The First Apocalypse of James: Martyrdom and Sexual Difference The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Haxby, Mikael C. 2013. The First Apocalypse of James: Martyrdom and Sexual Difference. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11064646 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The First Apocalypse of James : Martyrdom and Sexual Difference A dissertation presented by Mikael Caley Grams Haxby to The Committee on the Study of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of The Study of Religion Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 26, 2013 ©2013—Mikael Caley Grams Haxby All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Karen L. King Mikael Caley Grams Haxby The First Apocalypse of James : Martyrdom and Sexual Difference Abstract My dissertation presents a new reading of a rarely-studied early Christian text, the First Apocalypse of James , and seeks to intervene in major scholarly debates concerning martyrdom, scriptural interpretation and sexual difference. I begin by showing how the text exhorts its readers and hearers toward martyrdom by narrating the progress of James, the brother of Jesus, in overcoming his fear and preparing for martyrdom. Here Jesus’ revelation to James sets out a ritual of ascent that constitutes the martyr’s confession of faith—a previously unattested form to articulate the meaning of dying for God. I use intertextual methods to identify an interpretation of the Gospel of John in which Jesus’ statements of identity in John are read as descriptions of the true nature of the perfected martyr. This analysis locates scripturally-based debates about the nature of Christ within a context in which practices of preparation for martyrdom are being devised. 1ApocJas also reads Isaiah to identify female heroes whose example it exhorts James to follow. I use this reading of 1ApocJas to challenge the notion that a strict gendered hierarchy was reinscribed equally by Christian martyrdom texts. Through comparison to select examples of Valentinian theology, I establish that 1ApocJas envisions a productive tension in the divine realms between lower and higher female divine figures. By associating female martyrs with the higher female divinities and contrasting them to the lower female divinities, 1ApocJas valorizes martyrs as female and thus complicates any straightforward masculinization of the martyrs. My reading of 1ApocJas broadens our understanding of how Christians prepared themselves for martyrdom by interpreting scripture in innovative ways, devising new ritual practices, and developing distinctive articulations of human and divine sexual difference. iii Table of Contents 1) Introduction 1 The Discourse of Orthodoxy and Heresy 7 Martyrdom 10 Sexual Difference 16 Manuscript and Dating 21 Structure of the Dissertation 26 2) Preparation for Martyrdom 30 James’ Preparation for Martyrdom 35 Fear and Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy 39 Practices of Understanding and Effective Theology 43 Martyrdom, Christology, and “Docetism” 53 Practices of Discernment and the Discourse of Martyrdom 57 3) Interpretation of Scripture 67 The Intertextual Gap: Ethics and Christology 71 Response to an Anticipated Source-Critical Objection 78 Readings of Scripture in the Passage on the “Seven Women” 81 The Dialogue with Trypho and the Christological Reading of Scripture 85 Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora and the Ethical Reading of Scripture 89 The Three Women as Moral Exemplars and the Ethical Reading of Isaiah 92 The Ethical and Christological Reading of Leviticus 95 4) Sexual Difference and Valentinian Theology 100 Sexual Difference in Theology 107 The Excerpts from Theodotus and Valentinian Theology 112 5) The Seven Women Whom All the Generations Bless 124 The Works of Femaleness 133 The Three Women Martyrs and the Power of Imitation 142 6) Conclusion: Martyrdom and Sexual Difference 149 Appendix: An Outline of the First Apocalypse of James 153 Bibliography 154 iv Acknowledgements A dissertation is never the product of a single person’s labor, and I have been lucky to share in this process with wonderful teachers, colleagues, family and friends. I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Professor Karen King, whose critiques, suggestions and encouragement made this dissertation possible. Beginning with our second-year independent study and the first time she suggested this “Apocalypse of James” text might be something I would be interested in, Professor King has been an invaluable mentor through the writing process as well as a constantly engaging and challenging dialogue partner. Professors Amy Hollywood and Laura Nasrallah were both generous with their support and feedback as members of my committee. I count myself fortunate to have been helped through the dissertation process by three such fabulous teachers and mentors, and I hope that their excellent work is reflected in this dissertation. I want to recognize also the help and inspiration of a number of other Harvard faculty members to whom I am grateful, including Giovanni Bazzana, François Bovon, Emma Dench and especially Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. My colleagues at Harvard Divinity School and in the Committee on the Study of Religion have read, critiqued and helped to shape much of this dissertation. I thank the members of the New Testament and Christian Origins doctoral seminar for reading carefully and questioning brilliantly a number of drafts of different chapters. The members of the Columbia New Testament Seminar and the Nordic Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism Network I likewise count among the excellent readers and dialogue partners I have been able to engage with during this process. I also thank the less official Dissertation Freakout Club for their advice, their arguments and their support. Taylor Petrey and Katherine Shaner in particular have been ideal friends and colleagues, willing to chase down hour-long debates about Foucault, to challenge one other in v respectful dialogue, and always, always to gossip. I have also been lucky have among my dedicated and able readers my mother and father, Beth and Bob Grams Haxby, as well as my uncle Paul Grams. I cannot put into words my thankfulness to Elizabeth Jalkut, and so I won’t. For Beth and Bob. vi Chapter 1: Introduction “Since you asked about femaleness, listen,” says Jesus at the beginning of the First Apocalypse of James (epeidh [a]kv[i]n/e/ etbe tmNtsHime swt[µ]; 10.19–20).1 Yet, in the text up to this point, there has been no question asked about femaleness. The subsequent narrative of 1ApocJas is structured primarily as a dialogue between Jesus and his brother, James, in which James asks questions and Jesus provides revelation. It begins, however, with an answer to an unknown question. I suggest that 1ApocJas begins with a puzzle—what was this question?—in order to highlight the importance of the concept of “femaleness.” In this dissertation, I will seek to address the unraised question about femaleness from the first page of the text. As 1ApocJas moves forward, Jesus explains the nature of femaleness through theological revelation and through discussions of female disciples and martyrs. These martyrs, I will argue, along with “femaleness” provide the keys to understanding 1ApocJas . The text concludes with James’ martyrdom. The beginning and the end of the text thus bring forth the central concerns of 1ApocJas , sexual difference and martyrdom. The narrative arc of the text can also be understood in terms of martyrdom. James asks questions of Jesus and receives revelation. As he receives revelation, he grows progressively more prepared for martyrdom, confident in his knowledge and no longer wracked by fear. These revelations principally concern the nature of “femaleness” as a figure in the divine realms, and through them Jesus provides James the knowledge he needs to endure persecution. Further, James takes as 1 There are two extant versions of the First Apocalypse of James , both written in Coptic, one in the Tchacos Codex and the other in Nag Hammadi Codex V. I have quoted here from the Tchacos Codex, which is the better preserved of the two. My practice through this dissertation will be to cite first from the Tchacos Codex version, unless in rare instances the Nag Hammadi version contains a more complete record. For the lines quoted here, the parallel in Nag Hammadi Codex V is practically identical, lacking only the command to listen. “Since you asked about femaleness” (epidh akvi[n]e Nsöa TmNtsHime ; V 24.26–27). I will discuss the manuscript evidence for 1ApocJas below on pages 21–26. William R. Schoedel, “The (First) Apocalypse of James,” in Nag Hammadi Codices V,2–5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4 (ed. Douglas M. Perrott; NHS XI; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 65–104; Rodolphe Kasser and Gregor Wurst, eds, The Gospel of Judas: Critical Edition (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2007). 1 moral exemplars in his preparation a set of female martyrs. The two leading, interrelated concerns of the First Apocalypse of James , then, are martyrdom and sexual difference. This is a common concatenation of themes in early Christian literature. Christians and other persecuted groups developed notions of martyrdom in response to the risk of persecution and execution under Roman law. 2 Such notions of martyrdom were significantly determined by the usual space in which executions took place, the Roman arena. The arena was a key location for the working out of gendered power relations in the ancient Mediterranean world. 3 Within literature on martyrdom, the logic of the arena pressed upon the persecuted communities a need to embody certain virtues coded as male within ancient understandings of sexual difference.