RECOVERING THE "GLORY OF ADAM"; "DIVINE LIGHT" TRADITIONS IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN ASCETICAL LITERATURE OF FOURTH-CENTURY SYRO-MESOPOTAMIA

ALEXANDER GOLITZIN Marquette University

Introduction

As early as the late 1950s, onee some of the Dead Sea Scrolls had begun to appear in print, Arthur Vööbus suggested possible links between them and early Syrian aseeties, the bnai qeiiimii, or "sons of the eovenant," whose first reeorded appearanee is in the works of Aphrahat of Persia (H. 330s-340s), Ephrem of Nisibis (+373), and a mid- to late fourth-eentury, anonymous eolleetion of aseetieal ser• mons, the Liber Gradl!um, or Book qf Steps.l Vööbus, however, simply stated a eonneetion with the "Essenes," rather in the manner that Jean DanieIou did a few years later in his Jewish Christianiry with regard to other early Christian writings. 2 In neither ease was there an effort to establish possible lines of transmission, nor generally to speak with the eare required nowadays, though I should note in fair• ness that the matter of transmission, if there was indeed any, remains entirely up in the air. One ean, however, find more eireumspeet and thus more useful diseussion of the striking similarities between these two groups of aseeties, the J ewish from around the turn of the era and the Syrian-Christian from three to four hundred years later.

1 A. Vööbus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, vol. I: The Origins of Asceticism. Early Monasticism in Persia (CSCO 184, Sub. 14; Louvain: Secretariat du Corpus SCO, 1958), 14-30 and 100-103. For arecent analysis of key terms in early Syriac Christian, asceticalliterature, together with comprehensive bibliography, see S. Griffith, "Asceticism in the Church of Syria: The Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism," in Asceticism (ed. V. L. Wimbush and R. Valantasis; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 220-245. 2 J. Danielou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicea, vol. I: The Theology ofJewish Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), esp. 2-3, 316-28, and 339-379. 276 ALEXANDER GOLITZIN

Antoine Guillaumont in the early 1970s, basing his argument on Aphrahat's defense of consecrated celibacy against what appear to have been contemporary Jewish objections to it, provided a ratio• nale for Qumran celibacy grounded in the Levitical code for priestly ministry which still appears to have currency in such recent litera• ture as Joseph Baumgarten's article on the same subject during the past decade.3 In the 1970s and 80s, Robert Murray touched on a number of subjects which bear on what appear to be concerns in common between the two sets of writings, including celibacy, holy war, preoccupation with the Temple, or at least the common and prominent use of temple language, and fellowship with the heavenly priesthood of the angels.4 The suspected or proposed origins of Mesopotamian Christianity in first- or early second-century Palestine might further enhance the possibilities of links with Qumran, partic• ularly since this theory has advanced from its first, tentative proposal in the 1960s to become today, as in the translation and introduc• tion of Aphrahat for Sources chretiennes by Marie:Joseph Pierre, virtu• ally a given of scholarship, as has the assumption of some continuing contacts - and tensions - with the large Jewish population of Sassanid Mesopotamia.5

3 A. Guillaumont, "A propos du ceJibat des Esseniens," in Aux origines du monachisme ehritien (series Spiritualite orientale 30; Bellefontaine: Abbayc de Bellefontaine, 1979), 13-23. J. Baumgarten, "The Qumran-Essene Restraints on Marriage," in Archaeology and the Dead Sea SeraIls (ed. L. H. Schiffman; JSPSuP 8; JSOT I ASOR Monograph 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 13-23, and see p. 20 far the citation of Guillaumont. Cf. also on Qumran celibacy, and for the same emphasis as Baumgarten and Guillaumont, though without citation of the latter, the article by E. ~mron, "Celibacy in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Two Kinds of Sectarians," in The Madrid Qymran Gongress: Proceedings qf the International Gongress on the Dead Sea Scralls. Madrid, 18-21 March, 1991 (STDJ 11, 1-2; Leiden: BriIl, 1992), 1:287-94. 4 R. Murray, "An Exhartation to Candidates far Ascetical Vows at Baptism in the Ancient Syrian Church," NTS 21 (1974): 59-80; idem, ~mbols qf Ghureh and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriae Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), esp. 11-17; idem, 'jews, Hebrews and Christians: Some Needed Distinctions," Nov T 24 (1982): 195-208; idem, '''Disaffected Judaism and Early Christianity: Some Predisposing Factars," in To See Us as Others See Us (Chico, Ca.: Scholars Press, 1985), 263-281. Both the last two articles dweIl on Syriac Christianity's relations to Christian origins in the se co nd temple era, touching on Qumran as part of the background and including both the pseudepigraphie materials (e.g., the Enochic lit• erature) popular there, and the ScroIls' preoccupations with the Temple. For the latter, and the theme of fellowship with the angels, shared between Syrian asceti• cism and the Qumran literature, see again Murray, "Some Themes and Problems of Early Syriac Angelology," in V ~mposium ~riaeum, 1988 (ed. R. Lavenant; OCA 236; Rome: Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies, 1990), 143-153, esp. 150-53 . .\ On the Palestinian origins of Christian asceticism, with extensive use of Syro-