to ensure a hearing. Similar to the prayers in the Acts of Thomas, the prayer of Lucius describes the activity of the goddess—or, rather, of the many goddesses invoked, one of which, Lucius hopes, is the correct identification of the goddess he seeks—although in a far lengthier and more detailed manner than do the prayers of Judas Thomas. It ends, as noted above, with an appeal for wholeness and restoration. Another prayer offered to Isis reveals again that she is called by many names in different regions of the world; it then proclaims her many activities, including her search for and retrieval of the body of her brother/husband, Osiris. Although the prayer does not appeal to the goddess to “come,” it has a strikingly regular structure with repeated appellations and claims about the goddess’s many activities; in the final half of the prayer, a repeated suv, often accompanied by a participial clause recounting the deeds of the goddess, is evident. Since the end of the prayer is lost, there is no way of knowing if the prolific praise ended with an appeal; it is, as well, given the damaged state of the papyrus, difficult to know if the suv structures the second half of the prayer in a manner similar to the ejlqev in the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas. Although a completely formal structure seems unlikely, the repetition of suv and a claim about the goddess’s person or actions is striking. The prayer appears on a second-century papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus; the hymn itself was probably composed in the first century.

53The Isis Book (Metamorphoses, Book XI) (ed. J. Gwyn Griffiths; EPRO 39; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 70. See also Isis’s reply in 11.5, in which she claims for herself numerous names, titles, and activities. 54Martin, Hellenistic Religions, rejects the notion that religious syncretism was a phenomenon that followed naturally upon Alexander’s quest for control of the eastern Mediterranean. Rather than being “arbitrary responses to a situation of cultural interaction” (p. 157), Hellenistic religious borrowings were the result of the Greek tendency to systematize, to make sense of all available data and arrange it in an orderly manner.

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… who in Hermopolis [is called] beautiful in form, holy; in Naukratis the fatherless, joy, savior, almighty most high; in Nithine of Gynaekopolite district Aphrodite; in Pephremis Isis, sovereign, Hestia, mistress of every land … First ruler of the world, guardian and leader of the seas, ruler over the mouths of rivers, teacher, intelligent, wise, who also casues the Nile to cover the whole land … you bring the sun from its rising to its setting and all the gods rejoice; at the rising of the stars all the inhabitants of the land tirelessly pray to you and the other sacred animals in the sanctuary of Osiris are cheerful when they invoke your name; the demons obey you…. You are the mistress of the earth … you bring the flood of the rivers…. You are also then the ruler over all things forever!55 The Isis prayers are of interest in part because of the descriptions of the goddess’s activity and in part because of the role of Isis as the divine Mother (as also the Holy Spirit in the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas). But the somewhat regular structure of the prayer, both in describing the goddess’s names and titles, and especially in the suv clauses, indicates the existence of prayers with similar intent (and sometimes content) as the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Although Isis became a universal goddess and her cult was probably known in western Syria, there is no evidence that the Christian community from which the epicleses came ever knew the Isis prayer itself. The repetitive structure of this prayer to Isis is evident elsewhere in the Isis cult. Although not a prayer itself, the aretalogy of Isis56 found in Cyme illustrates an exceptionally regular structure (but without evidence of formal meter), quite similar to that in the prayers in the Acts of Thomas: I am Isis, the mistress of every land, and I was taught by Hermes … I am eldest daughter of Kronos. I am wife and sister of King Osiris. I am she who findeth fruit for men. I am mother of King Horus. I am she that riseth in the Dog Star. I am she that is called goddess by women. For me was the city of Bubastis built. I divided the earth from the heaven. I showed the paths of the stars. I ordered the course of the sun and the moon….

55Oxyrhynchus Papyrus XI.1380. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, eds., The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 11 (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1915), 196–201. 56According to Kraemer, Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics, 411, the aretalogy is “probably a Hellenistic revision of an Egyptian hymn extolling the goddess.”

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I revealed mysteries unto men…. I am the Queen of rivers and winds and sea. No one is held in honor without my knowing it. I am the Queen of war I am the Queen of the thunderbolt. I stir up the sea and I calm it. I am in the rays of the sun. I inspect the courses of the sun…. I am Lord [masculine] of rainstorms. I overcome Fate. Fate harkens to me. Hail, O Egypt, that nourished me! 57 The lines of this aretalogy, from the point at which Isis begins speaking (after a brief introduction), begin with ∆Egwv; only on rare occasions is this general rule violated. Isis first identifies herself (Ei\si" ejgwv eijmi) and describes her involvement in establishing alphabets, then launches into a series of short phrases detailing her person and her accomplishments, each (with only three exceptions, out of fifty-two) beginning with ejgw. Six consecutive lines, early in the aretalogy, begin with ejgwv eijmi; this phrasing recurs only twice again, but not in consecutive lines. The repetition of “I” clearly orders the hymn and each “I” is followed by some descriptive phrase; when the phrases indicate activity on the part of the goddess (as opposed to simple identity, as in “I am wife and sister of King

57Translation in Kraemer, #133; also in Grant, Hellenistic Religions. The text can be found in Jan Bergman, Ich bin Isis: Studien zum Memphitischen Hintergrund der Griechischen Isisaretalogien (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis Historia Religionum 3; Uppsala: Universitet, 1968), 301–303. A very similar, if brief, prayer to Isis can be found in Diodorus of Sicily (Bibliotheca Historica 1.27.3), which he claims he copied from a stele in Nysa in Arabia (the Cyme aretalogy claims to have been taken from a shrine near Memphis in Egypt): I am Isis, the queen of every land who was taught by Hermes, and whatever laws I have ordained, these no one can abrogate. I am the oldest daughter of the youngest god, Kronos. I am wife and sister of king Osiris. I am the first one to discover corn for humans. I am mother of the king Horus. I am she who rises in the star in Canis Major. The city of Bubastis was founded for me. Hail and farewell, Egypt that nourished me. See the text and discussion in Mark Gustafson, “The Isis Hymn of Diodorus of Sicily (1.27.3),” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 154–58. The prayer in Diodorus is less structured than the Cyme aretalogy and thus less helpful for the present study.

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Osiris”), they make use of a participial construction, or, more often, a finite verb. The phrases are generally short (often involving only three or four words, although longer phrases do occur) and describe Isis’s role in ordering the cosmos, in establishing law and order, and in providing for human needs. Since spoken in the first person, the aretalogy ends not with a petition but with a greeting of Isis to Egypt. Several dissimilarities in structure between the Cyme aretalogy and the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas are evident; the most obvious is the fact that Isis speaks in the first person while in the epicleses the Spirit is invoked with the imperative “come.” The Isis aretalogy is much longer than either of the prayers in question in the Acts of Thomas, and the goddess’s activities are often of observable phenomena. Nothing is unclear in her claims. The Holy Spirit addressed in the Acts of Thomas, on the other hand, is of a somewhat mysterious nature. Isis and the Spirit both are revealers of mysteries, but the activity of Isis is set in the past, while the Spirit is depicted as one who continues to make the hidden manifest. The Cyme aretalogy appears without context, while the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, at least in their present setting, are spoken in the context of initation. But the differences between the aretalogy of Isis and the prayers of Judas Thomas cannot hide the striking similarities in structure between them: descriptive phrases of the activity of the divine introduced by a single repeated word. A similar text, also in the form of an aretalogy of a feminine divine figure, was found at Nag Hammadi. The Thunder: Perfect Mind is longer than the Isis aretalogy and has various sections with different ordering principles. The most notable aspect of its structure, that which echoes the Cyme aretalogy and which provides an area of comparison with the prayers in the Acts of Thomas, lies with the repeated “I am” phrases. The phrases are cryptic, often confusing, and involve more abstract concepts than appear in the Isis hymn. The most significant distinguishing element of these phrases, however, is the element of contrast: the self-proclamations of the divinity are spoken almost entirely in antitheses. In

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this use of contrasting “I” statements, it is similar to the Hymn of Christ in the Acts of John. … For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one…. I am the members of my mother…. I am the one who has been hated everywhere and who has been loved everywhere. I am the one whom they call Life, and you have called Death…. I, I am godless, and I am the one whose God is great. I am the one whom you have reflected upon, and you have scorned me…. I am the one whom you have hidden from, and you appear to me…. Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness…. I am the knowledge of my name. I am the one who cries out, and I listen.58 Although the “I am” formula is not consistent throughout the work, it is the most noticeable structuring formula and continues throughout much of the work. The “activities” of this deity are not presented as works which benefit humans and give order to the gods (as in the Isis aretalogy), but appear more self-directed. Yet the various rebukes in the work make it clear that the goddess communicates with the human realm and expects certain reciprocal behaviors. “Come”: Making an appeal to the divine. The appeal for a deity to be present, the main element that structures the prayers in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas, is not generally regarded as an integral part of Greco-Roman prayer. The appeal is not, however, unknown. In the context of war, the deities of a city on the verge of falling are formally invited to come to the side of the apparent victors. A formula of evocation was developed, an example of which is cited by the fourth-century Macrobius: This is the formula by which the gods of a besieged city are called out: “If it is a god or if it is a goddess who has taken under his or her protection the people and state of Carthage, and thou above all who hast taken this city and this people into thy keeping: I pray, I implore, I plead with thee to grant me this favor—abandon the people and the state of Carthage, their lands, their temples, their sanctuaries, and their city; depart, and leave them. Inspire this people and city with fear, terror, forgetfulness. Leave them and come to Rome, to me and my people. Our land, our temples, sanctuaries, and city will be more pleasant to thee and dearer. To 58“The Thunder: Perfect Mind (VI,2),” (trans. George W. MacRae; ed. Douglas M. Parrott) in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 295303.

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me, to the Roman people, and to my soldiers be graciously disposed, and let us know and be aware of it. If thou wilt do this, I vow to thee a temple and games!”59 Macrobius adds that the prayer should be accompanied by a sacrifice and the entrails examined to determine the response. The appeal to “come” is thus spoken in a liturgical context, although the military conquest is certainly the primary determining factor in the affair.60 There is no description of the divine or list of divine attributes (indeed, the identity of the deity is unknown), nor is the invitation to “come” a present or personal appeal. The religious ritual that accompanies the formula of evocation is, rather, an attempt to manipulate the divine figures into responding, but not an attempt to make them enter into the human sphere by joining in the ritual itself. The most common use of “come” is in the context of art; poets and artists may appeal to the Muses to inspire them in their work: Come, Muse, Kalliope, daughter of Zeus, begin your lovely lines and make a song to please us and a dance that will charm.61 The appeal is personal, although the concern is less to invoke the presence of the Muse than to request inspiration. The context is not religious ritual but, rather, entertainment. Love

59In his Saturnalia 3.9.7ff. Translation in F. C. Grant, Ancient Roman Religion (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957), 22–23. 60Macrobius himself and this example from the Punic Wars are relatively late (Macrobius was a teacher of philosophy in North Africa at the end of the fourth century; Grant, Ancient Roman Religion, 22). But Livy also attests, although with less detail and formality, to the practice occurring at a much earlier date. In his account of the capture of Veii in 369 B.C.E., he records a somewhat humorous story of Juno responding to a lighthearted invitation to go to Rome (Livy, History of Rome 5.22.4–7); cited in Grant, Ancient Roman Religion, 21. 61Alkman, Poem #27. Cited in Barbara Hughes Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry: An Anthology (Wisconsin Studies in Classics; Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press), 103. Alkman was probably a native Spartan but that was disputed in antiquity (Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry, 311). Two poems of Stesichoros are similar: “Come here, / Kalliope, / of the high / sweet voice” (poem # 240); and “Come, tuneful Muse, / begin the lovely song / of the children of Samos, / sounding aloud / on your lovely lyre” (poem # 278). Both poems are cited in Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry, 116 and 117, respectively. Stesichoros was a professional choral poet from southern Italy or Sicily, from the sixth century B.C.E. (Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry, 312).

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poems provide another example of the same phenomenon. In the poem known as Anacreon’s Portrait of His Mistress, the Muse of poetry is invoked simply to assist in producing a specimen of beauty, which is a mirror of the beauty Anacreon sees in the woman he describes: Come, master of the rosy art, Thou painter after my own heart, Come, paint my absent love for me, As I shall describe her thee. Paint me first her fine dark hair, Fawning into ringlets there …62 There are no appellations applied, there is no description of the goddess’s many actions on behalf of humans, nor is there a ritual accompanying the prayer. The focus of the prayer is narrow and set within the desired response: the poem itself. Although separated from the Acts of Thomas by several centuries, Sappho’s prayers to Aphrodite provide the clearest appeal thus far to a divinity to be present with the speaker. In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E., Sappho of Lesbos exhibits a warm, sometimes tender, always reverent, relationship with her patron goddess. She does not hesitate to call upon the goddess to assist her and to come to her: “Come to me from Crete down from heaven, / come, for here your shrine in a charming / grove of apple trees keeps its altars / smoking with incense.”63 The term Sappho uses here is deu'ru (Aeolic for deu'ro), but in her only complete extant poem, she appeals to Aphrodite using the same term that appears in the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas: Deathless Aphrodite of dazzling throne, beguiling enchantress, child of Zeus, do not, I beseech you, overwhelm my soul with torment and anguish, O queen, 62Cited in The Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation (ed. Adrian Poole and Jeremy Maule; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 219. The poem was translated by Leigh Hunt, The feast of the poets: with other pieces in verse (2nd ed.; London: Gale and Fenner, 1815). Although ascribed to the sixthcentury B.C.E. poet Anacreon, this was written in the Hellenistic era (Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation, 216). 63This poem was found inscribed on a potsherd of the 3rd century B.C.E. (Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry, 315). Sappho usually appeals to Aphrodite.

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but come here to me, if ever before you heard from afar my voice and listened to me, and, abandoning your father’s golden home, you came to me … Come to me even now and release me from torturing cares, and all that my heart desires, accomplish for me, and do you yourself do battle with me.64 Here Sappho, to invoke the goddess, employs the same ejlqev seen in the Acts of Thomas. That Sappho has in mind a personal presence of the deity is evident in her descriptions of an earlier visit of Aphrodite, during which the goddess, with a smile, said, “Whom am I now to persuade to lead you back to her love?” This is clearly not the first time Sappho has laid claim to the deity’s favor, and her boldness results from her earlier experiences of the goddess’s response. The ejlqev used by Sappho would provide a fitting parallel with the invocations in the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas, were Sappho not so far removed in time and culture from our prayers. Fortunately, there are requests for a divinity to be present found in prayers roughly contemporaneous with the Acts of Thomas. Within the collection of Orphic Hymns are numerous examples of appeals to divine figures that also contain descriptions of the deity’s activity and multiple epithets for the god or goddess. Although the Orphic Hymns in question are probably from the third century of the common era,65 classical Orphism dates from at least the sixth century B.C.E. It was an

64Translation from Barbara Hughes Fowler, Archaic Greek Poetry, 129. Sappho is 7th-6th cent. B.C.E., of a notable family from island of Lesbos, although she was later exiled on Crete. This poem is quoted in full by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 65The collection of eighty-seven hymns, prefaced by an address of Orpheus to Mousaios, are extremely difficult to classify in terms of date and provenance. A manuscript of the collection was brought to the west in 1423 by Giovanni Aurispa (Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, xiii), but the first references to the hymns are from the twelfth century. Most scholars agree that the hymns are most likely from the first four centuries of the common era. Because of the revival of Dionysiac cults in the third century (and the association of Dionysus with Orphic practice), the latter part of that century is widely regarded as being “as good a guess as any” (Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, viii). Larry J. Alderink (“Orphic Hymn 13: to Kronos,” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A critical anthology, 190–94) agrees in general with this dating, as do W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952), 15 and 256, and M. L. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 1.

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alternative to traditional Olympian religion, containing its own cosmogonic myth and consequent unique anthropological understanding. Orphism included a distinct understanding of cult; ritual behavior was an integral part of Orphic observance, but animal sacrifice was rejected. In this, the Orphic Hymns appear to remain faithful to earlier Orphism, although in other respects they alter it.66 Hellenistic Orphism was not as syncretistic as many others cults in the Hellenistic world; there is no interest in any of the Egyptian deities whose cult traveled to and was popular in the northern Mediterranean.67 Based most likely in Asia Minor,68 it was comfortable with local deities from this region as well as the Greek gods and goddesses. But the Orphic Hymns are addressed to a wide variety of divinities, including personifications of natural phenomena such as Ether, Nature, and the Stars. The god Dionysos, who figured so prominently in Orphic thought and apparently in cult as well, is the deity to whom is addressed the greatest number of hymns (seven). Of greatest interest to the present study is the structure of the Orphic Hymns themselves. “Each has as its main section a series of epithets or descriptive phrases addressed to the deity, and closes in the last line or two with a prayer. This is sometimes for general blessings, plenty, peace and health, sometimes a summons to the deity to be present.”69 The prayers often allude to some kind of ritual action, although the precise

66For example, rather than being concerned with struggles among the gods and the predicament of the human soul imprisoned in a body, the Orphic Hymns treat of everyday matters: “crops and food, easy births, safe travels, relief from fears in the night, and peace and health” (Alderink, “Orphic Hymn 13,” 192). 67Although Isis is mentioned (as “divine mother”) in Hymn 42. 68Otto Kern (“Das Demeterheiligtum von Pergamon und die orphischen Hymnen,” Hermes 46 [1911]: 431–46) first suggested Pergamum as the locale from which these hymns come. This is based in large part on the names of three otherwise unknown deities (Mise, Hipta, and Melinoe), found on inscriptions from the temple to Demeter there. In addition, there is a hymn apparently addressed to Cybele, and one to Adonis. See the discussions in Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, x; Alderink, “Orphic Hymn 13,” 190; and Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 259–61. That the hymns most likely were written in Asia Minor does not necessarily place a community of “Orphics” there, but it does appear that “Orphism” (even if that means only a literary movement that produced these hymns) was based there. 69Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 257.

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nature of the cult in which the prayers were offered is unclear. Although the frequent repetition of “come” is missing from the Orphic Hymns, and the descriptive epithets are not as crisp (nor as abstruse) as the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, the Orphic prayers bear resemblance to the Christian ones. The appeals to the divine in the Orphic Hymns may contain requests to “hear” or to grant some favor; at other times the suppliant states “I call upon” or “I summon” the deity. But the most striking appeals are those that ask the god or goddess to “come.” Several verbs are used, including pavreimi (once), baivnw (four times), and blwvskw (eight times, usually the imperative movle), but by far the most common verb employed is e[rcomai.70 Of the thirty-two times that some form of e[rcomai is used, the imperative ejlqev appears fifteen times (and, twice additionally, the plural e[lqete). The god or goddess may be asked to come “with kindness and joy” (Hymn 16 to Hera) or to come “as savior and bring life to a good end” (Hymn 67 to Asklepios). But it is not at all unusual for the deity to be asked to come “to these holy rites” (Hymn 1 to Hecate) or to “come to the initiates” (Hymn 58 to Eros).71 Almost all of the Orphic Hymns contain mention of incense or other offerings, suggesting that the title of the prayer was followed by instructions for offering the prayer in the most effective manner. Often the appeal to “come” precedes titles applied to the god, as in the Hymn to Asklepios: “come [ejlqev; movloi" is used earlier] blessed one, savior.” In this prayer, there are, in addition, numerous accounts of the activity of the god. These descriptions of the god’s behavior on behalf of humans are somewhat similar to those in the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas; Asclepius is “giver of soothing gifts” and “strong one,” while the Holy Spirit is called “highest charism” and “power of the Most High” (Greek chapter 27). Asclepius is asked to “come and bring health,” while the Holy Spirit is

70In addition, deu'ro is used once, in Hymn 54. 71All translations are from Apostolos N. Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns.

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requested to “cleanse.” As with several of the Orphic Hymns, the prayer ends with an appeal for “a good end to life,” perhaps a reference to the Orphic conceptions of afterlife, the condition of which depends on the activities of the soul while in the body. The three structuring elements of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas—the appeal to “come,” the epithets, and the concluding request—are here present, although arranged quite differently in the prayer to Asclepius. The Orphic Hymn to Persephone (no. 29) contains the same elements, with an emphasis on the descriptive titles. There is an opening appeal to “come,” offered in a cultic context (ejlqev; “Persephone, blessed daughter of great Zeus, sole offspring / of Demeter, come and accept this gracious sacrifice”),72 followed by numerous epithets of the goddess (“discreet and lifegiving,” as well as references to her mythological role: “queen of the nether world,” “maiden rich in fruits”). Finally, a request is made to “send forth the earth’s fruits,” while the prayer closes with the common Orphic request for peace, health, and a prosperous life, until the suppliant is taken “to your realm, O queen.” One of the most interesting of the Orphic Hymns, with respect to affinity with the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas, is that addressed to the magna mater (Mhtro;" qew`n, in the hymn’s title), the Phrygian fertility goddess Cybele.73 The Phrygian goddess came to be identified with numerous other female deities (she is here addressed, in a manner similar to that of several other goddesses in these hymns, as “many-named”), including the GrecoRoman goddesses Rhea, Gaia, and Ceres/Demeter, and, especially, with the Syrian goddess

72Abel, Orphica, 73ff. Translation from Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, 41–43. 73Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 133, states that there was little interest in mother or virgin goddesses in Orphism. But the renewed Orphism of late antiquity, represented by these hymns as well as the numerous Orphic fragments found in Neoplatonist writings, seems to suggest otherwise. This hymn is dedicated to the mother of the gods, while Artemis is honored in Hymn 36. It is not unlikely that Orphism of any period, uncomfortable as it was with violence and bloodshed, would have looked with disdain on the myth of the castration of Cybele’s consort, Attis. It is certainly difficult to imagine anyone with Orphic sensibilities practicing self-mutilation. But the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysos continued to be taught in Orphic circles, although, as Guthrie asserts (Orpheus and Greek Religion, 133), it was considered “nothing more nor less than a loathsome crime.”

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Atargatis.74 The hymn, here cited in full, contains not only a variety of names and descriptive titles of the goddess,75 but also the invocation to “come” (e[rceo) to join in a rite. Divine are your honors, o mother of the gods and nurturer of all. Come, ruler, goddess, queen, as you have vowed, when you have yoked the bull-slaying lions to your swift chariot. Scepter-bearer of the celebrated heaven, you of many names, revered, who has established your throne in the midst of the cosmos, because you possess the earth and provide mortals with pleasant food. From you was born the race of both mortals and immortals. The rivers are ever ruled by you as is the entire sea. Hestia is your name, and you are also called the provider of prosperity because you bestow on mortals all manner of good things.76 Come to the rite, o queen who derives pleasure from the drums, subduer of all things, Phrygian savior, wife of Kronos, child of Ouranos, elder, nourisher of life, lover of ecstasy, come, full of joy, pleased with the tokens of our piety.77 Because Cybele was the mother of wild nature, her rituals were characterized by wild frenzy and self-mutilation. The ecstatic rituals of Cybele reenacted somewhat the myth of the death of Attis, the fertility god and her lover. Cybele is not only a fertility goddess, however; she is mother even of the gods themselves, as well as of all living creatures. As such, she is present with her adherents in their worship of her.

74In the hymn to the magna mater it is said that “Hestia is one of your names,” but her original identity as Cybele is confirmed by the phrase “savior of Phrygia” and “frenzy loving.” Hipta was also a mother goddess from Asia Minor, one of those whose names was found in Pergamum; in Hymn 49, she seems to be identified with Cybele (she is a “chthonic mother,” a “maiden possessed,” who delights in Bacchic night worship, and who sometimes resides on “Ida, Phrygia’s sacred mountain”). The “mother of the gods” in this hymn is probably already identified with other deities; she is “consort of Kronos, child of Ouranos” (Rhea) and “Queen of the sky” (possibly Nut, the Egyptian sky goddess). Although there may in fact have been several mother goddesses, it is not entirely clear why the mother of the gods here is identified as Hestia. 75“The most pervasive characteristic of the Hymns, the ubiquitous epithet, might betoken a link between these Hymns and the various remains of magic literature from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The idea seems to be that a propitiatory address to the deity, accompanied by as comprehensive a list of its powers and properties as possible, will force it to accede to one’s wishes” (Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, x). I might add that the appeal for the deity to be directly present, missing from other GrecoRoman prayers, bears striking resemblance to a similar appeal in the magical incantations. 76Apparently the goddess’s role here as provider, presumably of the basic necessities of life such as shelter and food, suggested her identification with the Greek goddess of the hearth, Hestia. 77 Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, Hymn 27, pp. 38–39.

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This desire for the presence of the deity in worship, notable in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas, is seen as well in the Orphic Hymns, especially in those that speak of new mu`stai.78 Hymn 58 to Eros appeals to the god to “come to the initiates, with pure thought,” while a similar idea (“come, kind and ever gracious, to the initiates”) can be found as well in Hymn 83 to Okeanos. Hymn 18 to Pluto asks the god to “come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.” It appears that the appeal to come is not only associated with a liturgical rite, but that the rite places the initiates in the very presence of the divine. While the god is present with the initiates, certain favors are asked. Of greatest interest are those requests to enlighten, or otherwise change the lives of, the initiates. Hymn 83 asks Sleep to come and “kindly save the initiates, that they may serve the gods.” The Moon is invoked to “shine your redeeming light on your new initiates” (here nevou" iJkevta") in Hymn 9, while Dawn in Hymn 78 is asked to “give more sacred light to the initiates.” Most similar to the request in the epiclesis in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas, that the Spirit “cleanse the minds and the hearts” of the new Christian initiates is the appeal in Hymn 4 to Ouranos, to “bring a life of holiness to the newly initiated.” Notably absent from the discussion thus far is mention of prayers found in a type of literature similar to the apocryphal acts of the apostles. One would expect that the ancient Greek novels would be a likely source of similar material. With regard to the prayers included in the Acts of Thomas, however, that does not seem to be so. The prayers of Callirhoe in Chariton’s novel Chaereas and Callirhoe will serve to give an example. Callirhoe appeals to Aphrodite, first to give her Chaereas as a husband, and, after the two are married but separated, to arrange that no other man would love her. Later, she offers a prayer of gratitude and an additional appeal for her child. The prayers in the Greek novels 78Whether there was such a thing as an Orphic cult or even Orphic communities is entirely unclear. But there is no doubt that these hymns were used in a cultic context, whether a cult of a unique nature or the established cult of the individual deity invoked. Repeated reference to the newly initiated in these prayers would seem to suggest that Hellenistic Orphism had become a mystery religion in itself, as is often suggested, despite the absence of direct evidence of Orphic groups per se.

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are of a more intimate character than earlier Greek prayers. Although Fortune is blamed for the numerous travails of the principal characters, Aphrodite, the locally revered goddess, is often chided as well. In Chariton’s novel, there appears to be little restraint in Callirhoe’s reproaches. Although requests for favors are offered to the goddess, there is never an appeal to be present, and the titles used are simple: her name, “Mistress,” “Lady.” Occasionally her previous favors are recalled, but not in any stylized manner. Callirhoe is comfortable reproaching Aphrodite and making requests of her, but the prayers themselves bear no resemblance to the epicleses. Magical appeals79 There are, however, collections of prayers widely used in antiquity that have elements in common with the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Indeed, in her study of the epicleses,80 Caroline Johnson found these appeals to various deities, often designated as “magical” prayers, to bear closest resemblance to the epicleses in question. Magical spells parallel the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas in several ways. Just as the epicleses call upon the divine to be present in a ritual action, so also the magical prayers

79 Magical spells are difficult to classify. Because magic was so widespread in the ancient world, it is entirely likely that there were artisans of the craft in Hebrew and Christian circles, as well as among adherents of the Greek and Roman deities. But it is difficult to assign a particular spell to a religious tradition based on the use of the names for God within that tradition. The magical arts thrived on a practice of incorporating holy names from any tradition, in order best to catch the attention of the desired god(s). Some commonly used prayers, then, may include the name of the Jewish God or have Christian allusions, but there is no evidence that they were used exclusively by Jews or Christians. For our purposes, it is the forms of the prayers that are of interest, regardless of the religious tradition from which they stem. These popular appeals to deities will, then, be treated as one body, independent of the categories (Hebrew, Christian, Greco-Roman) used above. For several excellent discussions on the relationship between “magic” and “religion” in antiquity, see the essays in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (ed. Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). In particular, Fritz Graf discusses, then rejects, the earlier scholarly distinction between magic and religion that claims that, in the former, the adherent attempts to manipulate the divine, but in the latter, the adherent submits to the divine will. Graf does, however, note two elements found in magical texts that are not common with non-magical religious observance: the use of voces magicae and the employment of rituals that set the magical practitioner apart from the rest of the community. Sacrifice of animals, for example, might occur in both “magic” and in “religion,” but the magical practitioner consumed the meat of the animal alone, while the community or some part of it shared together in a religious sacrificial meal. See Fritz Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual.”

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can appeal to a deity to be present. In the prayer in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas, the apostle appeals to the Spirit to be present with the initiates, to cleanse them, and to “seal” them. We have seen that the seal is protective, gives illumination and life, and provides entry into the community of followers of the “new God,” with the subsequent admission to celebration of the Eucharist (and the epiclesis in chapter 50 asks the Spirit to be present in the eucharistic celebration). The practitioner of magic was often asked to devise spells that would offer the adherent protection and blessings. But it is the request that a god(dess) be present with the magical practitioner that most resembles the purpose for the epicleses. For example, an incantation requesting immortality contains, as part of the result, an experience of the presence of the divine and a revelation of a transcendent reality (PGM IV.475–829).81 Like the epicleses, it too includes an appeal to the divine being to “come”: “‘Come, lord …’ When you have said this, … you will see a youthful god …” (PGM IV.631–35). The request to “come,” so marked in the prayers we have been examining, is also an occasional feature of the magical incantations, although other requests are also made frequently.82 Although the request to “come” most often appears only once in an incantation, the repetition of the imperative is not unknown. Within the prayer are often multiple addresses of the divine being. A prayer to Hermes illustrates both of these characteristics: “Come to me, lord Hermes, as fetuses do to the wombs of women. Come to me, lord Hermes, who collect the sustenance of gods and men; [come] to me, NN, lord Hermes, and give me favor, sustenance, victory, prosperity, elegance, beauty of face, strength of all men and women. Your names in heaven: LAMPHTHEN OUOTHI OUASTEHN OUOTHI OAMENOTH ENTHOMOUH…. Come to me, lord Hermes, many-named one,

80“Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas.” 81For the magical papyri, I use the edition of Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (2nd ed.). 82See, for example, PGM XIII.64–90, with the fourfold repetition of “I call on you, lord,” and the final appeal to “come.”

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who know the things hidden beneath heaven and earth. Come [to me], NN, lord Hermes; serve well, benefactor of the world” (PGM VIII.1–16). It is not unusual for the adherent to recount the great works of the divine being. Caroline Johnson notes also that the epicleses and magical incantations also share a request for some action on the part of the divine, and some manipulation of a sacred object. In the case of the apostle, the sacred objects are the bread, cup, oil, and eucharistic bread. Indeed, we have seen that King Mizdai (as recounted by his wife) accuses the apostle of enchanting people with “oil, water, and bread” (chapter 152). Johnson concludes that the epicleses “closely resemble magical incantations. They parallel each other in three significant ways: the overall purpose, the structure of the prayer, and the use of symbols.”83 While these resemblances are striking, there are, as with all the prayers we have examined, notable differences as well. The magical incantations sometimes request the presence of the deity, but it is more common for the practitioner of magic, having secured the attention of the god(dess), to offer a prayer in order to obtain some action or benefit, whether a successful love spell, curse, or blessing, or physical cures and other benefits. The use of “come,” while not unknown, is not the norm in magical incantations. When it does appear, it is usually found only once, although, as we have seen, there are exceptions. In the Acts of Thomas, the apostle prays primarily for the Spirit to be present with the believers (to “commune” with them and to “share” with them in the Eucharist), although he also asks that the Spirit “cleanse” and “seal” them. The manipulation of various objects is used by both the apostle and the practitioner of magic, but there is greater variety in the objects used and what is done with them in the magical texts; despite the variety we have noted in the liturgical rites in the Acts of Thomas, the ritual actions appear strikingly consistent when compared with the rituals involved in magical spells, which can involve drinking a potion, burning a mixture, speaking over objects, forming statues out of wax, writing formulas on

83Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 186.

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leaves, animals skins, or pottery, and numerous other actions. Magical spells, then, have elements in common with the epicleses, but the differences are often as striking as the similarities. Conclusion The epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas, addressed as they are to the feminine Spirit of God, seem to display a unique form among ancient prayers. The epicleses are notable in their repetition of the anaphoral “come,” their use of short epithets for the divine figure, and their request that the Spirit join with them in the ritual action. Although there are ancient prayers that evidence some similarities, no ancient prayer appears to be closely related in form to the epicleses. The Hebrew berakhah sometimes includes a repetition of a phrase giving praise to God, and recounts God’s deeds. But the form of the berakhah does not match that of the epicleses. The epiclesis seems to develop out of the very early Christian maranatha prayer, which includes the appeal to “come” and a hope for Christ’s presence on earth. In other respects, however, the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas differ even from other Christian liturgical epicleses, since those spoken by the apostle Thomas directly address the Spirit; other epicleses address Christ or the Father and ask that the Spirit might come or be sent. The appeal to come and the presence of repeated epithets do, however, occur in Greco-Roman literature and magical texts, which also can call a deity to be present. The most striking similarities between ancient prayers and the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas can be seen in the Orphic hymns. The Orphic hymns, like the epicleses, appear to be offered in a ritual setting, include short epithets describing the deity, and offer a closing appeal to the deity, often asking the god(dess) to be present in the ritual. Although the repeated “come” of the epicleses remains striking and unique, the Orphic hymns often include some appeal to “come” (the verb varies, but a form of e[rcomai is most common).

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The epicleses in the Acts of Thomas are, then, unparalleled in prayers of the ancient world, yet evidence similar elements to prayers from several different languages and milieux. Only in a later Manichaean prayer, 84 written in Middle Iranian and perhaps based on the epicleses, do we see a striking similarity to the ritual prayers of the Acts of Thomas: Come with grace, liberated Lord! Come with aid, good Spirit, apostle with peace! Helper of the frail and conqueror of the aggressors! Come with grace, new Lord! Come with grace, redeemer of the subjected, healer of the wounded! Come with grace, awakener of the sleeping and arouser of the sleepy, thou who causest the dead to arise! Come with grace, mighty God and hallowing voice! Come with grace, true Word, great luminary, and flooding light. Come with grace, new Lord and new day! Come with grace, gift of the good, blessing of the frail, and revered of the holy! Come with grace, loving Father and just judge of those who have sought their refuge with thee! Come with grace, Father, thou who art our stout protection and firm faith! Come with grace, [conqueror?] of the aggressors …

84This is the second section of a prayer (ms. M 28 II) discovered in Turfan. It is published in C. Andreas, Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan (trans. Walter Henning; 3 vols.; Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1932–1934), 2.21–23. The English translation is found in Geo Widengren, Mani and Manichaeism (trans. Charles Kessler; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961), 87. Subsequent sections of the prayer continue in similar style; a final section includes the line, “Hasten hither and subdue the sinners!” No date is given for this prayer.

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CHAPTER 6 THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPICLESES The epicleses in the Acts of Thomas are distinctive in several ways, as we have seen. They were originally independent compositions, as is evident in their terminology. This terminology accords with only a few other prayers in the work, prayers that give evidence on other grounds of their independent nature. The form of the epicleses also sets them apart from other Jewish and Christian prayers; they show some similarity to popular adjurations of divine beings, often labeled “magical,” although the epicleses have the most in common with Orphic hymns. The theology of the prayers marks them as distinctive as well; they evidence an intriguing understanding of the divine, and of the hope offered to adherents of the religious system enshrined in the prayers. These concepts, in turn, affect the notion regarding divine and human interaction seen in the prayers, set as they are in liturgical contexts. The theology found in the epicleses, while distinctive, is, however, not entirely unique. Other texts from the region or having some relationship with the type of Christianity found there have similar images and conceptions. The witnesses to Christianity in northern Mesopotamia prior to and during the third century are few, but not entirely lacking. In addition, fourth-century Syrian authors made use of—or sometimes ridiculed—concepts found in the epicleses, evidencing a familiarity with and even dependence on the Acts of Thomas and the types of theology it enshrines. This chapter attempts to understand the meaning of the various terms and phrases in the epicleses by comparing them primarily, but not exclusively, with other early Christian texts that have links to northern Mesopotamia. 218

The Odes of Solomon, a collection of poems probably written in Syriac,1 are central to any discussion of the origins of Christianity in Syria. The Odes are usually assigned to the second century,2 but such an early dating has been challenged.3 Although their precise provenance is unknown,4 scholars now agree that they stem from the region of Syria.5 Whether they were written separately or as a collection, they are invaluable in any discussion of the imagery and theological language of early Syriac-speaking Christianity. The Odes of Solomon and the Acts of Thomas share a number of themes, but also differ in several ways. For example, the idea of crowning mentioned in the invocation over the oil in chapter 158 of the Acts of Thomas recalls the numerous references in the Odes of Solomon to the crown bestowed on the believer (Odes 1, 5, 9, 11, 20). But the image is more

1 The original language of the Odes is debated. The Odes survive, in whole or in part, in Coptic, Greek, Latin, and Syriac. The Syriac contains Greek loan words and there are interesting differences between the Greek and Syriac versions of Ode 11. For the position that they were composed in Greek, see R. H. Connolly, “Greek the Original Language of the Odes of Solomon,” JTS 14 (1913): 530–38. Although James Charlesworth does not argue for Syriac authorship, he does indicate that the extant Syriac mss. are closer to the autograph than is the extant Greek. See James H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon (SBL Texts and Translations 13; SBL Pseudepigrapha Series 7; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 14. For discussion of the Odes and an extensive bibliography, see Michael Lattke, Die Oden Salomos in ihren Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis (OBO 25; 4 vols. in 5; Fribourg: Éditions universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979–1998). 2

Charlesworth believes that the Odes stem from the early second century and the collection is the “earliest Christian hymnbook” (Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon, vii). If a date from the early part of the second century is correct, the Odes represent the earliest Christian work from the region of Syria. 3

H. J. W. Drijvers, “Odes of Solomon and Psalms of Mani,” Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to Gilles Quispel (ed. R. Van den Broeck and M. J. Vermaseren; EPRO 91; Leiden: Brill, 1981), 117–30; reprinted in East of Antioch: Studies in Early Syriac Christianity (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984). Drijvers, basing his argument on what he sees as the presence of anti-Marcionite and antiManichaean language in the Odes, suggests a date of 275 (p. 129); he had earlier held that the Odes were written about 125 (Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa [Studia Semitica Neerlandica 6; Assen: van Gorcum, 1966], 210). The latest possible date for the Odes is roughly contemporaneous with the Acts of Thomas. Since there are several third-century witnesses to the Odes (the Pistis Sophia and the Bodmer Papyrus, as well as a possible reference in the Testamentum Domini; for this, see J. H. Bernard, “The Odes of Solomon,” JTS 12 (1911): 1–31, esp. 30), Drijvers’s dating seems a bit late. If he is correct that the Odes are anti-Manichaean, they must either have been written during the time of Mani’s life and ministry, or they were written and published over a period of time, with the result that some were known at an earlier date. 4

Scholars initially considered Egypt as a place of origin of the Odes. Indeed, the Syriac ms. discovered by F. C. Burkitt (“A New MS of the Odes of Solomon,” JTS 13 [1912]: 372–85), located in the British Museum and duly cataloged by William Wright forty years earlier, came from the Nitrian desert. But it was found in the Monastery of St. Maria Deipara (the Syrian), with its collection of materials from the region of Syria. 5

The cities of Antioch and Edessa have been suggested.

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common and more developed in the Odes, in which the crown represents truth and is worn by members of the “true covenant of the Lord” (Ode 9:8–9, 11);6 it is received in paradise (Ode 20:7). The odist also claims several times to employ a cruciform style of prayer (Odes 27:1–3; 35:7; 42:1–2), a practice completely unknown in the Acts of Thomas, while the ritual actions central to the Acts of Thomas (initiation rituals and non-initiatory Eucharist) can be found explicitly expressed nowhere in the Odes. But, as we shall see, many of the themes found in the Odes of Solomon reappear in the Acts of Thomas, especially in the prayers of interest to this study. We have seen in a discussion of the liturgical setting of the epicleses that there are affinities between the initiation rituals in the Acts of Thomas, especially in the emphasis on the oil of anointing, and the sacramental system(s) present in the Gospel of Philip, a work often considered to stem from Valentinian Christianity.7 If, as has been asserted,8 the Christianity of northern Mesopotamia influenced Valentinus, it would behoove us to look closely at some texts from Valentinian Christianity (and perhaps other witnesses to gnostic Christianity as known from the heresiologists or the Nag Hammadi corpus) in order to examine some of the motifs embedded in that literature. Valentinus and Valentinian Christians were apparently familiar with some early form of the Thomas tradition,9 and combined Mesopotamian Christianity with a system that emphasized gnosis and was familiar with a form of the classic cosmogonic myth of those

6

I follow the ode and line numbering of Charlesworth’s edition, and often employ his translation as

well. 7 But see the comments of Martha Turner, The Gospel according to Philip, esp. p. 7, regarding the composite nature of the work, the varieties of Valentinianism, and the origin of some parts of the work outside Valentinian Christianity proper. It is in these sections, with their links to the Christianity of the northern Mesopotamian region, that is of greatest interest and value to the present study. 8 On the influence of the Thomas tradition on Valentinus and the Valentinian school, see the general introduction in Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987). 9

See the brief discussion in Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, xv–xvi and 217–22.

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gnostics10 who claimed to descend from Seth.11 The Valentinian writings are much earlier than the Acts of Thomas and therefore develop a more ancient form of Christianity than what we find in the Acts of Thomas. But there are striking similarities between the Valentinian Christian ideas and those of the Acts of Thomas regarding revelation, the role of the Spirit, the content of Christian hope, and other themes—as well as significant differences. The classical writers of Syriac-speaking Christianity in the fourth century knew and used the Acts of Thomas and built on the images employed there. Ephrem surely knew the Acts of Thomas, yet he criticizes Bardaisan for holding to some of the ideas expressed in the epicleses of interest in this study. Ephrem’s younger contemporary Aphrahat does not explicitly indicate knowledge of the traditions included in the Acts of Thomas, but is comfortable with the concepts and terminology familiar to readers of the work. Both use language reminiscent of that found in the epicleses, and Ephrem in particular evidences a style of writing that is similar to that of the semi-poetic epicleses. Ephrem’s extensive writings ridicule systematic reflection on the Christian faith, yet poetically extol tenets of that faith system. Aphrahat, too, develops elaborate images to express the Christian concepts with which he is familiar. I include in this chapter examination of the writings of these two authors to see where the ideas found in third-century Syriac-speaking Christianity,

10 On the difficulty in speaking about a group or groups of “gnostics” and on the general inadequacy of the term “gnosticism,” see Michael Allen Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996). 11

Irenaeus (Haer. 1.11.1) explicitly claims that Valentinus took principles of gnostic thought and adapted them. But the myth of origins, if present at all in Valentinus’s own writings (if it is correct that the extant corpus stemming from Valentinus’s own pen includes not only the fragmentary materials, but also the Gospel of Truth) is much clearer in the version of the gnostic myth attributed by Irenaeus (Haer. 1.1.1–1.8.5) to Ptolemy, the student of Valentinus. The Gospel of Truth itself is a Christian sermon that gives mere hints as to the system underlying the author’s present exposition. See the argument that the sermon intentionally conceals the author’s theology in an attempt to appeal to a general audience of Christians in Harold W. Attridge, “The Gospel of Truth as an Exoteric Text,” in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, & Early Christianity, ed. Charles W. Hedrick and Robert Hodgson, Jr. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986), 239–55. For the view that Valentinus was not the author of the Gospel of Truth, see Christoph Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus?: Untersuchungen zur vcalentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins (WUNT 65; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992), esp. 339–56.

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especially in the epicleses themselves, are developed and where they are questioned or challenged. Efforts to understand the theology of the epicleses will, therefore, benefit from a comparison of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas with these literary works that seem to stem, directly or indirectly, from the region of northern Mesopotamia. I proceed thematically, treating together multiple occurrences of a theme or term. Because there is much overlap in the images evoked by these prayers, there is, of necessity, overlap in my treatment of them. At the same time, I try to follow, whenever possible, the order of the prayers themselves, beginning with the epiclesis in chapter 27, followed by that in chapter 50. Analysis of the Epicleses “Come, holy name of the Anointed which is above every name” The name of a divine being is an essential characteristic of that being: only when the name is known can the god(dess) be addressed or can claims be made of the particular deity’s favor. In addition, the name of the Hebrew God actually dwells in Israel and it is for the sake of the divine name that God acts in Israel’s behalf (e.g., Ezek 20:9). Eventually, the name of God seems to become hypostasized in its own right; in Philo, it is a mirror of the divine thought (Contempl. 78).12 It is by invoking the name of Jesus that Peter is able to heal a man (Acts 3:6), while Jesus’ followers rejoice because they suffer for the sake of “the name” (Acts 5:41).13 God’s name dwells in the hearts of the community known to the author of the Didache (10.2). In the Philippians 2 Christ hymn, it is at the name of Jesus that every knee will bend, but Jesus is given the “name above every name,” that is, kuvrio", the LXX’s translation of the tetragrammaton.

12 An easily accessible translation is that of David Winston, Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections (CWS; New York: Paulist, 1981). 13

In Acts Pet. 13, Peter declares that the people have not yet believed in the name, Jesus Christ.

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The epiclesis in chapter 27 opens with an appeal to the “holy name of Christ.” It then adopts the phrase “above every name” from Phil 2:9,14 but applies the phrase not to the name “Lord,” as in Phil 2, but rather to the Christ. The use of the article draws attention to the act of anointing,15 an act that is explicitly associated with the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the prayer in its present form is unmistakably directed to the Holy Spirit, adjured in line 9A. We have seen that this ambiguity led Gabriele Winkler initially to posit that the prayer oscillates between address to the Messiah and to the Spirit.16 A. F. J. Klijn also notes the difficulty, but concludes that liturgical materials throughout the Acts of Thomas use various terms (in addition to “name,” also “power” and “gift”) to indicate the Spirit.17 The addressee in the rest of the prayer is, as we have seen, quite clearly the Spirit, but this initial phrase does indicate how closely the anointing Spirit is associated with the Anointed one. The Valentinian Gospel of Truth reflects also on naming, beginning on page 38: “Now the name of the Father is the Son…. His is the name; his is the Son. It is possible for him to be seen. The name, however, is invisible because it alone is the mystery of the invisible…18 For indeed, the Father’s name is not spoken, but it is apparent through a Son” (38.7–24). The Son, who is the means by which the elect return to the Father, is also the very expression of who the Father is. The Father’s name is not in itself visible or spoken, but is known only through its communication in the Son, who is himself that which is being communicated. He not only reveals the name of the Father, but bears it himself. There is no doubt that the epiclesis in chapter 27 shares the view of the Gospel of Truth that the exalted “name” is that borne by Christ (in the Gospel of Truth, the “Son”).

14

The phrase is missing from the Syriac and is probably not original. This is also the position of Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 37. 15

And suggests that the term “Christ” is not used here simply as a proper name.

16

See the discussion in chapter 5 above.

17

Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 58.

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The epiclesis also emphasizes the revealing power of the one who is addressed, and the author of the epiclesis must have shared the thoughtworld of the author of the Gospel of Truth that the invisible name of the Father is communicated in the Son. But the revealer of hidden mysteries in the epiclesis is the feminine Spirit, the compassionate Mother. The confusing appeal to the “name” of Christ, then, may be an appeal that the name be revealed and communicated through the power of the Spirit who reveals the mysteries of God. Winkler’s final conclusion is essentially correct, that the epiclesis is directed to “the Spirit, the Mother, who reveals herself and is made present by calling down the Name of the Anointed.”19 Just as the first line of the prayer in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas appeals to the name of the Anointed and declares it exalted, so also the Odes of Solomon emphasize the power of the “name” (e.g., Odes 22:6; 25:11) or give praise to it (Ode 16:20). The promise of “the name” is that which is given to those who “walk with” God in Ode 33:13. The promise may consist of a pledge of divine protection. The power of the Lord is so overwhelming that it is compared with raging rivers, destructive to many, but not to those who cross them in faith (Ode 39:1–6). These faithful ones are protected by the sign they wear and the fact that they have put on the name of the Lord; indeed, the waters are bridged by the Lord’s word (Ode 39:7–9). In addition to this promise, the elect receive special knowledge concerning God’s ways. The Odes of Solomon know not only the power of the divine name, but also the power associated with naming. In Ode 30, a fountain of water springs from the lips of the Lord and also has the power to name (Ode 30:5); coming as it does from the “heart of the Lord,” it is apparently entrusted with the role of naming creatures or perhaps designating

18 Interestingly, in the Gospel of the Egyptians from Nag Hammadi, it is the Spirit who is the “great, invisible, eternal” one (68.24) or the “great invisible, uncallable, virginal Spirit” (53.16–17). 19

Gabriele Winkler, “Further Observations in Connection with the Early Form of the Epiklesis,” 79.

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the elect. Drinking of the fountain is probably associated with imbibing wisdom,20 so the fountain’s ability to bestow names implies a proper knowledge of the recipient’s true name. For the epiclesis to call upon the holy, exalted name of the anointed, then, draws first a strong connection between the Spirit and the Anointed one. The name is apparently one of the mysteries revealed by the Spirit; it is the identity of God communicated in the Christ and revealed by the power of the Spirit. The name itself is powerful, but also carries with it a promise of divine protection for those who call upon it. “Come, power of the Most High and perfect compassion” The “power” is that which is invoked also in the prayers in chapters 52 and 121 of the Acts of Thomas. Chapter 52 contains the “Water from the living waters” prayer, in which heavenly realities are asked to be present in their earthly counterparts. Thus, the apostle prays that salvific power might dwell in the waters, so that the gift of the Holy Spirit will be brought to completion in them. The non-initiatory waters are then invested with healing powers. Similarly, but in an initiatory context, the “power” in invoked in the epiclesis addressed to the “holy oil” in chapter 121. The oil in this later epiclesis is also a revealer, as is the Spirit in the epicleses we are examining, thus supporting the hypothesis that the Spirit of God is understood not simply to bear divine power, but can actually be addressed as God’s power. The same conception and, indeed, essentially the same terminology is found also in the annunciation scene in the Gospel of Luke,21 in which the angel, in response to Mary’s question, declares that the birth of the child Jesus is the direct result of the presence of the Holy Spirit: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will

20

See my “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,” esp. 158–66.

21

Noted also by Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 37, and Caroline Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 192–93. The Acts of Thomas 27 includes also the article before uJyivstou, the use of which is odd and probably supplied in translation, since the underlying Syriac would not have included an article (articles are lacking in the Syriac language). Biblical references to the “Most High,” although employing a different Semitic term, also lack the article.

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overshadow you” (Luke 1:35).22 At the end of this gospel, Jesus instructs his disciples to remain in Jerusalem to receive the “power from on high,” which, in Acts, is the presence of the Spirit; although the precise terminology in Luke 24:49 differs slightly (ejx u}you" duvnamin) from that in the other passages, the meaning is essentially the same. Often in the Odes of Solomon, God is called the “Most High.”23 Ode 6 describes a torrential stream, destructive yet life giving, from which the thirsty drink and are refreshed with a draft given from the Most High. The holy ones will have knowledge of the Most High (Odes 7:16; 8:18), for the Most High communicates through the Word (Ode 12). Not only does the Most High speak and think, however, but the Most High has also breathed into the wise a breath that enables them to speak the truth (Ode 18:15). An explicit mention of the Holy Spirit is found in Ode 11, which describes the joy experienced by the odist as a result of God’s goodness. In this ode, the odist speaks of being intoxicated by the living water that brings knowledge, of casting off an old garment, of receiving rest, refreshment, and a crown upon entering paradise. The entire ode most likely describes the odist’s initiation into the Christian life (verse 14 speaks of being “enlightened”), an experience that is likened to a circumcision (Ode 11:2): “For the Most High circumcised me by His Holy Spirit.” It is the Spirit that effects the change in the odist and brings about salvation (Ode 11:3). It is in Ode 32 that we see a reference to the “Holy Power of the Most High” and come closest to the phrase in and meaning behind line 2 of the epiclesis in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas. This brief ode begins by discussing the joy of the “blessed ones,” but quickly shifts to speak of the one who dwells in them, called the “Word of truth” in verse

22

The verb “overshadow” (agen in Syriac) will become a technical term among Syriac Christian writers for the activity of the Spirit. Interestingly, however, Jacob of Serugh, in a homily on the annunciation, explicitly distinguishes between the Spirit and the Power in the annunciation scene, apparently identifying the Power with the Logos. See the discussion in Sebastian Brock, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition, 4–5. On the connection between the Spirit’s activity at the annunciation and in the Christian Eucharist, see Sebastian Brock, “Mary and the Eucharist: an Oriental Perspective,” Sobornost 2 (1979): 5059.

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2. This Word has been strengthened by the “Power of the Most High,” allowing him to be unshaken. This ode does not seem to describe the presence of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, as perhaps Ode 24 does, but certainly does suggest a complex understanding of the Godhead.24 The reference to the Spirit in precisely the same terms that we find in chapter 27 of the Acts of Thomas further strengthens the assertion that the epiclesis is creatively referring to the Spirit as the power of God. “Perfect compassion” describes the Spirit in line 2 of the epiclesis in chapter 27 as well as the first line of chapter 50’s epiclesis. In addition, the “Mother” in chapter 27 is declared “compassionate.” In the Odes of Solomon, experiencing God’s compassion is one of the benefits of knowing God (Ode 21:1–2). The idea of God’s compassion and mercy (or “kindness”) is often linked with the title of the Spirit as “Mother,” a concept that is sometimes striking to modern readers, but that was not entirely uncommon in early Syriac-speaking Christianity. It is to the idea of the Spirit as “Mother” that we shall now turn. 25

23

Passim, but see especially Odes 6:12; 7:16; 8:18; 36:5; 39:8; and those passages discussed here.

24

Indeed, the Odes suggest that Syriac-speaking Christianity rather quickly came to a balanced presentation of what would develop into Trinitarian thought. In contrast, Greek-speaking Christians held decidedly “binitarian” views. See, for example, Justin Martyr (1 Apology), for whom the Spirit is prophetic, but Christ is the “first-born of God” (chap. 51), active from the beginning in the lives of all who have lived in accord with reason. 25

In line 3 of the epiclesis in chapter 27, the Spirit is invoked with the words, “Come highest charism.” That the Spirit is a gift is known already from Acts 10:45 in a scene in which the Spirit falls on Gentiles who give evidence of the reality by speaking in tongues and praising God. Only later do they receive water baptism. In the Syrian tradition, as evidenced in the liturgical ordines, the gift of the Spirit is primarily associated with anointing. See the brief discussion in Brock, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition, 45. Irenaeus (Haer. 1.13.2–3) reports that the Marcosians call upon charis in their eucharistic rites. The reception of charis enables an adherent to prophesy. This charis is probably a feminine element in a syzygy and “the gnostic form of the mother-goddess.” This position (and quote) is expressed by J. Reiling, “Marcus Gnosticus and the New Testament: Eucharist and Prophecy,” in Miscellanea Neotestamentica (ed. T. Baarda, A. F. J. Klijn, and W. C. van Unnik; 2 vols.; NovTSup 47–48; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 1.167. Other elements of the prayer in chapter 27 have echoes in Irenaeus’s description of the Marcosians’ initiation rites (see Adv. Haer. 1.21.3: power, name, mother).

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“Come, compassionate Mother” It is not surprising to find feminine imagery for the Spirit in Semitic texts, since the term for “spirit” (or “breath” or “wind”) is itself grammatically feminine. Only in the early fifth century was there a shift away from the use of the feminine for the Spirit by Semitic-speaking Christians, and the term ruha was sometimes treated as if masculine when it referred to the Holy Spirit; from the sixth century onwards, this became the norm.26 The shift can be noted in the translations of Biblical materials into Syriac, as well as in authors writing in Syriac. The understanding of the Spirit as feminine can be expressed in several ways, not necessarily by employing the term “Mother” (as we shall see when we examine the evidence from the Gospel of Philip) and the feminine nature of the Spirit can be accepted despite a rejection of the Mother image (so Ephrem). But the idea of the Spirit as Mother27 was a concept that grabbed the imagination of Christians in an early period, although it survived intact only in some Semitic authors from eastern Syria. The Greek Acts of Thomas includes several references to the Spirit as Mother or other types of maternal imagery for the Spirit. In some instances, Christ seems to be presented as the child of a divine Father and Mother (the Spirit).28 The two hymnic compositions within the work, the Hymn of the Bride and the Hymn of the Pearl, tell, in poetic language of a threefold “family.” The Hymn of the Bride (chaps. 6–7) revels in anticipation of the bridegroom and the benefits of knowing him, and closes with a declaration of the activities of the participants in the wedding banquet: “They have given praise and glory, with the Spirit that is living, to the Father ever truthful and the Mother ever wise.” The Hymn of the Pearl (chaps. 108–113) tells the story of a royal son who goes to

26

Sebastian Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature,” in After Eve, ed. Janet Martin Soskice (Women and Religion Series; London: Marshall Pickering, 1990), 73–87, esp. 75. 27

There are several excellent discussions of this topic by modern scholars. The best are those of Robert Murray in his Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 142–58, and Sebastian Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature.” 28

See the example of Hippolytus, below, who also knows a Father-Mother-Son triad.

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Egypt to retrieve a pearl. While there he forgets his identity and his mission until his parents, the king and queen of the East, send him a letter that reminds him of his purpose and inspires him to complete his task. The hymn can be read on many levels,29 but common to most interpretations is a recognition of the heavenly status of the parent figures. Ancient Christian readers of the poem identified the King and Queen as the Father and the Holy Spirit, while the son is both the First Adam and the Second Adam, Christ.30 Other references to the Spirit as Mother occur in prayers in the Acts of Thomas. Chapter 39 ends with the final lines of a prayer spoken by the apostle. Both Greek and Syriac suggest that the Spirit has maternal characteristics, yet both versions also obfuscate the image, although in different ways. In the Greek, Thomas declares to Jesus, “the good shepherd,” “We praise and hymn you, your unseen Father, and your Holy Spirit and the Mother of all creation.” The presence of the conjunction suggests an additional figure, rendering the original identification of the Holy Spirit as the Mother of all creation unclear. The Syriac lacks the conjunction, thus equating the figure in the final phrase with the Spirit, but this version here and elsewhere avoids mention of the “Mother.” Instead the Spirit is one who “hovers over all creation.” This image, taken from the Genesis creation story, itself involves feminine imaging, alluding as it does to the activity of a mother bird over her nest. Syrian writers commonly employ the verb rahhef to describe the activity of the Holy Spirit, combining the action of a mother bird with the designation of the Spirit as “Mother.” Two later authors make this clear. The seventh-century Martyrius speaks of the “all-holy Spirit, who, like a mother, hovers over us as she gives sanctification,”31 while the medieval Moshe bar Kepha says that the Holy Spirit “hovered over John the Baptist and brought him up like a compassionate mother.”

29

For a thorough discussion, see Poirier, L’Hymne de la Perle.

30

Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature,” 79.

31

Book of Perfection 1.3.13.

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Apart from the epicleses of interest to us, the clearest appeal to a divine Mother in the Acts of Thomas occurs in a eucharistic prayer in chapter 133. The apostle, addressing the bread, declares, “We pronounce over you the name of the Mother, of an ineffable mystery, and of hidden authorities and powers. We pronounce over you your name Jesus.” The Syriac version substitutes “Father” for “Mother,” but the epicletic nature of the prayer32 suggests that it is addressed to the Spirit, as also does the use of language that corresponds with that in the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50. The clearest indication of the identity of the Spirit as Mother occurs in the epicleses in question; line 4 of the prayer in chapter 27 reads, “Come, compassionate Mother,” while line 8 in the epiclesis in chapter 50 declares, “Come, hidden Mother.” But these are not the only places in which the Spirit is addressed in maternal images. We have already seen that the participles used throughout these epicleses are in the feminine; in addition, chapter 27 includes the line, “Come, mother of the seven houses,” while the image of the “holy dove which bears twin nestlings” appears in chapter 50. We shall discuss these uses of mothering language more fully below. Various heresiologists33 describe gnostic groups that upheld a concept of a primal Mother or a “Mother on high.” Sometimes this figure may be linked with the widespread belief in a Mother goddess, but references to the “Mother” are also found in Christian writers with reference to the Holy Spirit.34 Interestingly, the Apocryphon of John found at Nag Hammadi speaks of the “first thought… the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy

32

The apostle continues, “May the power of the blessing come and let the bread be consecrated.”

33

E.g., Irenaeus on the Valentinians (Haer. 1.5.2) and Epiphanius on the Sethians (Pan. 39.2.1–4) and Archontici (Pan. 40.2.3). 34

Susan Ashbrook Harvey emphasizes that the Mother imagery of the Syrian tradition does not represent a conception of a female deity. Rather, the Syrian authors creatively employed feminine imagery to describe the Spirit because the Syriac ruha is grammatically feminine (“Feminine Imagery for the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition,” SVTQ 37 [1993]: 111–39).

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Spirit.”35 The almost entirely lost Gospel of the Hebrews contained a quote of Jesus that “Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away on to the great mountain Tabor.”36 Jerome,37 after citing this passage, declares that it should not be surprising to find a reference to the Holy Spirit as Mother, for the term is feminine in Hebrew, although masculine in his native Latin. The lesson he gleans from the passage is that God has no gender. Hippolytus, too, was able to use the matriarch Rebecca as an image of the Holy Spirit, corresponding with Isaac as the Father, and their son Jacob as an image of Christ.38 The early fifth-century Synesios of Cyrene speaks of the “Holy Breath” as the mother, the sister, the daughter.39 But the richest examples of feminine imagery for the Spirit are those found in the authors from Mesopotamia, beginning with the early Odes of Solomon and continuing through Aphrahat and others. Feminine imagery for God is a hallmark of the intriguing and confusing Ode 19.40 In this ode, the Father’s breasts are said to provide sweet milk to the odist and it is the Spirit who opened her own bosom to milk the Father’s breasts. Although the ode begins by alluding to the Son who is the cup that is drunk, the image changes when the Spirit mixes the milk from the Father’s breasts. The reference then turns to the conception of the Son by

35

Ap. John 5,4–7. Translation by Frederik Wisse in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 104–23. 36

NTA5, 1.172-78; quote on p. 177. The quote is found in both Origen and Jerome.

37

Comm. Isa. 40:9–11.

38

See the discussion in Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature,” 81.

39

Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature,” 81.

40

Called “grotesque” by J. Rendel Harris and A. Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon (Manchester: University Press, 1920), apparently because of the explicit imagery. Clear evidence for personal discomfort or bias affecting historical comment is evident in Harris’s assertion that the ode was perhaps added later to the others, despite the fact that it is one of the best attested odes and was quoted by Lactantius, the earliest clear external witness to the Odes of Solomon. See the discussion of this ode in H. J. W. Drijvers, "The 19th Ode of Solomon: Its Interpretation and Place in Syrian Christianity," JTS n.s. 31 (1980): 337–55; reprinted in East of Antioch: Studies in Early Syriac Christianity (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984).

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the Virgin. While the Father in this ode bears resemblance to a mother giving nourishment to her children, in Ode 8:14 it is the odist, or perhaps Christ,41 who offers breasts full of holy milk. The breasts of the odist are linked with an appeal for mercy and kindness in Ode 14:2–3. The Spirit is clearly conceived as a feminine entity in the Gospel of Philip, probably evidencing a Semitic origin of the thoughts expressed in at least some passages: “Some said, ‘Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit.’ They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?” Yet the Spirit is not called “Mother,” for that is a term reserved for the experience of the divine in the “Hebrew, orphaned” phase of existence (52,21–24). The fourth-century Ephrem also consistently avoids calling the Spirit “Mother,” but still uses a great deal of feminine imagery for God. Anticipating the developed imagery of the medieval Julian of Norwich, Ephrem employs nursing imagery to speak of the way in which Christ gives life: “He is the living breast; from his life the dead have sucked living breath—and come to life.”42 Ephrem regularly identifies the Spirit as feminine, but does not dwell on this concept.43 Ephrem’s younger contemporary, Aphrahat, has no hesitation in using “Mother” for the Holy Spirit. The clearest example occurs in his discussion of Gen 2:24, concerning the necessity of a man to leave his father and mother in order to marry. Aphrahat ignores the simple meaning of the passage and declares, “The meaning is this. As long as a man has not taken a wife he loves and reveres God his father and the Holy Spirit his mother, and he

41 The odist, like the Qumran sectarians praying in the presence of angels, seems to take on the exalted character of Christ in some of the odes. Charlesworth identifies parts of (too) many odes as stemming from the mouth of Christ, but it may be that the odist is rapturously identifying with the heavenly Messiah, while at the same time retaining personal identity. 42

HNat. 4.150.

43

Harvey, “Feminine Imagery for the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition,” 135.

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has no other love.”44 Aphrahat seems to inherit the tradition that can be glimpsed in the Acts of Thomas, but that was lost in much of the later Syriac literature. He retains also the language of the Spirit “hovering” like a mother bird, an image known elsewhere in Syrian Christianity: “From baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, and in the same hour that the priests invoke the Spirit, she opens the heavens and descends, and hovers over the waters, and those who are baptized put her on.”45 The Macarian homilies stem from approximately the same time and region as Aphrahat. Just as Aphrahat commented on Gen 2:24, they also preserve a reflection on this passage. It is right and fitting, children, for you to have left all that is temporal and to have gone off to God: instead of an earthly father you are seeking the heavenly Father, and instead of a mother who is subject to corruption, you have as a Mother the excellent Spirit of God, and the heavenly Jerusalem.46 Although it is unlikely that Syriac-speaking Christians read the works of Philo, it is interesting that the Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher reflected on the complexity of the divine in language that includes the concept of “Mother,” again while commenting on Gen 2:24. Philo speaks of “both God the Father of the universe … and wisdom, the Mother of all things,”47 thus noting another feminine Semitic abstraction for the divine. Finally, we have already seen the examples of Martyrius and Moshe bar Kepha, both of whom combine the language of Mother for the Spirit with that of the hovering bird. Although the Syrian tradition eventually lost or suppressed the natural Semitic conception of the Spirit as a feminine entity, early reflections on the Spirit liken her to a dove and refer to her as Mother. Both of these concepts appear in the epicleses in the Acts

44

Dem. 18.10.

45

Dem. 6.14.

46

Homily 54.4.5.

47

Alleg. Interp. 2.49.

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of Thomas. I have suggested above that the designation of the “dove” may in fact have originally followed the appellation “Mother” in the epiclesis in chapter 50. “Holy dove which bears twin nestlings” The epicleses contain one instance in which the image of a bird is used for the Spirit. The enigmatic line 7 of the prayer in chapter 50 has long puzzled commentators on the Acts of Thomas.48 The phrase stands out in the first place since it lacks the characteristic “come” of the epicleses. But the background and meaning of the phrase are equally confusing. A. F. J. Klijn suggests that the imagery used here stems from eastern mythology,49 and Bornkamm had earlier suggested that the dove is an attribute of the Syrian Mother goddess,50 thus supporting his idea that the epicleses were originally addressed to a goddess, most likely the Dea Syria. Kruse rejects this identification and argues that the dove was not originally a symbol for the Holy Spirit but became one in Christian tradition; originally it represented a bride. In the Syriac-speaking church, the church is the daughter of the Holy Spirit and the bride of Christ, but there are in fact two “daughters,” Israel and the Gentiles.51 According to Kruse, then, the two nestling doves are the offspring—Israel and the Gentiles—of the one Spirit of God, represented as a dove. While Kruse’s explanation is imaginative, it does not seem to take into account either the prehistory of the epicleses, or their function within the Acts of Thomas. The notion of referring to the Spirit as a dove in this text is not surprising. The concept of the Spirit as a hovering bird is, as we have seen, integral to the Syriac-speaking

48

Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.439–39: “Titles like ‘holy dove, thou who givest birth to the twin boys’ cannot be explained with any confidence.” 49

A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 245.

50

Bornkamm, Mythos und Legende in den apokryphen Thomas-Akten, 91.

51

Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 48–50.

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reflections on the Spirit. The Spirit “hovers”52 over the waters of creation in Genesis and descends in the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism. This activity of the Spirit recalls the creation story, but is seen also in the central liturgical actions of baptism, for which the Spirit’s presence as a dove at the baptism of Jesus has influence,53 and Eucharist, for the Spirit “hovers” over the bread and wine. 54 The same verb that describes the Spirit’s presence at creation in the Syrian tradition is used to describe the Spirit’s presence in liturgical action as well. Aphrahat declares that it is “from baptism [that] we receive the Spirit of Christ,”55 who descends from heaven in the baptismal ceremony and hovers over the waters. It is the Spirit with which the newly baptized is clothed, thus ensuring, if the person does not grieve the Spirit, an eventual return to Christ, whence came the Spirit.56 The “sacred dove” of the Acts of Thomas 50 is reminiscent of the Spirit as a dove in Odes 24 and 28. In both Ode 28 and in the Acts of Thomas 50, the authors employ the image of a mother dove caring for her nestlings. Ephrem later faults Bardaisan57 for claiming that the Holy Spirit as Mother gave birth to twin daughters.

52

This verb (rahhef) becomes a technical term for activity of the Spirit in Syriac Christian writers. See See Brock, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition, 6. The Spirit “hovers” in the Peshitta of Gen 1:2. The bird of choice for Jesus in the Syriac-speaking Christian tradition is that of the eagle. The dove finds its place as well, often in the plural and applied by various authors to the apostles/the twelve, who “fly like clouds, and like doves to their dovecotes” (Marutha, Hom. 11.) See the discussion in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 170, n. 1. Most often, the dove represents the Spirit, based on the gospel stories of Jesus’ baptism. 53

On the origins of the image of a dove at Jesus’ baptism, see Leander E. Keck, “The Spirit and the Dove,” NTS 17 (1971): 41–67. 54

Brock, “The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature,” 82.

55

Dem. 6.14.

56

Aphrahat proceeds to defend the notion of a bodily resurrection for those who have not grieved the Spirit; those who live unworthy lives lose the Spirit, which departs from them until they die. At that point, the Spirit returns to Christ. 57

Ephrem, HcHaer. 55:3–4.

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Within the context of the Acts of Thomas, the mention of twins suggests the full development, only in this work, of the relationship of Jesus and Judas Thomas as twins. Readers of the Gospel of John are, of course, already informed that the Aramaic name Thomas means “twin” (John 20:24) and other writings bearing the name of Thomas assert this as well. The preface to the Gospel of Thomas indicates that the content of the work was spoken by Jesus to “Didymos Judas Thomas”58 and subsequently written down by the latter figure.59 Not only is the name of “twin” applied to this figure in the Book of Thomas the Contender, but Jesus tells him that “you are my twin and true companion” and addresses him as “Brother Thomas.”60 But it is the Acts of Thomas which presents Jesus and Thomas as identical twins. It is this Christian novel that provides the literary setting in which Jesus can be mistaken for Thomas and must clarify his identity (chap. 11), in which Thomas is addressed as “Twin of Christ” (chap. 39), and in which Thomas must declare,

58

In the Coptic of the Gospel of Thomas only; the Greek lacks “Didymos.”

59

For the argument that the Gospel of John is responding to the claims of a Thomas community, represented by the Gospel of Thomas, developed in the Book of Thomas the Contender, and continued, with some revision in line with the Great Church, in the Acts of Thomas, see Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). A sustained critical response to Riley is provided by Ismo Dunderberg, “John and Thomas in Conflict?” in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years (ed. John D. Turner and Anne McGuire; Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 44; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 361–80. The literary development of a Thomas tradition from Gos. Thom. through Thom. Cont., and finding full flower in the AcThom was already proposed by John D. Turner. See his The Book of Thomas the Contender from Codex II of the Cairo Gnostic Library from Nag Hammadi (CG II,7) (SBLDS 23; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975), 234. Paul-Hubert Poirier finds fault both with Riley’s view that the Thomas tradition antedates the Gospel of John and with Turner’s relative chronology of Thomas literature. Poirier challenges the “supposed homogeneity of the Thomasine tradition” (quotation from Philip Sellew, “Thomas Christianity: Scholars in Quest of a Community,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas [ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 6; Leuven: Peeters, 2001], 11–35). Sellew is sharply critical of the idea of a “Thomas community”: “The ATh may reveal nothing more than the deployment of this beloved and available apostolic figure for the author’s own literary and theological ends” (34–35). For Poirier’s position, see Paul-Hubert Poirier, “The Writings Ascribed to Thomas and the Thomas Tradition,” in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years (ed. John D. Turner and Anne McGuire; Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 44; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 295–307. 60

Thom. Cont. 138.8 and 138.4.

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“I am not Jesus, but a servant of Jesus. I am not Christ, but one who ministers before him” (chap. 160).61 This strong identification of Jesus and Thomas as twins in the Acts of Thomas was probably in the mind of the editor who inserted the prayer in chapter 50 into its present location. The feminine figure, who appears in the form of a dove, is clearly the Holy Spirit and can be called “Mother”; her twins, then, are the figures of Jesus and Thomas. “Mother” and “Father” are paired elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas (chaps. 7 and 133), leading Drijvers to conclude that the trinity in the Acts of Thomas consists of Father, Mother (Spirit), and Son; the Mother gives birth to the Son and to his twin brother. 62 The relationship between the Father, the Mother, Jesus, and Thomas in the Acts of Thomas is not systematized or clarified. But the mention of twins in a work that artfully presents Thomas—whose name means “twin” and whose itinerant ministry mirrors that of Jesus—as the identical twin of Jesus suggests this pair of twins rather than any other.63 The original context of the prayer, as we shall see, must have had an entirely different understanding of the twins.64 But the epicleses have apparently been edited and

61 Other examples could be adduced, such as the woman in Act 6 who, when asked to describe her tour of hell, declares that she was led through the nether world by “one who was like you [Thomas]” (chap. 57). For a discussion of other similarities in the careers of Jesus and Thomas, see Attridge, “Intertextuality in the Acts of Thomas” and Monika Pesthy, “Thomas, the Slave of the Lord,” The Apocrphal Acts of Thomas (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 6; Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 65–73. 62

Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 333–334. It is a bit of an overstatement to say that the concepts in the Acts of Thomas could be called “Trinitarian” or that the Mother Spirit gives birth to the Son. Drijvers seems to be influenced by his work on Bardaisan, who did indeed hold such a notion. Elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas, the idea is lacking. But in this epiclesis, the Spirit is being addressed, and the probable identity of the “twins” is Jesus and Thomas. 63

That the twins here are to be understood as Jesus and Thomas is held also by Caroline Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 203, and Monika Pesthy, “Thomas, the Slave of the Lord,” 67. Johnson, as well, finds the discussion of Drijvers concerning the twin sons of the Mother Spirit “compelling.” 64

Bornkamm (Mythos und Legende, 90) considers the notion that these twins are Thomas and Christ to be “completely wrong,” because this fails to take into account the independence of the prayers. Bornkamm is correct regarding the independent nature of the epicleses, but the redactor of the Acts of Thomas was comfortable in inserting the prayers in their present context and must surely have had the twins featured throughout the work in mind.

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adapted to their present context, so that the origins of the motifs are difficult to determine. Some tentative explanations will be explored later in this essay. “Come, fellowship of the male” Valentinian gnostic literature, as well as other texts from Nag Hammadi, may be able to illuminate one of the most fascinating and oblique phrases in the Acts of Thomas, ejlqe; hJ koinwniva tou' a[rreno" (“come, fellowship of the male”), which appears in identical form in both epicleses. Harold Attridge has argued that the terminology represents a view of the spiritual world “not characterized by sexual differentiation,”65 but one in which maleness is yet the designation for the desired state, into which one enters through initiation. This ideal can be found in a number of the descriptions of gnostic thought found in the heresiologists and in texts from Nag Hammadi as well as in texts that bear the name of Thomas. In the Excerpta ex Theodoto, for example, the “seed,” while unformed, “is a child of the female. But when it is formed, it is changed into a man and becomes a son of the bridegroom” (Exc. Theod. 79).66 In Irenaeus, the Ophites maintain that the heavy material body of the feminine Power, which weighs her down and from which she must escape (it later becomes the visible heavens), is “a female from a female.”67 The phrase in the Acts of Thomas suggests that, through initiatory transformation, the Christian is able to participate in a true spiritual fellowship.68 Such sacramental transformation is described in several texts that display a disparagement of

65

Harold W. Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” 411.

66

See the discussion in Michael A. Williams, “Variety in Gnostic Perspectives on Gender,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (ed. Karen L. King; SAC; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 14. 67 Irenaeus, Haer. 1. 30.3. English translation from Dominic J. Unger, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies (with further revisions by John J. Dillon; ACW 55; New York: Paulist, 1992). 68

Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” 408.

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“femininity”69 —not of the female, necessarily, but of some abstract quality, available to men or to women, that is so labeled. “Flee from the madness and the bondage of femaleness, and choose for yourselves the salvation of maleness” (Zost. 131,5–8).70 “Destroy the works of femininity,” declare both the Gospel of the Egyptians71 and the Dialogue of the Savior in the Nag Hammadi corpus. The latter work is especially enlightening; although its relationship to so-called orthodoxy (or, alternatively, to “gnostic” thought) is unclear, the Dialogue of the Savior bears some resemblance to the thoughtworld of the Thomas literature.72 Here, at least, it is clear that “femininity” is associated with procreation: “The Lord said, ‘Whatever is born of truth does not die. Whatever is born of woman dies’” (140,11–14).73 Individual women are not excluded from the “elect”; Mary’s understanding is praised by both the Savior (140,17–18) and the narrator (139,12–13). The “solitary” life valued by the Dialogue of the Savior (121,18) is, of course, a central tenet in the Thomas literature. “They will stand solitary” (Logion 16) or “as a single one” (Logion 23) in the Gospel of Thomas,74 for “it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber” (Logion 75); “Woe to you,” says Jesus in the Book of Thomas the

69

See the excellent discussion, replete with pertinent texts, in Frederik Wisse, “Flee Femininity: Antifemininity in Gnostic Texts and the Question of Social Milieu,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (ed. Karen L. King; SAC; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 297–307. 70

The translation of Zostrianos is by John N. Sieber in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 402–30. 71

Apud Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.63.

72

See, for example, its emphasis on “rest,” “light,” “fire,” the “bridal chamber,” the mention of both the Father and the “Mother of the All,” and the presence of Judas, Matthew, and Mary (three of the five—with Salome and Simon Peter—followers of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Thomas, and, absent Mary, the only two who appear with Jesus in the Book of Thomas the Contender). 73

The translation of the Dialogue of the Savior (with introduction by Helmut Koester and Elaine Pagels) is that of Stephen Emmel in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 244–55. 74 Translations from the Gospel of Thomas are by Thomas O. Lambdin (with introduction by Helmut Koester) in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 124–38.

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Contender (144,8–10),75 “who love intimacy with womankind and polluted intercourse with them!” Sexual renunciation is central to the teaching of the apostle in the second half of the Acts of Thomas and the speech of Jesus to the bridal couple in Act 1. And, in the Gospel of Philip, it is “free men and virgins” who will enter the bridal chamber (69,1-4). This final text does not claim to stem from the person of Judas Thomas, but displays knowledge of the Thomas tradition. Its understanding of the essential error of human life is the loss of a primordial androgynous state: “When Eve was still in Adam death did not exist. When she was separated from him death came into being” (Gos. Phil. 68,22–24). The myth of an original androgynous being was widespread, from Plato to the Valentinians and beyond. But the androgynous one is often presented as a male figure. In the words of Attridge, “Paradoxical … is that the primordial state, or the spiritual entity which is its source and goal, could be labeled a male.”76 The androgynous ideal is not limited to the distant past, however. Reunification of the sexes is possible because of the activity of Christ; it is achieved, according to the Gospel of Philip, in the heavenly bridal chamber. “If the woman had not separated from the man, she would not die with the man. His separation became the beginning of death. Because of this Christ came to repair the separation which was from the beginning and again unite the two, and to give life to those who died as a result of the separation and unite them. But the woman is united to her husband in the bridal chamber. Indeed those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated. Thus Eve separated from Adam because she was never united with him in the bridal chamber” (70,5–22). The concept of harmonious pairing is surely behind the abstruse Logion 22 in the Gospel of Thomas: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and

75

Translations from the Book of Thomas the Contender are those of John D. Turner in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 199–207.

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the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female … then will you enter [the kingdom].” That the female will become male is applied to Mary Magdalene in the famous Logion 114 of the Gospel of Thomas, in which Simon Peter questions Mary’s presence with the other disciples, since “women are not worthy of life.” Jesus’ response is telling: “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Whatever else this passage may indicate, it is clear that the “realm of the spirit … is associated with the “male.”77 Mary is, asserts the Gospel of Philip (63,30–64,9), the one whom Jesus loved more than all the others, the one whom he frequently kissed. The kiss may hint at the “activities in the bridal chamber ritual”78 or the ritual kiss of the community; elsewhere it is stated that “it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another” (59,2–3). Whatever may be the actual situation of a community that perhaps lies behind this document, Mary appears, here and in other texts, as the beloved and pure consort of Jesus.79 The spiritual counterpart of the female Mary is Jesus, but the “world of the spiritual is not characterized by sexual differentiation.”80 Yet it is envisaged as “male” and virginal women—Thecla, the bride in Act 1 of the Acts of Thomas, Mygdonia—forsake the world of femininity, primarily sexual activity and the bearing of children, in order to partake of the

76

Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” 410.

77

Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” 411.

78 Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, “‘The Holy Spirit is a Double Name’: Holy Spirit, Mary, and Sophia in the Gospel of Philip,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen L. King (SAC; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 216. 79

See the brief discussion in Kurt Rudolph, “Response to ‘“The Holy Spirit is a Double Name”: Holy Spirit, Mary, and Sophia in the Gospel of Philip’ by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen L. King (SAC; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 232–33. 80

Attridge, “‘Masculine Fellowship’ in the Acts of Thomas,” 411.

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spiritual world, to unite with, in the words of Mygdonia (chapter 124), “the true bridegroom, who remains forever” in the eternal bridal chamber. The union of an earthly being with a spiritual counterpart and the former’s resultant residence in the heavenly sphere is found in a poem early incorporated into the Acts of Thomas. In the Hymn of the Pearl, the protagonist, “a royal son,” awakens from his bondage to don a garment that allows him to recognize his true identity. The garment, he says, becomes his mirror, for “the garment seemed like me. I looked upon the whole of it, complete, and in it faced myself entire, for we were two in separation, yet we were also one in single form. Again, the treasurers who had conveyed it to me, I saw to be thus: two they were and yet they were one form” (chapter 112). The prince comes to recognize himself by looking at that which, though “two in separation,” reflects his nature. This complementary pairing is well known from texts that could be called “gnostic,” but is clearly not limited to them. The goal of androgynous reunion, at least in some texts understood to reverse the fall of Adam and Eve and to restore the divine image in the human,81 is integral to the Thomas tradition as well. It is also, I believe, that which lies behind the prayer, “Come, fellowship of the male”; a spiritual fellowship is imagined, one of balance between the sexes, incorporated together into a spiritual reality that can be designated “male.” The heavenly counterpart to the earthly reality pervades everything; as we saw above, it applies to the physical elements of the initiation rituals. For Mary Magdalene, at least in some circles, and for the women in the Acts of Thomas and elsewhere who renounce sexual activity, the heavenly counterpart is Jesus himself. “Come, one who is older than the five members—mind, conception, thought, reflection, reason” The theme of knowledge reasserts itself in the mention of the five “members,” all of which indicate aspects of intellectual understanding and function. Bousset initially

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suggested that these difficult lines represent a Manichaean insertion into the surviving Acts of Thomas,82 since this list of five “limbs” occurs in the Manichaean Kephalaia83 ; he has been followed in this by several commentators on this prayer.84 In the Manichaean schema, the primal being, the Father of Greatness, “resides in five intellectuals or limbs: mind, thought, insight, counsel, and consideration.”85 Elsewhere, these are the five elements of the world (air, light, wind, water, fire) and are perhaps related to the information that is necessary for the soul to know on its path to eternal life. The Manichaeans also conceived of a distant Father God, from whom is evoked the “Great Spirit who is the Mother of Life, and she in turn calls forth the First Man.”86 There were, however, other lists of elements that sound “more or less identical”87 with that in the Acts of Thomas. Both Hippolytus and Irenaeus discuss the existence of similar lists in their heresiological material,88 although none is precisely identical with this list. Two of the terms (nou;" and fronhvsi") occur in the text of Irenaeus, but the system of

81

See the entire discussion by Wayne A. Meeks, “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity,” HR 13 (1974): 165–208; for this point, see especially p. 187. 82

Bousset, “Manichäisches in den Thomasakten.” Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.439, follows Bousset and notes that the concept of the “Mother of life” and an anointing of the head (and perhaps also a sacramental meal) were at home in Manichaeism. 83 See Iain Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation with Commentary (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 37; Leiden: Brill, 1995). 84

Including Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.439 and Mythos und Legende, 115–17, and Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,”42–43. 85 Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher, xxvi. The list occurs in Kephalaia 85.1–2. Gardner’s translation of this section of the Kephalaia is found on p. 87. For the Coptic text, see the edition of Carl Schmidt, Kephalaia (Manichäische Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen Berlin 1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1940). 86

Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher, xxvii.

87

Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 216. C. Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 200, is skeptical regarding the Manichaean origin of these lines. She apparently follows Klijn, who provides evidence of similar lists, the most significant of which, it must be stated, is Manichaean. Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 338, is similarly skeptical. For a largely negative evaluation of Manichaean interpolation into the Acts of Thomas, see Poirier, “Les Actes de Thomas et le Manichéisme.” 88

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.12.2 (on Simon Magus); Irenaeus, Haer. 1.24.3 (on Basilides).

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Basilides described by Irenaeus does not conclude with five elements; from the fourth and fifth (wisdom and power) are generated “the Powers and Rulers and Angels.”89 It appears that the gnostic systems known to the heresiologists shared the concept of primordial intellectual categories, 90 but the precise taxonomy found in the Acts of Thomas is not paralleled in the heresiologists. The five elements are, however, at home in some texts that are gnostic, or were used by gnostics, as known now from the Nag Hammadi library. The “letter” of Eugnostos, the Blessed, followed and revised by a Christian gnostic in the Sophia of Jesus Christ, speaks of the perfect, blessed, “Father of the Universe. Before anything is visible among those that are visible, the majesty and the authorities that are in him, he embraces the totalities of the totalities, and nothing embraces him. For he is all mind, thought and reflecting, considering, rationality and power. They all are equal powers. They are the sources of the totalities. And their whole race to last is in the foreknowledge of Unbegotten, for they had not yet come to visibility.”91 These interior qualities are reminiscent of lines 8A–8B in the epiclesis in chapter 27 which mentions intellectual qualities, to which the Spirit is compared. Although she is more ancient than they,92 the very comparison of these qualities with the Spirit suggests that they are held in high esteem.

89

Translation of Dominic J. Unger, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, 85.

90 The Treatise on the Resurrection discusses the unavailability of salvation for the body and declares that only the “living [members] that exist within them [the physical members] would arise” (47,39–48,3). It is not entirely clear what is meant by these “living members,” but the phrase indicates some spiritual or intellectual properties; Bentley Layton suggests “the soul and psychic faculties, and the intellect within it” (The Gnostic Scriptures, 323, n. s). 91

Eugnostos 73,2–17. The translation of Eugnostos, provided together with that of the Sophia of Jesus Christ, is by Douglas M. Parrott in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 220–43. 92 Klijn, however, (The Acts of Thomas, 216), while acknowledging the secondary character of the line in the Syriac text, believes that the Syriac points to an original presbeuthv" here, rather than

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“Come, one who communes in all the contests of the noble athlete” Another enigmatic phrase in the epiclesis of chapter 50 involves the mention of an athlete, in whose athletic feats the addressee is said to share. It is simplest to conclude that the intent is to speak of Jesus as the “noble athlete,” although what the contests are and how the Spirit is to commune with them is ambiguous. Regarding this passage, Klijn declares, “The relation between Christ and the Spirit is not quite clear.”93 Kruse chooses to dismiss the Greek text and adopt the reading of the Syriac, in which the Spirit is said to proclaim the victories of Jesus.94 These victories, says Kruse, seem to be related to baptism and prepare the Christian for a fight with the devil, although Kruse notes that the notion of baptism preparing one for future battles is absent in the Syrian east. Indeed, the Greek athletic contest is not envisioned here, but Kruse seems to be missing one aspect of the athletic imagery that is at home in the east. The use of this image actually fits nicely in the Syrian tradition, in which the believer is likened with Jesus, who is also called the “pearl.” The athletic feat on which Ephrem reflects is that of pearl diving, and those who are being baptized dive into the water of the font to retrieve the pearl which is Christ.95 Although Ephrem is clearly reflecting a liturgical tradition in which baptism was common, the image of the pearl diver also recalls the anointing ritual, since pearl divers were anointed for their task. Caroline Johnson treats this motif in connection with that of the twinship of Jesus and Thomas in the Acts of Thomas. Thomas’s encounter with and victory over a demon that dwelt in a woman, mirroring the victories of Jesus, provides the setting for the current epiclesis and the initiation ritual that precedes it. The woman requests and receives the presbuvtero", as the Greek reads. Given the emphasis in the prayer on providing revelation, he may be correct, but only if the line is integral to the prayer. 93

Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 245.

94

Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,”45–46.

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“seal,” thus providing her with a safeguard against the demon. Johnson declares that “the Holy Spirit, by acting to seal the faithful, partakes in the protective activity of Christ (and Thomas) the ‘noble combatant.’”96 Language that speaks of Jesus as an athlete occurs in the prayer in chapter 39 of the Acts of Thomas. We have already seen that this prayer shares a number of motifs with the epicleses and, indeed, is more closely related to the epicleses than any other section of the work. A prayer addressed to Jesus, it declares that he is “perfect compassion,” just as the Spirit is in both epicleses, as well as “respite,” and “hidden rest,” also attributes of the Spirit in the epicleses. This rest is made manifest through action, again a declaration we have seen applied to the Spirit, and the “glorious one” who is addressed in this prayer provides joy and rest. The prayer concludes by praising the “Father, and your Holy Spirit and the Mother of all creation.”97 The athletic imagery of this prayer is especially developed. Jesus’ servants struggle, but he assists them, and drives the enemy away from them. He competes in athletic contests himself, but also makes the speaker and listeners (“us”) victorious. He is an “unconquered athlete” and “victorious general.” Although he is not said to be gennai'o", as is the athlete in the epiclesis of chapter 50, the many similarities between the two prayers suggest that the athlete in both is indeed the same figure.98 And he is somehow connected with the feminine

95 Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith include five poems on the pearl. See Brock’s discussion of these poems in The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Cistercian Studies Series 124; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985), 106–108. 96

C. Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 197.

97 The many elements of the prayer that correspond with similar elements in the epicleses of interest to us, as well as this closing line referring to the Mother, suggest that this prayer might originally have been addressed to a feminine figure, the same one adjured in the prayers in chapters 27 and 50. Indeed, of the epithets used in this prayer, there are almost as many that appear in the feminine as there are masculine terms (although the participles are, as one would expect, in the masculine). If the prayer was originally addressed to a feminine figure, it has been edited to correspond with the initial address to Jesus. 98

The original identification of this figure is, however, obscure.

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figure to whom appeal is made in the epicleses, although her part in the contests in which he battles is unclear. “Come, revealer of hidden mysteries” The idea of a hidden mystery, revealed to adherents of a religious system, is, of course, a central theme of the Spirit epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. The addressee is the revealer of hidden mysteries (chapter 27) and the one who is able to “make manifest what is secret and render visible what is hidden”; indeed, she is the one who understands mysteries and reveals great things (chapter 50). She provides not only knowledge but gives repose and comfort. She is compassionate and merciful (chapter 27) and explicitly addressed as “respite” in chapter 50. She is the “Mother” of the cosmos, who offers heavenly rest. The related ideas of the feminine Spirit as “revealer” (used repeatedly in the epicleses) and as “one who understands” will be treated together in the following pages. The many epithets for the Spirit that suggest revelation, knowledge, or understanding indicate that, in the present context of the epicleses, the “Holy Spirit, the Mother … represents the Wisdom of God, which she also reveals to the faithful.”99 The first place to look for an understanding of this figure and her role here is, then, toward the Hebrew traditions regarding the figure of Wisdom. Hebrew wisdom literature is filled with advice that seeks to teach people how to act rightly. But Wisdom is also personified as a feminine figure who entices her would-be followers (Prov 8 and 9; Wis 6); she is a rescuer and deliverer (Wis 10). She is priceless and dwells in heaven (Bar 3; Sir 24), but has deigned to come to earth in the people of Israel, and can be identified with the Mosaic Law (Bar 4:1). Wisdom can even be compared with a mother (Sir 15:2). Like the breath of God through whom the world was created and life was given, Wisdom participates in creation as a consort with God (Prov 8:30). As such,

99

Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 334.

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she can be identified with the “power” that dwells on high and is adjured in the second line of the epiclesis from chapter 27. Since Wisdom is especially active within Israel and can even be declared to be the Law of Israel, one might expect to find a declaration that she is available only to a select few. But, while Wisdom must teach her adherents, the concept of hidden mysteries, so prevalent in the epicleses, is not pronounced in the Hebrew wisdom tradition.100 It is, however, an element in the type of Semitic Christian thinking that flourished in northern Mesopotamia and extended elsewhere in the early centuries of Christianity. Indeed, “mysteries” (raze) will become a technical term for the Christian sacraments in Syriac-speaking authors. In an earlier text bearing the name of Judas Thomas, the idea of “hidden” things becoming manifest is evident. In Logion 5 of the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus declares, “Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.” In the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, it is the Spirit who reveals that which is hidden, although the means by which she does so is not specified in the prayers themselves. Their location in liturgical contexts would suggest that the redactor saw the liturgical rituals as at least one means by which revelation occurs. The Odes of Solomon discuss the method by which one comes to know of divine matters as the result of an expression of the “word” of God. A great deal of emphasis is placed in the Odes of Solomon on the “word” of knowledge (Ode 7.7) that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Ode 12:3) and creates a oneness between speaker and hearers (Ode 12:10).101

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That is not to say that it is absent altogether. LaFargue, who considers the Acts of Thomas, at least in the Hymn of the Bride in Act 1, to be actively developing the Hebrew wisdom tradition, points out some elements of Wisdom’s knowledge that could be termed esoteric. She is, after all, initiated into the wisdom of God (Wis 8:4) and has special understanding (Wis 8:8). But the closest parallel to the language of the epicleses is the declaration that Wisdom teaches “things that are hidden” (Wis 7:24). This theme is not, however, emphasized in Hebrew wisdom literature to the same degree that it is in the epicleses. See LaFargue, Language and Gnosis, 170. 101

The most extensive reflection on the “word” in this work is that of Ode 16, which includes (16:19) the thought that creation was achieved by expression of the divine word.

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The “word” is God’s expression, but there does not seem to be an explicit link between this “word” and the Messiah or Savior; in other words, a Semitic version of a “logos” theology would appear to be lacking.102 In the Acts of Thomas, reference to the “word” usually indicates preaching the gospel. In one instance in the Odes of Solomon (Ode 9:3), the “word” of the Lord is that expression of God’s thought activity regarding the Messiah. More often, however, the “word” (or “words”) “of truth” (Odes 8:8; 12:1) imparts knowledge and gives one the ability to proclaim God. These are probably not unrelated concepts, for precisely what the odist proclaims is knowledge of the Lord’s Messiah (cf. Ode 29:6). Ode 12 is a reflection on the knowledge given by God through the spoken word: In “the mouth of the Lord is the true word” which fills the odist with words of truth and the knowledge of God. This word cannot adequately be expressed (12:5), but it imparts to those who receive it a knowledge of the one who made them (12:10). The ode closes with a macarism regarding those who perceive everything and know the Lord in truth (12:13). The knowledge available through the expression of God’s word is, therefore, a knowledge of things formerly unknown. By hearing the word of truth, one receives the knowledge of the Most High, a “mystery” that flesh cannot understand, but which is understood by those who know the Lord in truth (Ode 8:8–11). The word of God, through which the worlds were made (Ode 16:19), can perceive that which is invisible (Ode 16:8); indeed, those who are wise are in the mind of God and are capable of understanding (Ode 18:13–14). They speak the truth (Ode 18:15). In this sense, the language of the epicleses seems to correspond to the understanding of revelation expressed in the Odes, while focusing that expression in the figure of the feminine Spirit, who reveals “great things” (chap. 50, epiclesis line 5), “secrets” (chap. 50, epiclesis line 6A), and “hidden mysteries” (chap. 27, epiclesis line 6).

102

Ode 32 may contain a type of Word theology, but here “word” may also refer to the spoken word or teaching of the Messiah or the Son.

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The epiclesis in chapter 50 declares that the Spirit “understands the mysteries of the chosen one.” The most logical conclusion, especially considering the prayer in its present context in the Acts of Thomas, is that the chosen one is Jesus.103 Kruse believes that the prayer is declaring that his “secrets” were given to Jesus’ earthly followers through the Holy Spirit, but the location of the prayer in a liturgical context, and the adjuration that the Spirit be present with the community that is sharing Eucharist, would militate against an historical perspective. Instead, the phrase makes the claim that the Spirit is knowledgeable about “mysteries” (and elsewhere is clearly a revealer of arcane knowledge) about the elect one of God. The notion of election reminds one of earlier Christian claims that followers of Jesus are among the “chosen ones” of God (e.g., Rom 8:33; Rev 17:14; cf. Matt 20:16; Mark 13:20). Jesus is also called the “chosen one” in Luke 23:35 and in some mss. (including Syriac) of John 1:34. Other Syrian Christian literature also deals with the idea of election, most often referring to the chosen status of Christian believers. Ode 23 admonishes the “holy” and “elect” to walk in the knowledge of the Lord (23:4), then describes God’s communication of thought in the metaphor of a letter, sent like an arrow to earth. Not everyone could perceive the contents of the letter, which was precisely the revelation of the Son of truth, while on it was written the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Ode 23:18, 22).104 The Odes, then, speak of a knowledge of divine matters imparted to a select few through the expression of God’s word. The awesome power of this communication is described in Ode 26, where the odist declares that the one who interprets the wonders of the

103

So Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 45, and Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 245. Kruse argues that the use of hJ ejpistamevnh is an error stemming from the Greek translator, since the emphasis should be on revelation of, not simply knowledge of, mysteries. 104

The Hymn of the Pearl contains the similar image of a revelatory letter that enhances the perception of the protagonist.

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Lord will be destroyed, although the interpretation will remain. But perceiving this knowledge is sufficient for the odist and results in peacefulness. The one who imparts this knowledge is often simply identified as the “Lord,” but in Ode 3:10, it is the Spirit of the Lord who teaches people to know God’s ways. The initiatory Ode 11 declares that one is circumcised by the Holy Spirit and therefore receives knowledge. This knowledge is intoxicating, renewing, and enlightening. The Spirit appears elsewhere in the Odes, not only in doxologies (Ode 23:22) or together with the Father and the Son (in the intriguing and difficult Ode 19), but also as the one who speaks through and inspires the odist (Odes 6:2; 14:8), who is worthy of praise (Odes 6:7; 13:2), and who exalts the odist to a heavenly place (Ode 36). When one is anointed, one is established in the “Spirit of providence” (Ode 36:6–8). As in the Odes of Solomon, the Gospel of Truth fittingly emphasizes the power inherent in the divine communication and the truthfulness of the message proclaimed here; indeed, it is Truth itself that is the source of the message.105 The very communication of the Father is truth (26,33–36), and adherents of this system are to share their knowledge of the truth with others (32,35–36). They no longer need to search for truth, for “they themselves are the truth; and the Father is within them and they are in the Father” (42,25–28). This idea of union with God is the purpose of the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, and this union is understood as the origin and rightful home of the Christian there as well. A significant difference between the two works is that the confidence, expressed by the author of the Gospel of Truth, that union with God is already achieved by those who recognize the truth about themselves, remains a hope in the Acts of Thomas. Although Mygdonia proclaims that the Lord Jesus is with her and abides with her (chapter 98), she continues to pray that he might one day bring her to heaven (chapter 117). The odist also, who mystically participates in the promised life at present, continues to profess hope in eternal life. The

105

According to Irenaeus (Haer. 1.11.1), Valentinus asserted that the Holy Spirit was emitted by Truth, an aeon in one of the original syzygies in his system.

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realized eschatology of the Gospel of Truth is, however, a characteristic also of another work of the Valentinian school, the Gospel of Philip. We have already had a chance to examine the Gospel of Philip and its five-fold sacramental system which concludes with a final (or over-arching) sacrament of the bridal chamber.106 In chapter 4, I argued that the importance of anointing in the Gospel of Philip, employing as the work does materials from the Thomas tradition, confirms to some extent the observation that, in the Acts of Thomas, anointing is the central ritual of Christian initiation. The Gospel of Philip is a valuable representative of Valentinian Christianity, with a strong emphasis on sacramental activity. The Gospel of Philip shares with the Gospel of Truth an emphasis on naming and on the truth at the root of all things. In fact, “truth brought names into existence in the world for our sakes because it is not possible to learn it without these names” (54,13–15). In a dependence on Phil 2:9 that is shared by the epiclesis in chapter 27, the author declares that the name of the father, which is also the name that the Father gave the Son, is the “name above all things” (54,6–7). It is, however, not a name that is spoken by those who know it (54,11); it is part of the secret revelation available to those who are free. Touching on the distinctive christology of the Gospel of Philip, the author discusses the names “Jesus” and “Christ,” declaring that “Jesus” is hidden while “Christ” is revealed (56,3–5; cf. also the discussion on Coptic page 62). This distinction is absent from the Gospel of Truth, but both texts agree on the importance of revealing what is hidden through the name. Yet names are really for use only in the material world, since they “have an end in the eternal realm” (54,4–5). There is a vast difference between that realm and the physical world, in which people are misled by what they perceive so that they are unable to perceive the truth. The

106

Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to explore the idea further, it seems likely that the narrative of Act 1 of the Acts of Thomas was intentionally created around the theme of bridal chamber, with the action set in the context of a wedding and even in the physical bridal chamber itself. The redactor of the Acts of Thomas must have had familiarity with the idea of the bridal chamber as the symbol of union with God and used it paradoxically to uphold the importance of a life of sexual continence. This is not to say that

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children of the bridal chamber themselves bear a name (“rest”; 72,22–23), which surely describes their state as well as their identity. Revelation consists in the assertion that there is a reality beyond what is evident and that a lost primordial union of Adam and Eve, of men and women, is available through Christ (70,9–22). But the Gospel of Philip, while it emphasizes the knowledge of these truths, asserts as well that they are effected through sacramental actions. This work clearly expresses the sacramental exemplarism that still survives in the Acts of Thomas: “There are some things hidden through those visible. There is water in water, there is fire in chrism” (57,25–28). There is not only a hidden reality beyond the earthly realm, but the possibility of entering into that hidden reality through participation in ritual actions involving the antitypes of the heavenly elements. Precisely where the Gospel of Philip shows its distinctiveness from non-Valentinian gnostic texts (and even from other Valentinian texts) is where it shows affinities with the Acts of Thomas and the results of the ritual actions contained therein. What is revealed in the Gospel of Philip, then, is a hidden truth that is available to some; the work differentiates between three classes of human beings. But sharing in the truth involves participating in sacramental rituals. Through these rituals, as well as through gnosis, the Holy Spirit is known and active, breathing into the world as a warm summer wind, in contrast with the cold spirit of the world (77,9–15). The Spirit is associated especially with chrismation (69,4–14), light, and fire (cf. 70,8–9; 74,18–21), but also with a sharing in the bread and cup: “The cup of prayer contains wine and water, since it is appointed as the type of the blood for which thanks is given. And it is full of the Holy Spirit” (75,14–18). Elsewhere, Jesus’ “flesh” and “blood” are equated with the word and the Holy Spirit (57,6–7). Having the Spirit protects one from unclean spirits (66,2–4) and makes one spirit (61,29–30); it provides one with the name “Christian” as a gift that need

the redactor was aware of the five-fold system known from the Gospel of Philip, but both authors must be drawing from a common thoughtworld.

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not be returned (64,22–31; in contrast, the one who is baptized and does not receive the Spirit is called “Christian” but only borrows the name). The epicleses in the Acts of Thomas share with other texts having ties to the region of Syria an emphasis on a reality beyond that which is readily evident. The “hidden mysteries” of that realm are made available by the Spirit, but, given the context of the epicleses in liturgical settings, also through ritual. Indeed, it is precisely through initiation into these “mysteries” that the Spirit is able to “come” to be present with the neophyte and grant knowledge of the “great things,” things kept “secret” from those who do not know her and have her abiding within them. “Come, the one visible in her actions, and the one who gives joy and rest to those who cling to her” In the epicleses, the Spirit is that which “reveals the mysteries” and “makes visible what is hidden,” but what she reveals includes her very self. In fact, it is precisely through the action of revealing that she herself becomes evident, as lines 9A and 9B of the epiclesis in chapter 50 declare. In addition, those who know her and cling to her will receive joy and rest. The same concepts of joy and rest are promised by the apostle to the one who receives knowledge of and is obedient to Jesus (chapter 35). The apostle makes this announcement to a young man who had been killed by a serpent and then raised again, declaring that Thomas had appeared to him in two forms. The one who was with the apostle then spoke to Thomas, and the young man came to know “that luminous one who is my kinsman,” and was released from sin and “the one whose falsehood is constant” (chapter 34). Interestingly, there is some degree of parallel between the presentation of Jesus in this

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section and the depiction of the Spirit in the epiclesis in chapter 50. Neither is explicitly named and both are hidden, yet made visible.107 The result of knowing each is rest and joy. The gifts of joy and rest (often paired) are proclaimed elsewhere in the Acts of Thomas. The bride and groom in Act 1, who forgo sexual activity on the night of their wedding, revel in their joy. Indeed, in a speech in praise of “chastity” (or “holiness”: hadishuta in Syriac), the apostle declares that it “affords life, rest, and joy to all who acquire it” (chapter 85). The speech continues in praise of the related virtue of “meekness,” which can also be said to be “peace and joy” and to provide rest. In the prayer in chapter 39, so similar in style and content to the epicleses, Jesus is addressed as “respite and quiet,” as well as “hidden rest,” who both “gives rest” and “furnishes joy to his own.” Once again, the Spirit of the epicleses and the person of Jesus share qualities and provide similar benefits to those united with them.108 Line 5 of the epiclesis in chapter 50 declares that the addressee herself is “rest” or “repose” (here hJsuciva). In Logion 90 of the Gospel of Thomas, is it Jesus who provides rest: “Come unto me, for my yoke is easy and my lordship is mild, and you will find repose for yourselves.” Being “children of the living father,” for adherents to the message of the Gospel of Thomas, is evident by the sign of the father, which is, paradoxically, “movement and repose” (Logion 50). One must seek a place within “repose” (Logion 60) or one has no hope for life. Liturgical rituals in the Acts of Thomas provide a means of acquiring joy. In the eucharistic celebration of chapter 158, the apostle prays that the Eucharist might “bring … salvation, joy, and health of soul.” In the prayer over the oil of anointing preceding this Eucharist, the oil (“fruit”) itself is addressed as “symbol and joy of those who are weary” (chapter 157).

107

Cf. the prayer of the groom in chap. 15, who declares that the Lord, whom he had not previously known or understood, had sought him and taken hold of him.

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The odist also revels in the joy of knowing the Lord. Many of the Odes ring with praise and exultation, while the odist specifies the source of his109 joy on several occasions. It is the result of walking a path toward the Lord (Ode 7:1–2), of being crowned in paradise (Ode 20:8), and it is for the holy ones (Ode 23:1). But the odist also simply identifies his joy as “the Lord,” suggesting that the knowledge of God itself brings joy: “As the sun is the joy to them who seek its daybreak, so is my joy the Lord” (Ode 15:1). One of the results, in the Odes, of coming to know the truth, is a unity with God, sometimes expressed as “walking with” the Lord and resulting in “rest.” The odist declares his love for “the Beloved” and his resultant unity with the Son (Ode 3:5–7). He is no stranger to the Lord, but shares in his rest. The unity that comes with knowing God is something that is experienced in the present (rest), but has future implications as well, since the happy end of all this is the promise of life: “Indeed he who is joined to Him who is immortal, truly shall be immortal” (Ode 3:8). Near the end of Ode 3 is the declaration that “This (fem.) is the Spirit of the Lord.” It is not entirely clear to what “this” refers, but it is evident that the Spirit has something to do with the benefits that come from knowing God. The theme of rest as a result of the life the odist leads is common in the Odes of Solomon, in which “rest” is linked with a return to the peacefulness and incorruptibility of paradise.110 In the epicleses, it is the Spirit who is identified as respite (chapter 50) and who brings rest to others (chapters 27 and 50). Joined together with the new garment of Ode 11, immortal rest is one of the hallmarks of the life in paradise, to which fruitful land of trees and water the odist has been led.111 In Ode 20:8, the rest is again the result of entry into

108 The benefits are provided those who “cling to” the Spirit in chapter 50 and those who belong to Jesus (toi'" ijdivoi") in chapter 39. 109

The odist’s use of a self-referential masculine participle indicates that he is male.

110

The return to paradise through baptism is emphasized in Ephrem.

111 Ode 11 deserves special attention, since in it the odist seems to revel in the joys of the newly initiated. Initiation seems to consist of an anointing, since the odist claims that “the Most High circumcised me by his Holy Spirit,” which, as we saw in chapter 4, note 4 above, is language later applied

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paradise, where one is crowned from the tree of the Lord. The Lord’s rest is eternal (Ode 25:12) and the odes of his rest cannot be silenced (Ode 26:3); rest results from being able to trust in one who is trustworthy (Ode 28:3). Tranquility and peace are connected with water imagery in some odes. Ode 35 speaks of the refreshing “sprinkling” of the Lord, which fills the odist with peacefulness. Ode 30 employs the image of a fountain of water that springs from the lips of the Lord and is connected with the name of the Lord. I have argued elsewhere that such images of water are to be understood sapientially;112 here the one who imbibes of the drink offered by the Lord is pictured as resting by the Lord’s fountain. In one ode (Ode 36), rest is specifically connected with the Spirit of the Lord, who raises the odist to heaven where the odist can perceive God’s glory and continue to praise God by the composition of odes. Similar themes can be seen also in the Gospel of Philip. There is rest available to those who attain full initiation and union with God (“enter the bridal chamber”; cf. 71,14–15). As we saw before, the very name of the children of the bridal chamber is “rest.” But the Gospel of Philip veers sharply away from Syriac-speaking Christianity in its presentation of the eschatological hope. The resurrection life begins not after death, but in the present: “Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing” (73,1–4). Similarly, one will receive the light in the bridal chamber, but if “anyone does not receive it while he is here, he will not be able to receive it in the other place” (86,5–7). In this way, one cannot deny that the flesh will arise (57,11–19), but the meaning is quite distinct from what is usually understood as bodily resurrection. For the resurrection—and, indeed, everything—is already possessed by one who has been anointed (74,18–21).

to anointing. It is an experience of learning the knowledge of God, which is likened to an intoxicating drink. The old life is symbolically doffed and the odist is adorned with a new garment, given immortal rest, and led into the fruitful land of paradise. 112

See my “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,” 158–66.

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Also in the line of Valentinian Christianity, or at least influenced by it, is the Treatise on the Resurrection from Nag Hammadi. It shares with the works we have already discussed (including the Acts of Thomas) an emphasis on “rest, which we have received through our Savior, our Lord Christ. We received it when we came to know the truth and rested ourselves upon it” (43,35–38). This letter emphasizes even more strongly than other works we have examined the present nature of the resurrection and the necessity and advantage of parting with the physical body, which only impedes the journey of the saved to their rightful home; they must “ascend into the Aeon” (47,8). By achieving release from the body, one is able to “receive again what at first was” (49,35). Discussion of the body makes use of terminology at home in Syriac-speaking Christianity. Language of “putting on” the body is similar to that found in the Odes and later used by Ephrem, especially in discussing the incarnation,113 although without the negative connotations found in the Treatise on the Resurrection. The work affirms the humanity and divinity of the Son (44,26), as does the Acts of Thomas on one occasion (chapter 80), but similarly fails to develop a christological system. It is significant that the Acts of Thomas, despite its strictly ascetic character, never develops a position antithetical to the body. The body must be governed in order to be kept free from disease (chapter 28) but not because it is inherently evil.114 The Treatise on the Resurrection apparently adopted the incarnational language of Syriac-speaking Christianity without drawing the same anthropological and christological conclusions that develop in northern Mesopotamia. Within the Valentinian Gospel of Truth, the “truth” that is revealed is the teaching that there is, beyond (and surrounding) the known realm, an incomprehensible,

113

Sermo de domino nostro.

114

On this I differ with Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered. Riley is correct in noting that mention of the resurrection of Jesus is almost absent from the Acts of Thomas (except in chap. 80) and the work is silent regarding the notion of bodily resurrection of the believer. But I do not see the same disparagement of the body that Riley sees.

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inconceivable one (the “Father”). The Father is revealed to humans by Jesus, especially by his death on the cross (18,24–25), a revelation that overcomes error and allows the human to enter the happy state of union with the Father. The practical results of this union are joy and repose. Unmistakable in the Gospel of Truth is an emphasis on knowledge (gnosis). The Father, the source of all, has given the gift of knowing him (16,31–33), and this gift will abolish oblivion or lack of knowledge (18,10–11), a state that did not come into existence from the Father. While the epicleses both appeal to a “revealer of hidden mysteries,” the Gospel of Truth makes it clear that Jesus is precisely this hidden mystery (18,15–16). He it is who is the “fruit of the knowledge of the Father” (18,24–26), by virtue of his death on the cross; partaking of this fruit gives knowledge of the way the Father (or Jesus?) resides in those who have knowledge and they in him (18,26–31). The image of the cross as a fruitbearing tree recalls the prayer over the oil in chapter 157 of the Acts of Thomas, which alludes to the power of the wood, although the fruit is the olive, source of oil, rather than Jesus himself or knowledge of him. The “power” of the Gospel of Truth resides, not in the wood, but in the revealed Word, “the one who is in the thought and the mind of the Father” (16,35–36). This notion is similar to that in Ode 9:3, in which the “word” of the Lord is described as reflection on the Messiah.115 There is a strong Logos theology of sorts in the Gospel of Truth, as the reflection on the Word in 23,19–24,9 reveals. The Father’s knowledge reveals the Word, “Jesus of the infinite sweetness” (24,9), who brings all back “into the Father, into the Mother” (24,8). The “Mother” here is most likely not a reference to the Spirit (masculine in Coptic), but rather is one hint at the myth of origins, including the claim of a supreme syzygy, underlying this composition.

115

There are especially striking similarities between the Odes and the Gospel of Truth, including the emphasis on knowledge and the “truth” that is revealed as well as the identification of those who receive instruction as the “living,” allusions to crowning, and the association between the Father’s bosom and the Holy Spirit.

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The content, then, of precisely what is revealed, something ambiguous in the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas, is the Word or the Son: “He [the Father] reveals what is hidden of him—what is hidden of him is his Son” (24,11–14). The Gospel of Truth is also clearer regarding the source of knowledge that is revealed than are other texts: “What comes into existence in him [the Father] is knowledge” (18,4). What is not entirely clear in the Gospel of Truth is the role of the Spirit in this process of revelation, or what is meant by the Spirit when it is mentioned.116 “The Father reveals his bosom.—Now his bosom is the Holy Spirit.—He reveals what is hidden of him—what is hidden of him is his Son” (24,9–14). If the Holy Spirit is that which allows the Son, hidden in the Father, to be revealed, then this idea is close to that of the epicleses, which address the Spirit as the one who makes visible what is hidden, although they do not specifically identify that which is hidden as the Son nor do they clarify the benefits of knowing the actions of Jesus or the claims made about his life, death, and resurrection. That this understanding of the role of the Spirit in the Gospel of Truth is accurate is supported by a discussion of truth: “Truth appeared; all its emanations knew it. They greeted the Father in truth with a perfect power that joins them with the Father. For, as for everyone who loves the truth—because the truth is the mouth of the Father; his tongue is the Holy Spirit—he who is joined to the truth is joined to the Father’s mouth by his tongue, whenever he is to receive the Holy Spirit, since this is the manifestation of the Father and his revelation to his aeons” (26,28–27.7). The way to receive truth is to be joined to the Father by the Holy Spirit, and reception of the Spirit is required for receiving revelation. In a description of the earth- or flesh-bound human, living in terror and confusion as one having a bad dream, the Spirit reappears and helps the person to stand. “He [the Spirit] gave them the means of knowing the knowledge of the Father and the revelation of his Son”

116

It would be a mistake to expect a developed pneumatology in the middle of the second century, and some of the fluidity of terms in that era may be evident in this work. Amazingly, though, the fourthcentury Marcellus of Ancyra attributes to Valentinus the idea of three hypostases of Father, Son, and Holy

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(30,16–26). As in the Acts of Thomas, it seems to be the Spirit who allows for the possibility of coming to understand the mysteries, although the source of the mysteries themselves is the Father, not the Spirit. Unfortunately, the language of the Gospel of Truth is not always clear, since precise antecedents are missing, leading to some confusion about the subject of the action. For example, in the line immediately following the last quotation, “he [presumably the Spirit, but possibly the Father] granted them to taste him and to smell him and to touch the beloved Son” (30,28–32).117 The mysteries that are revealed to those who can receive them (those who have gnosis) are of a specific sort, although the author of the Gospel of Truth does not always reveal what is in mind. The revelation clearly includes information about and acquaintance with Jesus, but also contains knowledge of emanations, the illusive character of the earthly life, and the process of reintegration into the source of all being, the primordial godhead. Nowhere in the Acts of Thomas, with the possible exception of the Hymn of the Pearl which could be read as an allegory of gnostic origins, are such concepts found. The epicleses simply do not identify the content of the mysteries to be revealed by the addressee, although her identity, and information about the activities of the “chosen one” (presumably Jesus) would surely be included as elements of what is revealed. There are subtle hints in the Gospel of Truth that might suggest an anointing ritual that was associated with the Spirit, but they are ambiguous. In a discussion of the fragrance of the Father, the author indicates that it is breath (or “spirit”) that has the sense of smell and attracts fragrance to itself. Later, faith is said to bring about a “warm pleroma of love.” Although this passage is simply suggestive, there is clear mention of some type of anointing on page 36. The ointment itself is God’s mercy, but those who are anointed are “the ones Spirit. See Marcellus, On the Holy Church 9 and the translation of the text in Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, 233.

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who have become perfect,” here likened to full jars that are sealed. One who is not full will be further emptied by a breath or spirit. But one who is full and lacks nothing is sealed, or, if found lacking, filled by the Father. Mention of the Father is occasion for a change in metaphors and the “jar” becomes a planting118 in paradise. As in Ode 11, which begins with the image of a blossoming garden and proceeds to speak of the fragrance of the Lord who took the odist to paradise, paradise itself is a place cultivated by God. The odist compares himself with a blossoming land (verse 12) and says that the Lord has given him rest, while the author of the Gospel of Truth declares that “paradise is his place of rest” (36,38–39). Although the passage in the Gospel of Truth is not explicit in its reference to anointing, the mention of ointment and of full jars being sealed, as well as the similarities with the initiatory Ode 11, suggest the strong possibility that the author of the Gospel of Truth is alluding to an anointing ritual. We have already seen that the Valentinian Gospel of Philip places a high value on chrismation.119 The most striking result of the knowledge of God’s revelation in the Gospel of Truth is that it provides rest.120 Those who are acquainted with the teaching of the Father—that is, the instruction about themselves (21,3–5)—will not run blindly as do those who are ignorant (28,32–29,16), but instead “possess his head, which is rest for them” (41,28–29); they “rest in him who is at rest, not striving nor being twisted around the truth” (42,23–25). They can have rest because those who know the Father and their proper home

117

The same ambiguity exists in an earlier section (27,7–8): “He manifested what was hidden of him; he explained it.” Although the discussion had been concentrating on the Spirit, the “Father” had been the last figure mentioned. 118

The agricultural image is developed also in Ode 38.

119

Valentinus’s student Ptolemy, according to Irenaeus (Haer. 1.5.6), taught a typological doctrine in which earthly realities corresponded to true, spiritual realities (such as “church”). Ptolemy himself, in his Letter to Flora (apud Haer. 33.5.9–15), speaks of the higher, spiritual meanings of legal ordinances, but acknowledges the value of physical fasting, in remembrance of true fasting. This recalls the sacramental exemplarism of the Acts of Thomas, in which a heavenly reality is the type of that sacramental element known in the visible realm. 120

For an extensive study of this theological metaphor in the Gospel of Truth, see Judith Hoch Wray, Rest as a Theological Metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Truth.

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in him can “cease laboring in search of the Father, resting there in him, knowing that this is the rest” (24,17–20). In a passage reflecting on the role of the Son as the divine agent, the author declares not only that the Son “spoke about his secret things” but also about “his resting-place from which he had come forth” (39,28–33), most likely one element of the “secret things.” Those who have sinned are pursued and drawn into the restfulness offered by God. In a paraenetic section directed at the reader who makes acquaintance with the truths delivered by this message, the author urges the reader, among other things, to “give repose to those who are weary” (33,6). Repose is the state of the Father’s existence, bestowed on the Son, and offered to all who recognize their origin and rightful place of existence, which is called paradise and is precisely in the repose that characterizes God.121 “Come, Mother of the seven houses, so that your rest might be in the eighth house” We have seen that “rest” is a common metaphor for knowing God and understanding divine revelation. In the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas, the Spirit is even called “rest.” Not only does the Mother provide rest and can be addressed as hJsuciva, but her resting place can be identified as located in the “eighth house,” in the fascinating line 7B of the prayer in chapter 27. The seven “houses” of this feminine figure call to mind the house built by Wisdom, consisting, as it did, of seven pillars (Prov 9:1), and Wisdom’s quest for a resting place (Sir 24:4–8). Drijvers sees a direct link between the figure of Wisdom in Hebrew tradition and this line in the first epiclesis.122 Others,123 while acknowledging a certain correspondence, have failed to find a satisfactory explanation in the Biblical allusion. Those who have seen gnostic origins for the Acts of Thomas as a whole or

121

Wray, Rest as a Theological Metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Truth, 140: “In GosTr REST is the place, the locus of God’s presence, from which God acts and redemption goes forth. REST is also, for the believer, that state of being characterized in the present by tranquility and peace, by lack of stress as a result of the knowledge of one’s place in the Unity, in the Father. Likewise, REST is the ultimate and eschatological goal of the believer.” 122

Drijvers, “The Acts of Thomas,” 334.

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the epicleses in particular124 see a reference to heavenly spheres populated with hostile rulers, through which the soul must travel.125 Even those who reject gnostic influence want to read this line as a statement concerning the future hope for the members of the group being initiated,126 although the sou of line 7B would militate against this interpretation.127 The numbers do suggest the ancient idea of heavenly spheres, beyond which is the “highest heaven.” Several examples of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature provide reflection on the “seven heavens,” the number of which was probably linked to the seven planets and stemmed from Babylonian cosmic speculation.128 The Apocalypse of Abraham adds an eighth level, probably representing a “highest heaven.”129 Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 7.57.1) indicates that the eighth aujlhv is the abode of the divine. In addition, Epiphanius tells us that the Nicolaitans and the Archontics (“like the other sects”) conceived of a “mother” dwelling in the eighth heaven,130 while Irenaeus speaks of the

123

C. Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 200; Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,”41–42. 124

That is, most notably, Bousset, Bornkamm, and Antonio Orbe, La Teologia del Espiritu Santo: Estudios Valentinianos Vol. IV (Analecta Gregorianan 158; Rome: Libreria Editrice dell'Università Gregoriana, 1966), 105. 125

This idea was quite commonplace among various religious groups in antiquity. See Ioan Petru Culianu, Psychanodia I: A Survey of the Evidence concerning the Ascension of the Soul and its Relevance (EPRO 99; Leiden: Brill, 1983). 126

So Klijn, Acts of Thomas, 215 and Kruse, “Zwei Geist-Epiklesen der syrischen Thomasakten,” 41–42, although Kruse limits the seven houses to the baptized, since the Holy Spirit is said to dwell in the eighth house. 127 Nor does the Syriac refer to anyone other than the feminine addressee. This is not to say that the prayer cannot envision the believer sharing in the abode of the addressee, but such a concept is not made explicit. Rather, she is invoked to be present with the initiates. 128

Adela Yarbro Collins provides an exhaustive analysis of the role of numbers in general and their influence on ancient ordering of the cosmos in particular in her “Numerical Symbolism in Jewish and Early Christian Apocalyptic Literature,” ANRW II.21,2 (1984): 1222–87; for our purposes, see esp. 1265. Apocalypses with seven heavens include 2 Enoch, the Testament of Levi, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Apocalypse of Paul. 129

So Collins, “Numerical Symbolism,” 1265.

130

On the Nicolaitans: Pan. 25.2.2: “Some of them glorify a Barbelo who they claim is on high in an eighth heaven”; on the Archontics: Pan. 40.2.3: “The shining Mother is at the very top in the eighth

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Ophites who conceived of a “First-Woman,” who is also called Spirit and Mother of the living, to whom both Father and Son were wedded. The seven heavenly realms were created by a being who initiated a series of beings generated without the aid of the Mother. These total seven, “and the Mother held the eighth place.”131 The idea of seven heavens, beyond which is an eighth, perfect heaven (the abode of God), was not uncommon in antiquity, including among Christians, and could be expected to be found in northern Mesopotamia, where Babylonian influence was especially strong. In its current context within the initiatory epiclesis of chapter 27, it is tempting to link the eighth heaven, wherein the Mother rests, with the later practice of building octagonal baptisteries.132 The initiates would then be entering into the realm of the Holy Spirit, the eighth house, in which they find rest, by virtue of their baptism. The absence of a water rite in this initiatory scene, however, and the speculative nature of this suggestion, make it, in the end, untenable, although similar ideas of the perfection (temporal as well as spatial) represented by the number eight probably did influence the development of the octagonal design. Conclusion The Acts of Thomas, then, adopts many of the motifs and language already used in Christian texts of northern Mesopotamia, especially the Odes of Solomon.133 Most significantly, the epicleses in chapters 27 and 50 are addressed to the feminine Spirit who is revealer of hidden mysteries, can be depicted as a dove, and is called Mother, just as the heaven.” For Epiphanius, see the edition of the Panarion by Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (NHS 35; Leiden: Brill, 1987). 131

Irenaeus, Haer. 1.30.1–4. I use the English translation of Dominic J. Unger, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies. 132

As does Caroline Johnson, “Ritual Epicleses in the Greek Acts of Thomas,” 201.

133 One final example could be adduced: The cuwlyatha of Ode 11:2 may lie behind the nefrov" of line 9A in the Acts of Thomas 27. Both terms literally mean “kidney,” but the Semitic term is used of the will or heart of humans (see the use of the Hebrew cognate in Jer 17:10). The identical word is employed in the

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Odes of Solomon employ similar revelatory language when describing the newfound knowledge of the follower of the Lord. The Odes also speak of the nourishing milk134 that is available to the initiate, from the consoling breasts of God. The imagery is clearly not identical, but the use of feminine language of God carries through in the Acts of Thomas for the address to the Spirit. The Spirit in the epicleses is compassionate and merciful, yet also powerful, ideas that are applied to God in the Odes. Finally, similar results follow for the adherents of the Christian life in these two works: there is rest and communion with God (or the Spirit in the Acts of Thomas), joy and repose, and the promise of sharing in a heavenly life. This final concept is expressed in terms such as “paradise” or “immortality” in the Odes, while the spirit epicleses look forward to a “rest” in the eighth house, i.e., in the heavenly reality that is the abode of God. Literature associated with Valentinian gnostic thought also shares images and theological concepts with the epicleses. Here also, in both the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Philip, can be found feminine imagery for God. Revelation of hidden truths is a common theme, and takes place precisely through the feminine qualities of God: God reveals his bosom, which is explicitly declared to be the Holy Spirit. Union with God is achieved by recognizing the truth in oneself, and leads, in both the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Philip, to rest. The Gospel of Philip emphasizes ritual action, just as the Acts of Thomas sets the prayers appealing to the feminine Spirit, who is called “rest,” reveals mysteries, and brings joy, within initiatory settings. Several gnostic groups held to the notion of a primal Mother, who is sometimes said to dwell in the highest heaven. A gnostic anthropology often involved a high valuation of “maleness,” understood as a union of the male and female in the spiritual world. This union could be achieved through renunciation of the differentiation of the sexes that is evident in acts related to procreation; thus, the sexual renunciation that dominates much of Syriac version of the Acts of Thomas in chapter 17, but the Greek translator must have supplied a literal translation of the term, although nefrov" does not carry the same connotations as the Syriac term.

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the Acts of Thomas corresponds with the appeal to the Spirit as “fellowship of the male” in the epiclesis in chapter 27. Other traditions from the region of northern Mesopotamia also share concepts found in the epicleses. From the earlier Thomas tradition can be found a proclamation of hidden things that are revealed, leading to a state of rest for the adherent. Later Syriacspeaking authors know of the idea of the Spirit as Mother, although they respond to the notion differently. Embedded within Syriac Biblical translations is the idea of the Spirit as a dove, hovering over the waters of creation as over her young; ritual texts from this region also refer to the Spirit hovering as a dove at baptism and Eucharist. Both within the Acts of Thomas itself, especially in the prayer in chapter 39, and in other literature that we have examined, there are similar claims made of Jesus that are applied in the epicleses to the Spirit. Both can be called “rest” and “revealer,” both share in athletic contests, and bring joy to the faithful. These texts do not demonstrate a clear distinction between the Son and Spirit, antedating as they do discussions in Greek-speaking Christianity regarding different hypostases within the Godhead. Indeed, the lack of clear distinction between Jesus and the Spirit helps to explain why the Spirit epiclesis in chapter 50 came to be embedded within a prayer to Jesus. Calling upon the Spirit, declaring her to have power, to be a revealer of knowledge of mysteries, who brings joy and rest—all of these claims made of the Spirit in the Acts of Thomas occur within the context of initiation. The means by which one can receive the Spirit and enjoy the benefits of knowing her is through ritual action. In the Gospel of Philip, it is through rituals and the gnosis that is available in the liturgical action, that the Holy Spirit is known and active, bringing repose. The liturgical actions surrounding the epicleses deal with anointing and Eucharist, rituals known also from the Gospel of Philip, where anointing is also of central importance.

134

Odes 4:10; 8:14; 19:1–4; 35:5; 40:1.

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Although the epicleses in the Acts of Thomas are distinctive, their motifs and images are not completely unique. Examining related literature has revealed a concept of the Spirit as one who shares in the power of God and characteristics of Jesus, but who also has her own characteristics. She is compassionate Mother, who is present with her adherents in their liturgical practices, bringing previously hidden knowledge. The knowledge apparently consists not only of her own identity, but also the hope for her adherents and the necessity of an ascetic ethos for those who wish to share in her life. Prospectus for Further Research Although the present study has not attempted to ascertain the origin of the prayers in chapters 27 and 50 of the Acts of Thomas, it has noted that the prayers have been inserted into their present location and, therefore, have a “prehistory.” In their present locations, the prayers call upon the Spirit, using colorful epithets, to be present in the ritual actions taking place in the surrounding narrative. But is that how they were always employed? Earlier commentators on the Acts of Thomas, especially those with expertise in the history of religions, saw a link between these prayers and various systems of religious thought in antiquity, concentrating especially on gnostic thought. We have seen that gnostic literature does employ similar concepts and can aid in understanding the meaning of the epicleses, but the work itself evidences no understanding of the gnostic cosmogonic myth, the concept of an evil creator god, or the dualistic anthropology of gnostic systems. We have seen that the idea of a primordial Mother figure is at home in gnostic thought, but, regarding the epicleses, Günther Bornkamm has turned to another ancient Mother figure as the original inspiration for these prayers. Initially, Bornkamm proposed that the prayers had originally been addressed to a Mother goddess, perhaps the Dea Syria,135 but he later decides on a “heavenly Sophia,” which he sees especially developed in the thought of

135

Bornkamm, Mythos und Legende in den apokryphen Thomas-Akten, 89–103.

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Bardaisan and in the reports of the Marcosians in Irenaeus.136 We shall turn briefly to these suggestions now. The idea that these epicleses, surviving in a work from northern Mesopotamia, preserve prayers originally addressed to the Syrian goddess is a somewhat attractive proposal. The center of worship of the Dea Syria was Hierapolis/Mabbug, but her cult extended as well to other cities of the region, including Edessa, Hatra, and Nisibis.137 Atargatis combined the attributes of three Canaanite goddesses, ’Asherah, ‘Ashtart, and ‘Anat.138 Lucian, in his description of the cult at Hierapolis, calls her Hera, but recognizes that she bears traits of several other goddesses with whom he was acquainted.139 Lucian describes a goddess who is seated on a lions (Syr. d. 15), whose cult center includes a lake of sacred fish (Syr. d. 45; cf. also Syr. d. 14), and to whose adherents doves are considered sacred (Syr. d. 54; cf. also Syr. d. 14).140 Perhaps most significant for our purposes, she is a Mother goddess, “mother of the gods and of Syria.”141 But there were, of course, numerous mother goddesses, although the association with doves, and the foundation of her cult in the region from which the epicleses probably rose, does support the notion that the original addressee of the epicleses was the Syrian goddess. Unfortunately, the degree of support is far from convincing.

136

Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.438–39. Bornkamm rejects the idea that the Mother in these prayers is the “fallen Sophia of numerous Gnostic systems,” or the “virgin of light of the Wedding Hymn.” Instead, “she is the mother and heavenly ‘companion in arms’ of the Redeemer on earth, and thus herself a revealer and a redeemer of souls” (“The Acts of Thomas,” 2.439). 137

H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (EPRO 90; Leiden: Brill, 1980), 98–101.

138

See the discussion in R. A. Oden, Studies in Lucian’s De Syria Dea (HSM 15; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977; see also Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. 139

Lucian, Syr. d. 32. For a translation and edition of Lucian, see the work of Harold W. Attridge and Robert A. Oden, The Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria) (SBLTT 9; Graeco-Roman Religion Series 1; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976). 140 Fish were sacred to ’Asherah, doves to ‘Ashtart; all three Canaanite goddesses have associations with lions, but perhaps especially ‘Anat. See Oden, Studies in Lucian’s De Syria Dea, 99–107. 141

See Oden, Studies in Lucian’s De Syria Dea, 101.

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Another goddess sometimes associated with Atargatis is Balti(s), an Arab goddess of love and fertility worshipped throughout the north Mesopotamian area. She was called “the Star” and identified with the planet Venus; Ephrem knows and criticizes a cult of the Star, replete with sexual indulgence. The planet Venus appears “in two hypostases, representing the Morning and the Evening Star,” which, in this region, are known as the twin gods Azizos and Monimos.142 The planet Venus could, therefore, be called the mother “of twin nestlings.” I am not aware of other aspects of the cult of Baltis, but this aspect of her person bears an intriguing resemblance to line 7 of the epiclesis in chapter 50 of the Acts of Thomas. Also telling is the ancient Mesopotamian belief in the divine Sun (sometimes identified as Bel) and Moon, or Father and Mother. As a couple they produce a divine Son, sometimes identified as Nebo. Ephrem again knows of this cult and denounces the sexual aspects of it,143 but Bardaisan apparently incorporated it into his version of Christianity. Convinced of the “unmistakably Gnostic”144 character of the epicleses, Bornkamm is especially interested in the Marcosians as attested by Irenaeus, who call upon the name of the unknown Father, and also Truth, Mother of all, who descended into Jesus.145 Bornkamm notes as well the importance of anointing for the Marcosians as well as the “bridal chamber,” which Irenaeus believes was simply used by Marcus to dupe women. All of these elements are known as well from the Gospel of Philip, as we have seen, suggesting some connection between the background of the epicleses and Valentinian gnostic thought and practice, although the precise relationship remains unclear. If the epicleses were originally addressed to a Mother goddess or to a feminine emanation of the divine, they must have been adopted, and probably adapted, by Christians

142

Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, 150.

143

For the cult of the Sun and Moon in general, see Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, 156–59.

144

Bornkamm, “The Acts of Thomas,” 2.438.

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at some point in order for the editor of the Acts of Thomas to consider incorporating them into this Christian novel. Since the author/editor of the work is anonymous, it is an especially daunting task to try to identify the author or redactor of select portions of the work. Yet there is a Christian figure from Syriac-speaking Christianity whose ideas fit nicely with those expressed in the epicleses: Bardaisan. Although Bardaisan has been linked with the Acts of Thomas before, his possible involvement, or that of one of his followers, with the epicleses has, to my knowledge, never been fully investigated. A brief sampling of areas of agreement follows. It is difficult to know with certainty very much about Bardaisan; thus any attempts to identify his theology or cosmology are immediately frustrated. The work that bears his name, the Book of the Laws of the Countries, claims to have been written not by the philosopher himself, but by one of his pupils. It is apparently identical or nearly identical with the lost book On Fate by Bardaisan. Much of what can be known of Bardaisan apart from the Laws of the Countries comes from Ephrem,146 who was incensed by some of Bardaisan’s ideas and actively opposed the Bardesanites of his day. Yet Ephrem also agrees with Bardaisan in criticizing the theological dualism of Marcion.147 Some of Ephrem’s claims do not accord with what can be known of Bardaisan from other sources,148 and perhaps represent the views of later Bardesanites.

145

Haer. 1.21.3.

146

For the critical edition of Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies, see Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra haereses (ed. and trans. Edmund Beck; 2 vols.; CSCO 169–170; CSCO Scriptores Syri 76–77; Louvain: Durbecq, 1957); for an edition and English translation of the Prose Refutations, see C. W. Mitchell, S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan (2 vols.; London: Williams and Norgate, 1912–1921; republished Farnborough, Hants.: Gregg, 1969). 147

H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, 142. Drijvers’ study of Bardaisan is the most complete to

date. 148

Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, 143.

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Bardaisan had a reputation as a composer, but so did his son (in the Greek tradition given the name Harmonius)149 and others of his followers. Ephrem does not always distinguish between hymns of Bardaisan and those of other Bardesanites, and we would do well to be cautious about ascribing the views Ephrem discusses directly to Bardaisan. But Ephrem very clearly considers all the Bardesanites to be filled with insanity, just as was their leader. The concepts of particular repulsion to Ephrem are often those of particular interest to any investigation of Bardesanite influence on the epicleses. Hymn 55 of Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies is a goldmine of information regarding the views of the Bardesanites. Elsewhere, Bardaisan subscribes to the idea of a single God, but very clear in Hymn 55 is Ephrem’s ascription to Bardaisan of a divine pair of Father and Mother: “He considered Sun and Moon; with the Sun he compared the Father, with the Moon he compared the Mother, male and female Gods and their children.”150 The Mother bore a son, who is “called our Lord the child that was produced by two, through sexual union” (HcHaer. 55.2). These two created a “paradise of shame” according to Ephrem: “The Father with the Mother, by their sexual union … founded it, they planted it with their descendants” (HcHaer. 55.8).151 This paradise planted by the Father and Mother, the Garden of Life, is “at the same time the Bridal Chamber of Light to which the souls return.”152 The Mother is able to enter into a “palace, whose portals open to the Mother at command” (HcHaer. 55.7); although it is far from clear, there may be a reference here to a “house” or dwelling of the Mother. It is not entirely clear how the Mother relates to the figure of the Holy Spirit, or if Bardaisan or the Bardesanites used the name of Mother for the Spirit. But Ephrem does

149

Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 3.16.

150

All translations of Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies are those of Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa.

151 Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, 147, notes that “the sexual element in this quotation brings a blush to Ephrem’s cheeks.” 152

Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, 151.

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claim that the Bardesanites believe in a Holy Spirit that “bore two daughters,” apparently twins, “the blush of the earth and the image of the water”( HcHaer. 55.2–3). The Spirit is therefore connected with creation,153 and she (or one of her daughters) apparently enjoys a wedding feast (HcHaer. 55.5). Evidence that directly links the epicleses of the Acts of Thomas with Bardaisan or the Bardesanites is lacking. But there are intriguing parallels between the Bardesanite school and the epicleses. If indeed the hymns were originally addressed to a Mother goddess and then christianized, only later to be incorporated into the Acts of Thomas by the author of the second half and redactor of the whole, it is at least an intriguing possibility that they had already been incorporated as hymns into the Christian system of Bardaisan or the Bardesanites.154 It is possible that the epicleses did not originally function as Christian prayers. Yet they have themselves been christianized and incorporated into a Christian novel, with the result that their distinctive features stem from and subsequently influence creatively the Semitic Christianity of the east Syrian region.

153

See the discussion in Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, 145.

154

This suggestion need not place the composition of the Acts of Thomas itself in Edessa.

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CONCLUSION

In a recent essay, A. F. J. Klijn, whose scholarly career has included extensive work on the Acts of Thomas, discusses his own contributions to the field and the advances made in the related area of early liturgical scholarship. Yet he declares that “the epicleses still require further study.” 1 It is my hope that this study contributes to the work that has already been done on these prayers in the Acts of Thomas, and will serve to advance scholarship on the Acts of Thomas in general and the Spirit epicleses in particular. This study begins by setting out the epicleses and their variants, and drawing attention to the literary effects of the language employed. The prayers are distinct from the surrounding narrative and make use of rhetorical features that draw attention to the theological claims that they make. Because of extensive editing of the entire work and irregularities within the prayers themselves (e.g., the ejlqev missing from the prayer in chapter 50), it is difficult to know the original form of the prayers. But I believe that the epicleses deserve attention in their own right as they currently stand within the Acts of Thomas. I begin by attempting to situate the prayers, and the Acts of Thomas in general, within the proper environment(s). First, I reexamine the authorship, provenance, and dating of the work, questioning some of the traditional assumptions made about the Acts

1

A. F. J. Klijn, “The Acts of Thomas Revisited,” 9. 274

of Thomas. In particular, I note that the narrative lacks unity and conclude that several key concerns of the author of the second half of the work are absent from the tales in the first half. The author of the second half of the Acts of Thomas has apparently appended the unified story set in the court of King Mizdai to discrete tales found in the first half of the work and then edited the entire work. The result is that the heavily edited Act 1 corresponds with the unified story in valuing a renunciation of sexual activity on the part of all those who respond to the message of the apostle regarding the “new God,” and does so by means of the metaphor of marriage with Jesus, the true spouse. The editor’s hand is evident as well in the many prayers and speeches in the discrete tales; this author/redactor seems to have composed some material to accord with the views set out in the Mygdonia story in the second half, but has also borrowed and adapted traditional material, as is especially evident in the liturgical scenes throughout the Acts of Thomas. Although the Acts of Thomas has often been assigned to the early third century and believed to be composed in the city of Edessa, where, by the late fourth century, Thomas’s remains could be found, the evidence for these claims regarding date and provenance is slim. The Acts of Thomas most likely stems from the third century, but clear attestation of its existence is relatively late and the text offers little to aid one in fixing a date. There is no compelling reason to date the work prior to the middle of the third century, and it may have been written in the second half of the century. This would place it during the ministry of Mani, whose career parallels that of Thomas as told in the Acts of Thomas. If the Acts of Thomas does not antedate Mani’s career, it may have been written as a corrective to claims about Mani as the Twin of Christ; in the Acts of Thomas, the apostle is the true twin, who can even be mistaken for Jesus.

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Edessa had a reputation in the west for being a Christian city, and indeed could boast of Christians within its walls from the late second and early third centuries, but it was not the only northern Mesopotamian city with a Christian population in the third century. Nisibis, too, was an important city and produced notable Christian figures, but it waned in importance after it was ceded to the Persians in 363. Although it is impossible to say with certainty precisely where the complete Acts of Thomas originated, several clues within the second half of the work point to the region around Nisibis. In particular, the principal female character in the Acts of Thomas, Mygdonia, takes her name from the Mygdon River, on which the city of Nisibis is situated. As a site for producing the Acts of Thomas, Nisibis is at least as strong a candidate as is Edessa. The Acts of Thomas gives evidence of extensive editorial work. Several significantly different versions have survived, the most ancient and important of which are the Syriac and the Greek, and within each language tradition, notable changes and additions can be found. The two most complete Greek manuscripts differ markedly from one another in sections, and only one Greek and one Syriac manuscript contain the Hymn of the Pearl, a clear interruption to the surrounding narrative. Significant manuscript confusion surrounds the long prayer (chaps. 144–148 in Greek ms. U) of Thomas, and other prayers and speeches appear to have existed independently prior to being inserted into the Acts of Thomas, while others seem to have been composed for the occasion by the redactor. The epicleses share motifs with other prayers within the Acts of Thomas, several of which themselves give evidence of independent composition. Among these other prayers with similar form and language are several placed in liturgical settings. The redactor seems to have borrowed material found in worship and incorporated it into

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liturgical scenes within the work. In the end, while the epicleses share themes with other prayers and speeches, they remain distinct, displaying the greatest degree of similarity to one another. Because the epicleses are set within liturgical contexts, they shed light on some of the initiatory practices within the region. Both scenes depict initiation followed by Eucharist. The first scene, that in which the prayer in chapter 27 can be found, speaks of a “seal” (“sign” in Syriac) bestowed on the initiate through a ritual of anointing. No water baptism is described. In the second initiation account, surrounding the second epiclesis, the initiates again receive the “seal,” but the ritual action is unclear. Water baptism is again absent, but no anointing is mentioned either. The three remaining initiation accounts within the work give greater attention to the oil of anointing than to the water; indeed, the initiatory Eucharist is second in importance to the anointing. The prominence of anointing is found as well in other texts with ties to the region, and indeed throughout the history of Syriac-speaking Christianity. The accounts of Eucharist also vary, but there seems to have been a sharing in the bread, and sometimes a cup of water as well. In general, the Syriac version has been altered in these scenes in order to incorporate water baptism and a mixed cup of wine and water. The Greek, however, witnesses to more ancient traditions and indicates variety in the initiation ritual, suggesting either development over time or a tolerance for various forms of the rite within the region of northern Mesopotamia. The epicleses are addressed, in their present context, to the Holy Spirit, as is clearly stated in the prayer in chapter 27. The prayer in chapter 50 is, however, embedded within a prayer to Jesus, resulting in confusion regarding the addressee. The many

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similarities to the prayer in chapter 27, as well as numerous feminine appellations, clarify that the epiclesis in chapter 50 is indeed addressed to the feminine ruha. The epicleses display a distinctive character that sets them apart from other Hebrew and early Christian prayers. The appeal to a deity to “come” is known, of course, from the early Christian maranatha, but the length, complexity, and direct address of the epicleses distinguish them from all other Christian appeals for the Spirit to be present in ritual action. The tendency of the prayers to list attributes of the divine is a characteristic of prayers known in the Greco-Roman world, which also knew the practice of adjuring a deity to “come.” This request to “come,” accompanied by ritual action, is a characteristic of so-called “magical” prayers, but the epicleses differ from extant magical texts in that they lack voces magicae and are set in the context of communal, rather than private, ritual action. Of prayers that antedate the epicleses, the ones that appear most similar to them are those collected as Orphic hymns, prayers addressed to various deities known in the Greco-Roman world. The Orphic hymns also list attributes and activities of the god(dess), often evidence a repeated “come” (although not repeated to the extent found in the epicleses), and appeals to the divine being to share with a group of initiates in their ritual action and to enlighten them. A comparison with other works integral to Syriac-speaking Christianity or evidencing a similar thoughtworld help to clarify the meaning behind the prayers themselves. The epicleses appeal to a feminine Spirit who reveals mysteries and enlightens her adherents. She is intimately connected both with the action of anointing and with Jesus, the Anointed one, whose name she makes known and in whose feats she shares. She is a Mother figure, filled with compassion. The Spirit is depicted as a dove, as

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in other early Christian literature, and is said to bear twins, here apparently the two figures of Jesus and Thomas, who are presented as twins by the redactor of the Acts of Thomas, building on the meaning of the apostle’s name and the tradition that he had been accorded special revelation by Jesus. The revelation provided by the Spirit links her with the figure of Wisdom, known to the Hebrew tradition and incorporated into Christian christological speculation. Part of the revelation of invisible things provided by this figure is that of knowledge of her identity and the benefits of knowing her, as well as of a heavenly reality ordinarily hidden from humans. The hidden reality is, however, reflected in elements known to the human world, especially those employed in ritual contexts. Indeed, in the Syrian tradition, “mysteries” will come to refer to the sacraments. The heavenly reality revealed by the Spirit elsewhere seems to correspond with the image (or ritual) of a “bridal chamber” and wedding imagery is abundant in the Acts of Thomas. In that heavenly reality, differences in the sexes will be abrogated, and all, male and female alike, will paradoxically be identified as “male.” The Spirit dwells in a realm that lies beyond the seven heavenly spheres of ancient thought; there she finds “rest,” providing it, as well as joy, to her adherents. Several of the attributes connected with this revelatory Spirit are known as well from cults of goddesses, including Atargatis, the autochthonous goddess of northern Mesopotamia. Whether the epicleses were originally addressed to her or to another goddess figure, and the means by which they came to be incorporated into the initiatory scenes in the Acts of Thomas, remains to be investigated. The Spirit epicleses of the Acts of Thomas offer a glimpse into a fascinating period in early Christian thought in northern Mesopotamia, in which the feminine Spirit

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was extolled and adjured to be present in the initiation elements and rituals of the Christian community. Because of the presence of features that were also part of thought systems eventually condemned by the dominant Christian churches, several elements in these prayers and in the Syrian tradition in general were lost. It is my hope that this study has helped to draw attention to the richness of expression that characterized the early Christianity of northern Mesopotamia in the early centuries of the common era.

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APPENDIX Epiclesis from chapter 27 (Syriac version):1 Syriac: )XY$Md )$Ydq )M4 )t )Mwr oMd )N]NXd )LYX )t )NML$M8 )M]Xr8 wt

)tMYrM )tBhwM[ yt )tKrwBd )twPtw$ yt )YsK8 )z)r8 tYLG[ yt

yKXYN )w]h )YNMtd )tYBBd o[Y8tB )(B$d )M) yt )]tw(rtd )dGzY) yt

)MY8L9 oYLhd nwhtY(r8t mO ptwt$)w

)]$dwQd )Xwr yt nwhtwB8Lw nwhtYLw8K yKdw English translation: Come, holy name of the Messiah; come, power of grace, which art from on high; come, perfect mercy; come, revealer of hidden mysteries; come, mother of seven houses, whose rest was in the eighth house; come, messenger of reconciliation, and communicate with the minds of these youths; come, Spirit of holiness, and purify their reins and their hearts. 1

Both text and translation are from Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. The Syriac is found

on page gcq. The English translation is from pages 166–67.

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Epiclesis from chapter 50 (Syriac version):2 Syriac: )Mrd )tBhwM[ yt )NML$M8 )M]Xr8 wt )t$YdQ )Xwr yt

)YBNB8 )rY]XBd yhwz)r8 tY]LG[ yt )Y[Kz o=Ylt)d yhwNwG)8 yhwXYL$8B trBSM[ yt )twBrd h[tMY]S yt

)YL([d yhwM]Xr8 tBYBX yt )Mrd yhwz)r8 tYL]GM[ )twYt$ yt

nhL)d yhwdB8([ tYwXMw . )tYS8Kd )tYNLLMM yt

h[YNr8(wSB )tYLG8w . h[twYSKB )YX8 tBh[Y yt h[L oYPQNd oYLY) nwhLKL )XY[Nw )twdX tBhY[ yt ..LKB nwtN) dXd . )]rBd htMKXw )B)d hLYX yt ONYdB([d )Y=SrKw) )dhB oMO ptwt$)w yt

oNYBrQMd )NBrwQ )NhBw oNYdB9[d )NrKwd )NhBw English translation: Come, gift of the Exalted; come, perfect mercy; come, holy Spirit; come, revealer of the mysteries of the Chosen among the Prophets; come, proclaimer by His Apostles of the combats of our victorious Athlete; come, treasure of majesty; come, beloved of the mercy of the Most High; come, (thou) silent (one), revealer of the mysteries of the Exalted; come utterer of hidden things, and shewer of the works of our God; come, giver of life in secret, and manifest in thy deeds; come, giver of joy and rest to all who cleave unto thee; come, power of the Father and wisdom of the son, for Ye are one in all; come The Syriac can be found on pages @Yr – =Yr of Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. The

2

English translation is from pages 189–90.

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and communicate with us in the Eucharist which we celebrate, and in this offering which we offer and in the commemoration which we make.

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