Ephesians 5:14 - a baptism hymn?

 In response to our latest video on Romans, 

@christianmichael8609 comments:@23:10 - that is a strong statement there - that the recipients of the Apostolos letters did not know of Christian initiation by baptism. Ought you not be more cautious? Laodiceans 5.14 is explicitly cited by Epiphanius, and as you surely know reputable scholars have suggested that this was a baptismal initiation saying.
My reply: With your question you confirm my statement. Reputable scholars are reading Ephesians 5.14 in the light of the canonical 14-Letter Collection and the canonical NT, particularly Rom. 6:3-4 (Bruce, for example), where, of course such light-metaphor reminds of baptism. This is exactly the point, of what I was saying. Once you move, as you do, within the canonical frame, things are clear which are very different within the 10-Letter Collection. Jürgen Becker and Ulrich Lutz, for example, simply speak of Eph 5:14 as of a "baptismal song", yet, even in canonical Eph 5 there is no single mention of baptism. Hence they are careful in saying twice that this is a "guess" (in German they use twice "vermutlich", p. 166). Bruce is more willing to follow the idea, yet he makes a cautious note of B. Noack, “Das Zitat in Ephes. 5:14,” ST 5 (1951), 52-64, for its being primarily a resurrection hymn (although applicable secondarily to baptism) and points to R. P. Martin, “Aspects of Worship in the New Testament Church,” VE 2 (1963), 30. Bruce, however, refers to the earliest commentary that exists on this verse Eph 5:14 and writes (Bruce, Commentary ad loc.): "Attempts have been made to strengthen the identif ication of the tristich as a baptismal hymn by the argument that its rhythm is that found in the initiation formulae of various Hellenistic cults. The formula most commonly adduced is one quoted by Firmicus Maternus as uttered by the person newly initiated into the Attis mystery. Such formal parallels are difficult to establish, and throw no light on the meaning of what is, in context and content, an explicitly Christian composition. Clement of Alexandria quotes this tristich and accompanies it with another tristich amplifying the reference to Christ in its third clause." His criticism of referencing Hellenistic cults should have also led him to be more cautious with referencing Christian baptism, as Clement points to Christ, but does not know of a baptismal link, let alone of a baptismal hymn behind this text. Interesting is that Strack-Billerbeck adduce 1 Tim 2:8 - again, providing a non-baptismal context. So I would be less firm than you are. In addition, Makus Barth does not follow this "guess" in his commentary on Ephesians, if I have not overlooked something.

1 Timothy 2:13-15 - a terrible biblical verse with an awful historical legacy

 

 As we are doing the final corrections of the book "The Letters of Paul in the Second Century: A Critical Reappraisal", authored by myself, Mark G. Bilby, Jack Bull and Kevin Lance Lotharp, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, I came across this small section that I thought is important to share, as it shows the nature of the canonical redaction and the way it transformed a Marcionite appreciation for women into a subordination of these:

¹³For Adam was first formed, then Eve. ¹⁴Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience. ¹⁵But she will be saved through her childbearing (σωθήσεται δὲ διὰ τῆς τεκνογονίας), if they continue in faith, love, and sanctification with sobriety. (1 Tim 2:13–15)

 

In light of its historical legacy: What a terrible statement![1] It is a ghastly travesty of *Pauline teaching and of his appreciation of women.[2] Here, the narrative hierarchy derived from Genesis 2 becomes theological norm: creation order implies a chauvinist moral order that connects the salvation of women—married women, others do not seem to be thought of[3]—with childbearing and the implied pregnancy, labor, pain and motherhood, understood as “penal suffering.”[4] The woman is not merely created second, she is made culpable, while Adam is exonerated by priority. It is the Christian beginning of an unending story of female temptation and seduction, as we can see, for example, in Marcion’s commentator Tertullian.

“Do you not know that you are Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives on in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway. You are the one who unsealed the forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.”[1]

 

Tertullian blames Eve, and by extension all women, for the fall of man, portraying women as the origin of male seduction into sin. A little later in the same book, he adds:

 

“First, know that the desire to please by adorning oneself does not spring from a clear conscience, but from decor designed to entice lust. Why, then, do you stir up that evil in yourself? Why do you invite someone foreign to you whom you claim to be? Moreover, we must not open the way to temptations that sometimes accomplish by pressure what God’s calls would seem to fail to; indeed, they at least move the spirit to stumble.”[2]

 

Women’s use of beautification, so his male gaze throughout this text, he accuses to be a form of seduction, recalling Eve’s role in leading Adam astray. Adornment is portrayed as an invitation to lust, and thus morally dangerous. How persistently this message of 1 Timothy resonated with the fathers can be seen from the influential John Chrysostom who in his homilies on this text preaches to his congregation: “You have crushed the head of your husband… it was you who expelled him from paradise! It was you who made him a subject of death… Do you not know that you are Eve?”[3]

---

[1] Tert., De Cultu Feminarum 1.1: Et nesciebas te Evam esse? Dei sententia in hanc sexum vestrum vivit in hoc saeculo: ergo et delictum necesse est vivat. Tu es porta diaboli, tu es prima desertrix legis divinae, tu illa es quae persuasisti eum quem diabolus aggredi non valuit.

[2] Tert., De Cultu Feminarum 2.6: Primo quod non de integra conscientia venit studium placendi per decorem quem naturaliter invitator libidinis scimus. Quid igitur excitas in te malum istud? Quid invitas cuius te profiteris extraneam? Tum quod temptationibus viam aperire non debemus, quae nonnumquam quod Deus a suis abigat instando perficiunt, certe vel spiritum scandalo permovent.

[3] John Chrys., Homiliae in 1 Timotheum, Hom. 9.

---

[1] Brox judges: “These reflections, so utterly alien to us” (“Diese uns völlig fremdartigen Überlegungen”), N. Brox, Die Pastoralbriefe (1969), 136.

[2] 1 Tim 2:13-15 is read as a fighting off the Pauline teaching from 1 Cor 7 in G. Wohlenberg, Die Pastoralbriefe (der erste Timotheus-, der Titus- und der zweite Timotheusbrief); mit einem Anhang: Unechte Paulusbriefe (1923), 120. According to Brox, this passage suggests that “it is hardly imaginable” that it “derives from the hand of Paul,” N. Brox, Die Pastoralbriefe (1969), 135.

[3] See the criticism in N. Brox, Die Pastoralbriefe (1969), 136.

[4] So G. Wohlenberg, Die Pastoralbriefe (der erste Timotheus-, der Titus- und der zweite Timotheusbrief); With an appendix: Unechte Paulusbriefe (1923), 121.

Judith Lieu, review on my Christ's Torah in SBL

 It is nice to see this in-depth, critical and welcoming review that my fine colleague Professor Judith Lieu has recently published in SBL. The view ends with the following paragraph:

"So, what are those anticipated nonspecialists to make of all this? Hints during the course of the work become explicit in his concluding suggestion that “many of [the] demarcations” of the modern world, between religions, cultures, institutions, “were historically conditioned, perhaps even once useful and helpful in some respects but must be reexamined again and again in terms of their necessity and usefulness” (354). This may surprise few, even if its application to the New Testament is less welcome. Nonetheless, as Markus Vinzent doggedly builds up his body of work into the uncertainties of any rediscovery of the earliest Christian period and writings, scholars in the field cannot avoid taking seriously his analysis, conclusions, and extensive command of patristic literature. The time is long past when his own (and others’) radical rereadings could be dismissed as maverick while “mainstream” scholarship carries on undisturbed."

Mein neuer Roman "Der Schatten der Nähe" - Coverentwurf

 Hier ein erster Blick auf den Coverentwurf meines in den nächsten Wochen erscheinenden neuen Romans:

Der Unfug des Todes - Artikel in Publik-Forum

 Ein gerade erschienener Artikel zum "Unfug des Todes" findet sich in Publik-Forum:

Markus Vinzent - Redaktion - Publik-Forum.de - christlich, kritisch, unabhängig