Martyred Prophets and Matthean Polemics: Tracing the Reception and Impact of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah

Warren Craig Campbell

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliffe College and the Graduate Centre for Theological Studies of the Toronto School of Theology. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology awarded by Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto.

Martyred Prophets and Matthean Polemics: Tracing the Reception and Impact of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah.

Warren Craig Campbell

Master of Theology

Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto

2018

Abstract

This thesis makes a bivalent argument relative to the Ascension of Isaiah (AscIs), one that targets both the reception history of early Christian traditions and literary functionality. First, this project contends that the AscIs reveals dependence upon the Matthean tradition by adopting lexical items from Matthew and by fashioning the figure of Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus. This

Matthean association provides an alternative vantage point by which to consider the social and literary function of the AscIs. Hence, the second dimension of this thesis argues that the AscIs has imbibed the dual Matthean traditions of martyred prophets and in-group polemical discourse from esteemed figures as a means of perpetuating the polemic style against leadership groups that is characteristic of Matthean Christianity in order to substantiate the praxis of its own community.

ii Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to my primary supervisor, Prof. Terence Donaldson, as well as the other readers of this thesis, Prof. Judith Newman and Prof. John Marshall. Their critical feedback has been invaluable.

iii Contents

Introduction ...... 1 Basic Features: Date, Provenance, Narrative Structure ...... 2 Navigating the Status quaestionis ...... 6 The Present Thesis ...... 17 The Guiding Form ...... 19 Chapter 1 The Matthean Tradition and the Ascension of Isaiah ...... 21 Reception History: Wirkungsgeschichte and Auslegungsgeschichte ...... 21 The Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah Part I: Lexical Contacts ...... 23 The Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah Part II: Narrative Imitation ...... 36 Conclusion: The AscIs as a Literary Prequel for the Gospel of Matthew ...... 44 Chapter 2 Martyred Prophets and In-Group Polemics ...... 46 The Tradition of Martyred Prophets: A Matthean Access Point ...... 49 Esteemed Figures and In-group Jewish Polemics: Defending Group Praxis ...... 50 Conclusion: The Ascension of Isaiah as a Perpetuation of Matthean Christianity ...... 61 Conclusion ...... 63 Appendix A: The Greek Amherst Papyrus ...... 65 Bibliography ...... 67

Introduction

What does it mean for a group to constitute its identity through the memory of past suffering? – Castelli1

The Ascension of Isaiah (hereafter AscIs) is frequently advertised as a neglected literary source for the study of both early Judaism and early Christianity.2 Upon closer assessment, this claim is perhaps more descriptive of North American scholarship than a field-wide characterization; a notable group of Italian scholars have produced a considerable amount of research on this particular ‘pseudepigraphon’.3 Still, as scholars of early Christianity and early Judaism incorporate ‘Christian apocryphal’ and Christian-Jewish ‘pseudepigraphic’ texts of the first and second centuries into their respective fields, the AscIs will inevitably serve as a key datum for a number of related subjects (reception history of earlier scriptural traditions, apocalypticism, cosmology, Christology, Jewish-Christian relations, etc). The present thesis aims to investigate the AscIs as an early instantiation of the reception of the Matthean tradition. Specifically, it will

1 Elizabeth Anne Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2004), 10. 2 See Jonathan Knight, Disciples of the Beloved One: The Christology, Social Setting and Theological of the Ascension of Isaiah, JSPSup 18 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 92; Richard Bauckham, “Ascension of Isaiah: Genre, Unity and Date,” in The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, NovTSup 93 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 389: “…extraordinary neglect…”; Robert Daly, Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 110: “curiously neglected by students of earliest Christianity”. 3 The terms ‘pseudepigrapha’ and ‘pseudepigraphon’ (not to mention ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’; a designation betraying the particularly Protestant and canonical stance taken towards ancient sources) have often been employed without further definition and reflection. In what sense is the AscIs a ‘pseudepigraphon’, when the text does not (explicitly) attribute authorship to a single figure? Having traced the history of the use of ‘apocrypha’ and ‘pseudepigrapha’, Marinus De Jonge (Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament as Part of Christian Literature: The Case of The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Greek Life of Adam and Eve [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 9-17) rightly notes that very rarely does a text serve as an example of “pseudepigraphy” in a restricted definition (i.e. explicit pseudonymous attribution) and more often the term serves as some wide designator for texts in which biblical figures are centralized and are produced between 200 BCE and 100 CE (Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 16-17). The AscIs is therefore an example of what Bart Ehrman designates as “embedded pseudepigraphy”, a style of writing in which first-person narratives are embedded within the text, “without differentiating the first person from the author (Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013], 56-57, 533).” After all, throughout the AscIs the voice alternates between the third and the first person (see e.g. AscIs 3.30 -31). For discussions of the lingering effects and heuristic power of these terms see Kyle Keefer, “A Postscript to the Book: Authenticating the Pseudepigrapha,” in Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies: Identity and The Book, eds. T. K. Beal and D. M. Gunn (London: Routledge, 1997); Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Pseudepigraphy, Authorship, And The Reception Of ‘The Bible’,” in The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2008); “The Modern Invention of ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’.” JTS 60.2 (2009): 403-436; Liv Ingeborg Lied, “Text–Work–Manuscript: What Is an ‘Old Testament Pseudepigraphon’?,” JSP 25.2 (2015): 150-165.

1 2 seek to articulate the manifold manner in which the AscIs has received the Matthean tradition, and what that reception means for the literary function of the text. The present chapter will present a scholarly context in which this study is situated. Accordingly, it presses three basic aims: (1) highlight the basic features of the AscIs, (2) outline the major contours and points of division in the history of scholarship on the AscIs, and (3) introduce the present thesis within this larger academic milieu.

1. Basic Features: Date, Provenance, Narrative Structure Determining a precise date, provenance, and original language for many extant pseudepigrapha is made notably complex by the (often) sparse manuscript evidence. The Ascension of Isaiah is no exception to these complexities, and thus any chronological, spatial, and linguistic proposals should be held cautiously.4 Still, a fairly uniform approximation for the date of composition has arisen from the reception data (forming a working terminus ante quem)5 and the apparent signature features from early Christian texts (forming a working terminus post quem).6 In large

4 The range given by Michael Knibb stretches from the second century BCE to the fourth century CE (“Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 2: Expansions of the ‘Old Testament’ and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, ed. James H. Charlesworth [New York: Doubleday & Company, 1985], 143, 149-150). 5 Without committing to a particular source critical reconstruction, it is beneficial to group the reception of AscIs 1-5 and AscIs 6-11 separately in order to display how both of the major sections of the text display a relatively similar terminus ante quem. The earliest instance of reception from AscIs 1-5 appears in 4 Baruch 9.18, 20 (‘citing’ AscIs 3.17). Jens Herzer departs from J. R. Harris’s 136 CE dating of 4 Baruch (see The Rest of the Words of Baruch: A Christian Apocalypse of the Year 136 AD: The Text Revised with an Introduction [London: Clay, 1889], 12-15), arguing that the production of a Jewish text during the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE) in Palestine is highly unlikely and that, instead, 4 Baruch more appropriately exemplifies the central motifs experienced by Jews during the period between 117-32 CE (4 Baruch [Paraleipomena Jeremiou]: Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005], xxxiv). Still, the possible later redactional history of 4 Baruch poses some limits for determining an immovable terminus ante quem. Similar traditions appear in the Gospel of Peter 39 and AscIs 3.17, however the direction of influence (if any) is impossible to determine. Other prominent instances of reception include Justin Martyr (Dialogue 120.14-15), Origen (comm. Mt. 13.57; Epistle to Africanus 9), Tertullian (Scorpiace 8.3; De Patientia 14), Ambrose (Expositio Psalmi cxviii), and the Opus Imperfectum Holmi 1 (AscIs 1.13). Regarding AscIs 6-11, the earliest instance of reception occurs is found in the Acts of Peter 24 (referring to AscIs 11.14, see Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” 150). Other instances of reception occur in Didymus the Blind (Com. Eccl. 329, see Jan Willem Van Henten and Friedrich Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco- Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity [London: Routledge, 2002], 92), Jerome (CommIsa 1.10 and 64.4; Epistula ad Julium Africanum 9.25), Epiphanius of Salamis (AdvHaer 67.3 cf also 40.2.1), and possibly Ignatius of Antioch (Ephesians 19 and AscIs 11.16, see Robert H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah [London: Adam and Charles Black, 1900], xlv). Eugène Tisserant has one of the more comprehensive lists of the reception of the AscIs in Christian sources (see Ascension d’Isaie: traduction de la version éthiopienne, avec les principales variantes des versions grecque, latines et slave [Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1909], 62). 6 Proposals for a terminus post quem usually weigh, for example, the similarities with other early Christian signature features (AscIs 3.14-4.22, 5.8, 10; 11.2-15), the Nerodian reference in AscIs 4.2-4, the death of an apostle (thought to

3 agreement with this trajectory, the present thesis places the AscIs between 80-120 CE (in between the First Jewish War and the Bar Kokhba revolt).7 Proposals for the provenance of the AscIs are also fairly uniform; most scholars locate the text (for various reasons) within Syro- Palestine.8 While the plurality of extant manuscripts and the various literary recensions provide more complex problems regarding the original language (Norelli’s recent critical edition has published the Ethiopic, Greek [the Amherst papyrus and Greek Legend], Coptic, and Paleo-

be Peter) in AscIs 4.3, the use of individuals who purportedly saw Jesus in AscIs 4.13, and, as Chapter 2 will discuss, the association between the AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew (see Knight, Disciples, 11). These factors together suggest that the latter half of the first century is the earliest possible date for composition. 7 The earliest proposal for the date of the AscIs comes from Richard Bauckham, who points to the death of Peter in 64 or 65 CE (AscIs 4.3), the absence of a reference to the Roman siege of Jerusalem in the First Jewish War, the Nerodian motifs in AscIs 4, and the possible reference to individuals who had seen Jesus in AcsIs 4.13, in order to conclude that the text was composed between 70-80 CE (“The Ascension of Isaiah: Genre, Unity, and Date,” in The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, NovTSup 93 [Leiden: Brill, 1998], 381-82). Others prefer a date further towards the end of the first century (Erling Hammershaimb, Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium Jesajas, JSHRZ. Bd. 2 [Gütersloher Verlag-Haus Mohn, 1973], 19; Robert G. Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah: Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early Christianity,” JBL 109.2 [1990]: 306), but most scholars propose a second-century date (Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, xliv-xlv; Wolf-Dietrich Köhler, Die Rezeption Des Matthäusevangeliums in Der Zeit Vor Irenäus [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987], 306; Andrew K. Helmbold, “Gnostic Elements in the ‘Ascension of Isaiah’,” NTS 17 [1972]: 227; Jan Dochhorn, “Die Ascensio Isaiae,” in Unterweisung in erzählender Form, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema, JSHRZ Vol VI.1.2 [Gütersloh, 2005], 25; Knight, Disciples, 33-9; “The Ascension of Isaiah: A New(er) Interpretation,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, eds. Jan N. Bremmer, Thomas R. Karmann, Tobias Nicklas. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 11 [Leuven: Peeters, 2016], 46; C. Detlef G. Müller, “Ascension of Isaiah,” in New Testament Apocrypha: Writings Relating to the Apostles, Apocalypses, and Related Subjects Vol. 2, eds. W. Schneemelcher; trans. R. M. Wilson [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992], 604-605). R. H. Charles having compiled the evidence from these two termini and working with a threefold source critical theory of composition (in which the ‘Testament of Hezekiah’ was added to the Jewish ‘Martyrdom of Isaiah’ [1-5], which was together added to the Christian ‘Ascension of Isaiah’ [6-11]), suggests that AscIs 1-5 was written around the end of the first century, whereas the upper limit of AscIs 6-11 is the end of the third century (Charles dates the ‘Testament of Hezekiah’ in 88-100 CE; Ascension, xliv; see the reprisal of this argument in Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” 149-150). Enrico Norelli, reverses Charles’ (and Knibb’s) reconstruction, suggesting that 6-11 were written first and 1-5 was added later in the early second century (Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 8 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1995], 65-66). 8 For instance, Knibb argues that since the compositional language was most certainly Hebrew, and the stance towards the Samaritans in 2.12, 14; 3.1, 3 is negative, and the text is attested in Rabbinic literature, a Palestine origin is preferable (“Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” 150). See also Knight, Disciples of the Beloved, 39; Enrico Norelli, “Interprétations nouvelles de l’Ascension d’Isaïe,” REA 37 (1991): 15; Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 306. David Frankfurter advances the lesser held view of an Asia Minor provenance (“Early Christian Apocalypticism: Literature and Social World,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism Vol. 1, The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, ed. John J. Collins [New York: Continuum, 1998], 426-29).

Bulgarian texts),9 the extant Greek fragment (P. Amh.) has pushed some scholars towards positing a Greek original.10

The Ascension of Isaiah is divided into two parts: AscIs 1-5 centers upon the death of Isaiah and AscIs 6-11 recounts the visionary ascension of Isaiah through the seven heavens followed by his description of the descent and ascent of the ‘Beloved’. The prologue sets the opening narrative during the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Hezekiah. Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, is summoned in front of Isaiah so that Hezekiah may pass on the knowledge that he received from a vision that occurred during his sickness ten years earlier (AscIs 1.1-5, cf Isa. 38). Hezekiah then hands to Manasseh (and to the prophets) a copy of the words of his own vision (written down by “Samnas”) as well as the knowledge Isaiah gleaned from his vision (recounted in 3.13-4.22 and 7-11). Five years prior to the opening scene, Isaiah is said to have seen the words of a prophecy and passed them to his son Josab (1.6b). However, with Manasseh in attendance, Isaiah declares to Hezekiah that the words of this prophecy will have no effect upon Manasseh; rather, Manasseh will align himself with Sammael Milkira and be indwelt by Beliar, leading many in Israel to “desert the true faith” and ultimately execute Isaiah by sawing him in half (1.7-10a).11 Upon hearing this prognostication, Hezekiah is distraught (1.10b), and even considers killing Manasseh (1.13b). However, Isaiah restrains Hezekiah, noting that the events of Isaiah’s prophecy will necessarily come about and that the Beloved has made Hezekiah’s plan ineffective (1.13).

When Hezekiah dies, Manasseh forgets the words of his father and is indwelt by Sammael. Having aligned himself and his father’s house with Beliar, AscIs 2.4-6 depicts the resultant impact of Manasseh’s actions upon Jerusalem (sorcery, magic, augury, divination, fornication, adultery, and persecution of the righteous). As a result, Isaiah leaves Jerusalem in order to dwell in Bethlehem (2.7-8a). Isaiah is, however, forced to retreat further and reside upon “a mountain in a desert place” (“ἐκά[θι]σεν ἐν ὄρει ἐν τόπῳ ἐρήµῳ”) with a group of prophets (Micah,

9 See Enrico Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Textus, Corpus Christianum Series Apocryphorum 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995); Dochhorn, “Die Ascensio Isaiae,” 15; Tisserant, Ascension d'Isaie, 2; Knight, Disciples, 21-28; Hammershaimb, Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium, 19-20 10 See e.g. Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 12-13. Although Hammershaimb leans towards a Hebrew original for AscIs 1-5 (Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium, 19). 11 I am here quoting from the English translation of the Ascension of Isaiah from the Ethiopic text from Michal Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah”, 156-176.

Ananias, Joel and Habakkuk) as well as those who believed in the “ascension” (“εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀναβῆναι”, 2.8b-10a).12 After two years, a Samaritan named Belkira—who evaded the deportation of the nine tribes by residing in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah, only to later flee to Bethlehem to avoid being accused of falsely prophesying—finds Isaiah and his associates dwelling upon the mountain (3.1). Belkira accuses Isaiah in front of king Manasseh of prophesying lies in Jerusalem, namely, that Judah will be destroyed, Benjamin will go into captivity, and that Manasseh will be bound with hooks and chains and irons (3.6). Chiefly, Belkira recounts the (here incendiary) words of Isaiah: “βλέπω πλέον Μωυσῆ τοῦ προφήτου (3.8).”

The narrator explains that Belkira’s anger against Isaiah is rooted in Isaiah’s prophetic vision (and its implied dissemination). This narrative backdrop serves as a transition into the content of the vision itself: a vision which features the coming of the Beloved from the seventh heaven, the later abandonment of the Beloved’s disciples from the teaching of “the Twelve”, a negative description of the latter days, the arrival and conduct of Beliar, the return of the Beloved together with the attendant and climactic eschatological events (3.13-4.19). Having been exposed by the vision of Isaiah, Beliar (who dwelt in Manasseh) saws Isaiah in half (5.1). During the execution, Belkira urges Isaiah to publicly testify that the ways of Manaaseh and Belkira are “good” (5.4-5), and, if confessed, Belkira will make Manasseh, the princes of Judah, and the people of Jerusalem, worship Isaiah (5.8-9). Isaiah rejects the offer of Belkira and even instructs his fellows prophets to flee to Tyre and Sidon, for he alone has received this “cup” (5.14).

The latter half of the AscIs (chs. 6-11) returns to a time before the opening of chapter 1. This section of the text intends to describe Isaiah’s vision that was first referenced in 1.6, as both ‘visions’ take place in the twentieth year of Hezekiah’s reign (cf. 1.6, 6.1). In this extended visionary description, Isaiah ascends through seven heavens, being accompanied by an anonymous angelic figure (7.4). Once Isaiah reaches the seventh heaven he observes Abel and Enoch wearing heavenly robes, but is told that they will not receive a crown until the descent of the Beloved (9.6-18). Isaiah is then given a vision of the descent of the Beloved, who begins to

12 The Greek text is taken from B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, Being an Account of the Greek Papyri in the Collection of the Right Hon. Lord Amherst of Hackney, F.S.A. at Didlington Hall, Norfolk: Vol. I, The Ascension of Isaiah and Other Theological Fragments (London: Oxford University Press, 1900), 4-14.

6 be transformed so as to be unrecognizable by the other angels in the five lower levels (the angels in the third level ask for a password, 10.24). The final chapter (cf. 11) is an overview of the birth, infancy, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the Beloved, marking the conclusion of the vision. Isaiah is then told that “no one born of flesh has observed” the contents of this vision (11.34; hence Belkira’s charge in 3.8 and the remark in 4.13). In the end, Isaiah communicates the content of the vision to those around him, which is, presumably, the prophet guild that follows him (see 2.9, 3.1, 3.6, 5.13). Moreover, Isaiah reveals to Hezekiah that the events will take place in the last generation, but instructs Hezekiah not to tell the vision to the “people of Israel” (11.39). Still, Hezekiah gives Manasseh the content of the vision (cf. 1.2), which, as the reader learns from the previous narrative, is forgotten in due course.

2. Navigating the Status quaestionis The following overview selects only the questions that are most pertinent for the present thesis, and therefore must bypass many interpretive angles often pursued within scholarship on the AscIs. Notable omissions include the relationship between the AscIs and early ‘docetism’,13 as well as possible interactions with the Johannine14 and Qumranic15 communities. My aim here is to highlight a number of ongoing discussions in order to contextualize the present thesis within larger positions. As a result, some evaluative comments will be made throughout this selective survey.

13 See e.g. Jonathan Knight, “The Origin and Significance of the Angelomorphic Christology,” JTS 63.1 (2012): 66- 105; “The Christology of the Ascension of Isaiah: Docetic or Polymorphic?” in The Open Mind, Essays in Honor of Christopher Rowland (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015); Antonio Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia: cristologia e profetismo in Siria nei primi decenni del II secolo (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1989), 195-209; Darrell D. Hannah, “The Ascension of Isaiah and Docetic Christology,” VC 53.2 (1999): 165–96. 14 Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, 536; J. A. Bühner, Der Gesandte und seiner Weg im Vierten Evangelium, WUNT 2/2 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), 355-357; A. Destro and M. Pesce, “Constellations of Texts in Early Christianity: The Gospel of the Savior Johannist Writings,” Annali di sotira dell’Esegesi 22/2 (2005): 337-353. 15 David Flusser, “The Apocryphal Book of Ascensio Isaiae and the Dead Sea Sect,” IEJ 3 (1953): 30-47; Philonenko and Flusser: M. Philonenko, “Le Martyre d'Esaie et l'histoire de la secte de Qoumran,” in Pseudepigraphes de l’Ancien Testament et manuscrits de la mer morte, Cahiers de la RHPR 41 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967), 1- 10; A. Caquot, “Bref Commentaire du ‘Martyre d’Isaïe’,” Semitica 23: 65-93; Pierluigi Piovanelli, “‘A Door into an Alien Worlds’: Reading the Ascension of Isaiah as a Jewish Mystical Text,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 125n21; Enrico Norelli, “The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah: Some Remarks on Jonathan Knight’s Thesis, and some Methodological Problems," in Early Christian Voices in Texts, Traditions and Symbols, eds. David H. Warren, Ann Graham Brock, David W. Pao. BIS, 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 277.

2.1. History of Composition and Functional Unity The most stable position adopted throughout the history of scholarship on the AscIs is that the text is a composite work of at least two sources: the ‘Martyrdom of Isaiah’ (1-5) and the ‘Ascension of Isaiah’ (6-11).16 R. H. Charles’ theory of (threefold) composition is perhaps the most notable throughout the twentieth century, despite being based on the work of Ewald and Dillmann (a point Charles himself acknowledges).17 For Charles, the final form of the AscIs is based on three discrete texts, the ‘Martyrdom of Isaiah’ (1.1, 2a; 2:1-8; 2.10-3.12, 5.1b-14), the ‘Testament of Hezekiah’ (3.13b-4.18),18 and the ‘Vision of Isaiah’ (6-11). In support of this notion, Charles contends that the content of 3.13-4.22 is foreign to the surrounding context (suggesting a textual insertion) and the overall chronology of the text is indicative of three separate sources.19 The final form of the AscIs is then, for Charles, a fusion of these three distinct works (the seams of which remain evident throughout the text, 1.2b-6a, 13a, 2.9, 3.13a, 4.1a, 4.19-5.1a, 15-16, 11.41-43).20

The theory of construction presented by Charles was later challenged by Mauro Pesce, with much effect upon subsequent scholarship. Pesce objected to the notion that there was a distinct written source called the ‘Testament of Hezekiah’, noting that AscIs 3.13-4.22 reflects Isaiah materials attested in Jewish oral traditions that are later reflected in, et al., b. Yeb. 49b and b. Sanh. 103b.21 For Pesce, it is more likely that AscIs fuses elements of these Jewish oral traditions, and is not dependent upon an actual composition.22 Similarly, Enrico Norelli rejects the three source view of Charles, preferring to see AscIs 1-5 as a unified composition that was

16 Hence Knibb’s preferred title for the text: “The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah” (OTP Vol. II., 143). Since this title is unattested within any of the MSS traditions, Bauckham rightly challenges the perpetuation of this title as is concretizes a theoretical source critical reconstruction (“The Ascension of Isaiah,” 366). 17 Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, xxxvi. Charles further suggests that the Vision of Isaiah and the Testament of Hezekiah are literary compositions from the same (or very similar) hand (xliii). 18 Charles seizes upon the reference made by Cedrenus for this title (‘Διαθήκη ’Εζεκίου’) (Ascension of Isaiah, xiii). 19 Ibid., xxxviii. 20 Ibid., xliii. 21 Mauro Pesce, ‘Presupposti per l'utilitazzione storica dell'Ascensione di Isaia,’ in Isaiu, il Diletto e la Chiesa: Visione e esegesi profetica cristiano primitive nell'Ascensione di Isaia (Texte e Ricerche di Scienze Religiose 20; Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1983), 40-44. See also Knight, Disciples, 363-390; Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae, 51-53. 22 Pesce, ‘Presupposti per l'utilitazzione storica dell'Ascensione di Isaia,’ 44: “…AI dipende da una tradizione haggadica giudaica che già ai tempi della redazione dell’opera conosceva diverse forme…É da escludere perciò con una certa sicurezza che sia mai esistito uno scritto giudaico…”

8 joined with chapters 6-11.23

More recently, however, Bauckham has rejected the source critical construction originally posed by Charles, as well as the approach adopted by Acerbi, Pesce, and Norelli. Instead, Bauckham argues for compositional unity. While Bauckham effectively responds to a number of points often used to champion compositional fusion,24 as well as marshaling a number of positive arguments towards compositional unity,25 the overarching argument presented by Bauckham does not fully convince. 26 Still, the present thesis does not require a particular theory of compositional history in order to progress effectively.

At this point some initial assessments can be noted: in agreement with Pesce, Norelli, Knight, and Bauckham, AscIs 1-5 is a unified composition (dispensing with Charles’ “Testament of Hezekiah”), in agreement with Bauckham, AscIs 3.13-4.22 and AscIs 6-11 are both extended visions of the one vision referenced in AscIs 1.5-6 (i.e. two descriptions of one vision), and finally, in agreement with Acerbi, Pesce, and Norelli, the AscIs is a composite text in which the central vision of Isaiah (AscIs 6-11) was incorporated into a narrative about an Isaianic vision and martyrdom (the entirety of AscIs 6-11 is not present not in the Greek [Amherst papyri], Latin

23 Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 46-49. 24 Bauckham argues that the autonomy of chapters 6-11 in the S and L2 traditions does not require separate and distinct compositions, since this section of the text may have been isolated from a larger work (“Ascension of Isaiah,” 369). Moreover, the hint of distinctness arising from the title given to 6-11 in SL2 (i.e. ‘The Vision…’) is negated by the fact that 1-5 and 6-11 are each given titles in the complete E tradition (369). Perhaps the greatest issue dividing Bauckham (and Knight) and Norelli (and Acerbi) concerns the temporal disjunction between 1-5 and 6-11. If the AscIs is a compositional unity, why place the detailed description of Isaiah’s ascension after the narrative climax, namely, his martyrdom? For Bauckham, the book of Daniel functions as an archetype for the melding of narrative and visionary sections (371). Most importantly, the visions of Daniel are not chronologically aligned with the narrative portions (cf. Dan 7.1, 8.1 with 5-6) (372). Thus, Bauckham concludes, “The juxtaposition of the two generically different parts, of roughly equal length, to form a work of mixed genre does not imply the subordination of one part to the other, but that each part has its own function in itself and in relation to the other (372).” 25 Bauckham points to the summary of Isaiah’s vision found in 1.5, suggesting that this quick summation is designed to complement both visions in 3.13-4.22 and 7-11 respectively (“Ascension of Isaiah,” 370). Bauckham’s point here is agreeable; the two visions seem to reflect one and the same event summarized in 1.5-6 (the twentieth year of Hezekiah). Synchronically read, AscIs 7-11 and 3.13-4.22 are presented as extended versions of the singular vision of Isaiah referenced in 1.5-6. Such indications of unity may, however, arise from the final redactional context, as Bauckham himself acknowledges (370). 26 In the discussion of literary unity and disunity, there is bound to be some subjectivity involved at every stage in this process. Disunity may be interpreted as literary contrast or compositional fusion. Unity may be interpreted as final redaction or singular compositional consistency. Without further manuscript evidence, using literary unity and disunity as a site from which to determine the compositional history of the AscIs is problematic.

[L2] and Old Slavic [S] tradition).27 Part of the motivation for this literary fusion is bound up with the discussion of the historical situation undergirding the AscIs.

2.2. Historical Situation Prior to Jonathan Knight’s proposal, discussions surrounding an appropriate historical situation from which the AscIs arises were fairly uniform. Most scholars have focused on AscIs 1-5 (as well as 6.1-7.1) and adopted the notion that the final redaction of the ‘Martyrdom of Isaiah’ reflects an early (second-century) Christian conflict between competing prophetic guilds.28 Jonathan Knight has operated from a position of partial agreement with the ‘prophetic guild’ trajectory; nevertheless, Knight proposes that the chief impetus for the AscIs lies in an opposition to a Roman initiated persecution.29 For Knight, the author of AscIs is aware of the “sacrifice test” (which Pliny describes in his correspondence to Trajan c. 112 CE)30 and offers a millenarian response to such a politically and religiously charged situation (see esp. 4.6-9).31 Central to the question of Roman persecution is the first vision in 3.13-4.22. After the preamble section in 3.13-20 – in which the time of the Beloved and his disciples is presented in idyllic form – AscIs 3.21-31 depicts an age of corruption in which prophets who speak reliable words are few. Knight rightly reads this section of the vision as a description of the author’s own perception of the present world.32 However, for Knight, the next ‘stage’ in the vision (4.1-13) is also a description of the author’s present period, and not, for example, an eschatological prognostication. It is in this section that Knight finds historical associations with Roman persecution (i.e. the “sacrifice

27 See Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, xlii. 28 Hall, for instance, argues that the descriptions of Isaiah’s prophet school in 1.1-13, 2.7-11, 3.6-12 and 6.1-7.1 present a (somewhat) cohesive picture; the school is dispersed following the passing on of a prophetic tradition, it sporadically gathers to note and disseminate revelations among the leaders, and it is favorable to the content of the ascent vision (“The Ascension of Isaiah,” 296). Moreover, when juxtaposing these descriptions with AscIs 3.21-31 (which reflects the historical present of the ‘author’), the picture of a small and alienated prophetic group emerges which is beset in conflict with rival groups (297). The AscIs was produced in order to compel rival groups to accept the prophetic authority associated with visionary ascent experiences (298). See also Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia, 246-53, Norelli Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 169-78, 237-40. 29 Knight, Disciples, 25-92. 30 See Pliny, Epistle 96 (found in Pliny Letters Vol II: With English Translation by William Melmoth [London: William Heinemann, 1927], 401-405. 31 Knight, Disciples, 186: “…to counter repressive activity by the Romans.” 32 Knight, Disciples, 47, 197-212. The demise of prophecy is attributed in this section to “the spirit of error” (διὰ τὸ πν[εῦµ]α τῆς πλάνης). See also Joseph Verheyden, “Pessimism in All Its Glory: the Ascension of Isaiah on the Church in the Last Days,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 324-341; Norell, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 169-78, 237-40.

10 test”).

Norelli has challenged Knight’s reading of AscIs 4.1-22, arguing that the specificity of Knight’s reading of the term “sacrifice” in 4.7 through the lens of Pliny’s letter to Trajan, is too strained to bear the weight of a global reading of the text.33 Carey’s methodological warning is relevant here; “The risk [of positing historical contexts on limited textual evidence] is that we will invent, rather than discover, extratextual conditions.”34 Thus, by collecting more data from the whole of the AscIs – namely the interest throughout the text in the difficulties of a small prophet school – there is a greater foundation upon which to suggest that the primary import of AscIs is that the reduction of prophets/believers which occurred in the time of Manasseh, which is occurring in the author’s time, and will occur in the time of the Antichrist, must not lead to an abandonment of the prophetic activities exemplified by Isaiah.35 It is in this sense – in his unwillingness to abandon true prophecy – that Isaiah functions as an exemplary figure. For Norelli, AscIs 4.1-13 is not a second contemporary theme for the author, but “functions to reassure the author’s prophetic group that, although they are opposed by church leaders, they are on the side of right like Isaiah, who was persecuted and killed by the king of Israel and his false prophets.”36

Thus, any absolute dichotomy between propheticism and imperial domination (Roman or otherwise) is unwarranted for the purposes of this thesis. In disagreement with Norelli, the whole content of 3.21-4.13 is read as an interpretive description of the author’s present.37 In

33 Norelli suggests that 4.6 (“he will do everything he wishes in the world; he will act and speak like the Beloved, and will say, I am the Lord, and before me there was no one”) is not a reflection of impending Roman demands upon early Christian communities, but an interpretive reception of Daniel 11.36 (which refers to Antiochus Epiphanes) (Norelli, “The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah,” 272.). Similarly, the imagery of sacrifice used in 4.8 is inherited in other sources (i.e. Rev. 13.14-15) apart from Pliny’s sacrifice test – largely a result of the Jewish contact with the imperial cult (Norelli cities Philo, Flacc. 41-52; Legat. 134-36; 197-372; Josephus, Ant. 18.257-308). Norelli has also marshalled a number of methodological problems concerning the use of Pliny’s letter for historical reconstruction: only Caligula and Domitian are known to have claimed to be a god, the sacrifice test in Pliny’s letter refers more to “apostates” than to “true believers”, and the language of “sacrifice” in the AscIs and Pliny’s letter is not necessarily referring to the same procedure (274). Finally, Norelli finds significance in the fact that Isaiah is never tested to sacrifice to Beliar; rather, he is instructed to recount his words (Norelli compares this with m. Sanh 11.5) (276). 34 Greg Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah: An Example of Early Christian Narrative Polemic,” JSP 9.17 (1998): 66. 35 In Knight’s rejoinder, he brings attention to globalizing extent of AscIs 3.25, suggesting that this description does not fit localized prophetic conflict (“The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah: A Response to Enrico Norelli,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 35.4 [2013]: 363). Knight also points out that Beliar acts solely through individuals (kings or rulers) which, for Knight, implies that an association between Roman rule and Beliar’s activity is likely (“The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah,” 364). 36 Norelli, “The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah,” 276. 37 This is the greatest weakness in Norelli’s critique of Knight, namely, that AscIs 4.1-13 is not a description of the

11 disagreement with Knight, however, the primary context (and purpose) of the AscIs is to address a conflict arising between prophetic schools, rather than address systemic political persecution (see e.g. AscIs 1.7, 2.12, 3.1, 3.13-20, 3.27, 3.31, 5.2, 5.12). As Frankfurter notes “it is the authority to reveal this heaven that is under dispute.” 38 As hinted in the conclusion of the previous section, the compositional history of the text – in which AscIs 6-11 was added to the martyrdom narrative in AscIs 1-5 – is correlated with the setting of the community. For by joining a visionary ascent to the narrative of Isaiah’s death, the final redaction of the text reveals the central interest of this prophetic school, namely, to defend and authenticate the practice of heavenly ascent visions by embossing that practice upon an esteemed figure in the Jewish tradition.39 Still, if the setting of the AscIs is one of conflict, what can be said about the identity of the presumable opponents of the AscIs community?

Since the present view is that AscIs 3.21-31 provides a description of the community’s present, then the primary opponents of the AscIs community are likely other Christ-devotees, since the opening of this pessimistic and eschatological description provides a broad denunciation of the “disciples” of the Beloved for abandoning the teaching of the “Twelve Apostles” (as well as faith, love, and purity; [3.21]). However, as the section progresses, various groups of leaders are targeted as the culpable parties that generate the negative aspect of this eschatological period. For instance, the author states that there ‘will be’ many “lawless elders” (“πρεσβύτεροι ἄνοµοι”; 4.24), “shepherds”40 (“ποιµένες ἄδικοι”) who fail to properly tend to the “sheep” (“τὰ πρόβατα”;

author’s present and therefore AscIs 4.3 cannot reflect the author’s present. For instance, temporal shift in AscIs 4.14 (“After one thousand three hundred and thirty-two days”) is significantly more pronounced than the division between 3.21-31 and 4.1-13. This would suggest that 4.1-13 is equally a description of the author’s present vantage point as 3.21-31. Granted, the opening of chapter 4 notes that this content concerns the “days of the completion of the world.” Thus, this conclusion must be held lightly. 38 David Frankfurter, “Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’: Continuing Religious Sub-Cultures of the Second and Third Centuries and Their Documents,” in The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christian in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, eds. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 136. 39 Following, Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 49: “In AI 1-5 abbiamo dunque un autore il quale scrive per difendere AI 6-11, uno scritto preesistente, contro gli attachi delle autorita ecclesiastiche.”; Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia, 246: “I testi di AI 3,21-31 e AI 6 permettono di gettare uno sguardo sulla comunita in cui operavano i profeti e sui rapporti interni ad essa.”; Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 289-99: “By reminding the readers that Isaiah took heavenly trips to see God, the author removes one objection to the Vision. By depicting an embattled prophetic school in a positive light and by attributing to Beliar opposition to that school, the author softens objections to a school like her or his own. By attributing Beliar's hatred of the school to his hatred of the doctrine of the descent and ascent of the Beloved, the author heightens the importance of the Vision and vindicates it (299).” 40 Verheyden notes that in the Hebrew Bible the ‘false shepherds’ are usually anonymous, but when they are identified they are either religious (Jer 2.8) or political (Jer 10.21, 12.10, Isa 56.11) leaders (“Pessimism in All Its Glory,” 337).

4.24), and even reciprocal hatred between these two groups (4.29). Moreover, woven throughout this section is the overall rejection of prophecy and “trustworthy words” (“λαλοῦντες ἰσχυρὰ”; 4.27). In AscIs 4.27, for example, the period is described as one in which there are “not many prophets…who speak trustworthy words”, except in isolated places. In AscIs 4.31, the “prophecy of the prophets” (“τὰς προφητείας τῶν προφητῶν”) will not accepted, even those of Isaiah himself. Accordingly, Verheyden concludes that “[AscIs 3.21-31] reflects a general attitude of skepticism towards leadership (except that exercised by prophets) and…carries with it a strong and outspoken critical sense of any sort of (church) politics, regardless of time and venue.”41

While it may be tenuous to specify the description of the historical setting of the AscIs any further, specifically the dynamic between the AscIs community and their opponents, a few additional comments can be made which contribute to the general setting of this text. Jan Bremmer notes that references to prophets and prophesying in early Christian texts – texts that portend to describe the first century – shows the prevalence of both the existence and authority of prophets as well as the act of prophesying itself (1 Cor 11.4-5, 12.28-9, 14.1, 5, 39; Acts 11.28, 13.1, 15.32; Rom 12.6; Eph 2.20, 3.5, 4.11).42 Consequently, Bremmer notes that prophets and prophecy were an active feature of early Christianity in major locations such as Corinth, Antioch, Thessalonica, Caesarea, and Jerusalem (citing 1 Thess 5.20; Acts 21.9, 11.27).43 However, in texts that are reasonably dated towards the close of the first century and into the second century, such as 1 Clement, Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas and the letters of Ignatius, Bremmer observes that prophets are generally deemphasized within a developing hierarchy of ecclesial leaders (see e.g. Herm.Vis. iii.5.1, Herm.Sim. ix.15.4, 16.5, 25.2).44 In addition to this development of authority hierarchies that appear to deemphasize prophets, references to evaluating prophets in, for example, Did. 11.3-12, 1 John 4.1-3, and Herm.Mand. xi.1-21 (see also Matt 7.15-23 and 1 Thess 5.21 for earlier references) further indicates a broad situation in which the validity of individual prophets were being assessed (and, at times, presumably

41 Verheyden, “Pessimism in All Its Glory,” 341. 42 Jan N. Bremmer, “The Domestication of Early Christian Prophecy and the Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 2-3. 43 Bremmer, “The Domestication of Early Christian Prophecy,” 2-3. 44 Bremmer, “The Domestication of Early Christian Prophecy,” 8.

13 rejected).45 Thus, the AscIs community may have become increasingly less favorable by certain early Christian communities that opted for a leadership hierarchy that deemphasized the specific prophetic activity exercised by the AscIs community. Moreover, if the AscIs indeed reflects an interest in what might be called a ‘docetic’ christology, such a perspective could easily have functioned as the point of contention in an evaluation setting.46 These factors, in part, contribute to Norelli’s conclusion, that the AscIs is primarily engaged with “an internal problem of the church concerning the hostile relations between authority and prophecy and the fact that the Christian prophets – who claim to be the the legitimate heirs to Isaiah and the Christian prophets – become more and more marginalized and powerless.”47

2.3. Religious Provenance As with the previous areas mentioned, there is no unified perspective on the relationship between the AscIs and Judaism. In one approach, represented by Carey, et. al., the AscIs exhibits an “early Christian polemic against Judaism.”48 For Carey, this conclusion is made evident when the AscIs is juxtaposed with early Christian employments of the Book of Isaiah for anti-Judaic intentions. Other scholars, in finding meaningful Jewish features of the text, find close associations between the AscIs and Jewish-mysticism of the Hekhalot tradition.49 In this reading, the Jewish features in the AscIs result in viewing the polemical element of the text as an internecine Jewish debate in

45 David Aune makes the comment that “the prophets appear curiously irrelevant for the ongoing life of the [Didache] community (Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 209).” Additionally, Aune notes that “The Didache regards the prophets with an attitude of benign neglect; they have been marginalized in a functional sense from the central concerns of the Christian communities. By instating that true prophets conform to particular community norms, the communities exerted enormous pressure on these itinerant prophets to conform to Christian expectations. In this sense the prophets of the Didache are clearly subordinate to the communities they serve (209).” 46 For the main studies on ‘docetism’ and the AscIs see note 13. 47 Norelli, “The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah,” 269. 48 Greg Carey, ‘The Ascension of Isaiah: An Example of Early Christian Narrative Polemic,’ JSP 17 (1998): 65-78. Carey examines the use and function of the Book of Isaiah in early Christian literary evidence, and argues that the AscIs’ use of the figure of Isaiah is an entry point into a larger early Christian polemic against Judaism. See also Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, 537-38. 49 E.g. Piovanelli writes, “As a result, it is rather anachronistic to speak, for example, of marginal minorities versus mainstream, so-called ‘proto-orthodox’, Christian communities, and in my opinion it makes more sense to conceptualize all of them as subgroups belonging to the same Jewish sectarian movement, whose leaders were competing for authority (“‘A Door into an Alien Worlds’,” 129-30).” Such an approach is quite similar to the one adopted by Meghan Henning and Tobias Nicklas (“Question of Self-Designation in the Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 175-198), and Richard Bauckham (“The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity,” NTS 27.03 [1981]: 322-341).

14 which a small group seeks to defend communal practices in the face of larger authorities. Such divergent scholarly trajectories concerning the religious context of AscIs and its contribution to Jewish-Christian relations in the first and second centuries highlights a number of related methodological issues: locating religious affiliation of pseudepigrapha and conceptualizing the nature of religious classification.

Robert Kraft is frequently recognized as one of the first to seriously consider the religious provenance of so-called pseudepigrapha. In what is now considered a seminal essay, Kraft contends that the Christian transmission of pseudepigrapha results in a default position; these materials are ‘Christian’ before they are anything else (and that the recognition of this fact is the most effective means of allowing these materials to inform the study of Judaism).50 But what of those texts that appear to be composite productions, that is, original Jewish materials that have been revised within Christian settings and therefore contain Christian interpolations? Are these texts only ‘Christian’ insofar as they have been interpolated, and that after removing such incrustations we have an original Jewish text? Kraft poses an important methodological point here: “One of the dangers here is the circularity of argument if it is suggested that something would have been ‘impossible’ in pre- or non-Christian Judaism, or for that matter, ‘impossible’ as a Christian claim (even when found in manuscripts transmitted by Christians)!”51 Thus, for Kraft, one must begin with the extant MSS, which, if transmitted by Christians, are Christian until shown otherwise.52

Davila, in developing the trajectory of Kraft, draws attention to the variety of historical possibilities regarding authorship of pseudepigraphic texts.53 When the categories “Christian”

50 Robert A. Kraft, “Setting the Stage and Framing Some Central Questions,” JSJ 32.4 (2001): 372-73: “The bottom line, at this point in the discussion, is that with reference to sources preserved and used by the Christian traditions, the “default” position is that they must first be understood within their Christian contexts as the starting point for attempting to use them responsibly for purposes of determining their possible contributions to our knowledge of earlier Jewish contexts.” 51 Ibid., 392. 52 Ibid., 386. Regarding the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Kraft writes, “What shall I do with the ‘Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs’? I can try to divide and conquer, exercising my source-critical as well as text-critical arguments on this complex body of materials, but I’m still left with relatively late and quite popular texts of Christian provenance, with little guarantee that significant adjustment and enhancement has not taken place in Christian hands. Yes, there may be clearly pre-Christian Jewish examples of the genre, but that is hardly a convincing solution to the complex problem (387).” Moreover, for Kraft, the absence of any Christian signature features does not demonstrate the Jewish provenance of a given text (372-373, 386). 53 Marinus de Jonge has followed the leading of Kraft on this point, arguing that the early Christian transmission of

15 and “Jewish” are temporarily set aside, the range of authorial possibilities are more readily apparent: proselytes, God-fearers, syncretistic Jews, sympathizers, varieties of Torah obedient early Christians, Judaizing Gentile Christians, as well as non- or quasi-Jewish Israelites such as Samaritans or Galileans.54 In light of Davila’s authorial range, when only two macro-authorial categories are used by source critics to govern the identification of divergent religious interpolations (that is, Christian and Jewish signature features), the results quickly appear hypothetical and oversimplified. What kinds of texts are imaginable when the full scope of authorial diversity is seriously considered? Specifically, how might a Jewish text with or without Jewish “signature features” be distinguished from a Christian text with or without any ostensibly Christian features?55

Accordingly, Davila proposes a working method (“internal criteria”) for distinguishing Christian compositions with numerous Christian signature features from either Jewish works with Jewish signatures features or Jewish texts heavily redacted by Christians.56 However, even with the aid of Davila’s criteria, there is no clear indication that the AscIs is Christian and not of Jewish origin.57 Thus, while Kraft and Davila together encourage the notion that the AscIs is first and foremost a piece of ancient evidence for the study of early Christianity, that conclusion must not

pseudepigrapha, as well as the larger interest among early Christians to harness, are sufficient warrants for viewing these texts are primarily instantiations of early Christian literature for hermeneutical purposes (i.e. to instill proper interpretations of earlier narratives, figures, texts, etc) (Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament as Part of Christian Literature: The Case of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Greek Life of Adam and Eve, SVTP 18 [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 18-28). Again, de Jonge displays a similar approach to Kraft, “Relatively little is exclusively Christian, and certainly we are not allowed to assume that all that is not overtly Christian is of Jewish origin (Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 28). 54 James R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, Or Other? JSJSup 105 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 10-60. So for instance, Tisserant notes the view of Laurence, who presents the author as a “Jewish convert to Christianity (Ascension d’Isaie, 42).” 55 Ibid., 62. 56 For Davila, to suggest that a text is Jewish or originally Jewish but later redacted by Christians requires either (i) internal evidence that it was composed in the “pre-Christian era”, (ii) strong indication that the work was translated from Hebrew, (iii-iv) evidence of sympathy for the “Jewish ritual cult” or the “Jewish law/Torah”, and (v) markers showing concern for “Jewish ethnic and national interests, particularly self-identification as a Jew, polemics against gentile persecutions of Jews, and internal Jewish polemics (Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha, 65-66).”56 As an aside, Davila suggests that when using these first five criteria, a distinction should be made between the voice of the author and the viewpoint of the narrator or character (i.e. Moses, Ezra, Isaiah), since either a Christian or a non-Christian gentile could posit viewpoints upon a given character that is not the authorial perspectives. 57 When AscIs is filtered through Davila’s method, criteria (i) and (ii) are both unsatisfied, criteria (iii-iv) are both ambiguous since the AscIs shows both reverence and distance from the ritual cult and Jewish law (AscIs 2.4-8, 3.8-9), and finally, criteria (v) is probably more favorable towards Jewish authorship, since the AscIs is concerned with the nation’s obedience to Torah (AscIs 2.4-8) and is an internal Jewish polemic.

16 mitigate the ability of the AscIs to function as a piece of literary evidence for the study of ancient Judaism.58 In fact, others have approach the text as just that, a Jewish text.

David Frankfurter has approached the religious provenance of the AscIs from another vantage point. In agreement with Davila and Kraft – regarding the dismissal of older source critical reconstructions that delineate signature features into redactional elements without any explicit manuscript evidence that attests development or deletion – Frankfurter asks; “What happens in the discussion of these texts [i.e. pseudepigrapha] if one abandons the category ‘Christian’ – as a distinct stage in these texts’ composition and, implicitly, as a distinct religious mentality? What if we were to look at these texts, rather, as the work of continuous communities of halachically- observant Jewish groups – perhaps of a sectarian nature – that incorporate Jesus into their cosmologies and liturgies while retaining an essentially Jewish, or even priestly, self-definition (emphasis original)?”59 The power of this suggestion is further supported when it is recognized that “there is not only an immense diversity within these two religious clusters but also a mutual influence persisting through Late Antiquity (emphasis original).”60 Thus, any method utilized for the determination of a text’s religious location that implicitly finds Christian signature features as incompatible with Judaism (and vice-versa) is inadequate.61

What unites Frankfurter, on the one hand, with Kraft and Davila, on the other, is that each recognize the methodological difficulties involved in dividing certain texts from the first and second centuries into mutually exclusive “Christian” and “Jewish” partitions. Each perspective in this discussion utilize some criterion to justify one label over the other. For Davila and Kraft, manuscript preservation within Christian circles justifies Christian provenance. For Frankfurter, the presence of christology does not require a religious classification separate from Judaism; therefore Frankfurter suggests that AscIs is an example of a continuing Jewish community with a christological cosmology.62 Underlying this discussion is the polythetic nature of religious

58 See also the discussion of Kraft and Davila in Richard Bauckham, “The Continuing Quest for the Provenance of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,” in The Jewish World around the New Testament (WUNT 233; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 469-75. 59 Frankfurter, “‘Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’,” 134-35. 60 Frankfurter, “‘Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’,” 132. 61 Frankfurter, “‘Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’,” 133. 62 Relevant here, as noted by Bauckham (“The Continuing Quest,” 468), is the first and second edition of Nickelsburg’s Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah. In the first edition, Nickelsburg lists the ‘Martyrdom of Isaiah’

17 movements, in which there is no element that functions as a sine qua non of religious classification.63 In the case of the AscIs, a polythetic approach to religious affiliation avoids viewing “Christianity” and “Judaism” as hermetically sealed entities which are then employed with procrustean effect. The approach adopted for this study will be that the AscIs must not be approached as either Christian or Jewish in a mutually exclusive sense, but reflects an early movement of Christ-devotees characterized by a prophetic sectarianism with a christological focus, which self-consciously operates from within a pluriform ancient Judaism. Still, since the opponents of the AscIs community are other Christ-devotees (which may or may not have close ties with Jewish communities), the AscIs can appropriately be categorized as an early Christian polemic. The benefit of reflecting on the issue of religious provenance is that it sharpens the polemical focus of the AscIs and actually inverts other proposals. For instance, while some have positioned the AscIs as an early Christian text in conflict with Judaism, the AscIs is, more accurately, an early Christian text that operates within a pluriform Judaism and is in conflict with other branches of early Christianity (as outlined in §2.2.).

3. The Present Thesis The present thesis seizes upon these scholarly trajectories in order to explore two interrelated facets of the AscIs: reception of the Matthean Jesus tradition and the literary function of the text. Though the text will be approached as a functional unity, there will be a natural focus on AscIs 1- 5, since it contains the most concentrated use of the Matthean tradition. Moreover, following Acerbi, et. al., the content of AscIs 3.21-31 reflects the author’s perspective on the present and AscIs 6 reveals the wider interest of the community (visionary experiences).64 While this study favors the source critical view that AscIs 6-11 was added to AscIs 1-5, what is more important is notion that the prophetic group represented by the AscIs intended to garner support for the as an example of Jewish literature, but omits the text from the second edition (see also Pierluigi Piovanelli, “In Praise of the ‘Default Position’, or Reassessing the Christian Reception of the Jewish Pseudepigraphic Heritage,” in Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 61 (2007): 237). Norelli’s comment summarizes this struggle: “L’AI est présente en effet, de façon paradoxale, dans les recueils d’apocryphes chrétiens ainsi que dans ceux de pseudépigraphes juifs:…(“Interprétations nouvelles,” 12).” 63 Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: from Babylon to Jonestown (University of Chicago Press, 1982), 4; John W. Marshall, seizing upon Smith, further notes, “The polythetic classification endeavour that Smith proposes implies a polyadic understanding of religion, that is, a conception of religion as composed of many types of phenomena: material, ritual, narrative, propositional, experiential, and so forth (Parables of War: Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse [Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001], 51).” 64 Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia, 246.

18 practices typified in AscIs 6-11 and that the narrative as a whole provides a context in which that practice can be situated and authenticated. For this reason, the primary context for the AscIs is that of a prophetic guild marked by Christ-devotion which is in conflict with surrounding ecclesial hierarchies that have, from the vantage point of the in-group, become unfaithful to a religious ideal by rejecting the practices coveted by the AscIs community. With these tectonic plates in position, the guiding questions of this thesis can now be introduced.

3.1. Use of Early Christian Traditions The relationship between the AscIs and the texts later designated as the New Testament is another ongoing area of research. Richard Bauckham suggests that the AscIs primarily functions as an early theological retelling of the Jesus story, which interprets the Jesus tradition in light of the Pauline corpus in order to offer a cosmological version of the narrative.65 Other scholars find affinities between both the cosmological and christological elements of AscIs and the Johannine ‘constellation’;66 or are at least interested in following that trajectory.67 The area of focus for this study will, however, reside on the reception of the Matthean tradition. The state of the question concerning Matthean reception in the AscIs has been directed by Enrico Norelli and Joseph Verheyden.68 The debate between Verheyden and Norelli has focused on the question of sources, that is, whether the AscIs is dependent upon the Gospel of Matthew or Matthew’s source material (‘M’ in the Two-Source theory of Synoptic origins).69 The aim of

65 Richard Bauckham, “How the Author of the Ascension of Isaiah Created its Cosmological Version of the Story of Jesus,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 23-43. 66 Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, “The Ascension of Isaiah and the Johannist Constellation,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, 199-234. 67 Richard Bauckham, “The Study of the Gospel Traditions Outside the Canonical Gospels: Problems and Prospects,” in The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels, ed. David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), 369-419. 68 Enrico Norelli, “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” in L'Ascensione di Isaia: studi su un apocrifo al crocevia dei cristianesimi (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1994), 115-166; “La resurrezione di Gesù nell'Ascensione di Isaia,” Cristianesimo nella storia 1 (1980): 315-366; Joseph Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu: Examen de AI 3, 13-18,” in The New Testament in Early Christianity: La Réception Des écrits Néotestamentaires Dans Le Christianisme Primitif, ed. Jean-Marie Sevrin (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1989). 69 Norelli argues that the AscIs was not dependent upon the Gospel of Matthew, but upon Matthean traditions (see “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 165-66). Verheyden, on the other hand, suggests that the AscIs was dependent upon the Gospel of Matthew ( article in The New Testament in Early Christianity, p. 263-63) as does Knight (Disciples, 276-77) and Wolf-Dietrich Köhler (Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987], 305: “Die oben angeführten Beoachtungen zusammengenommen lassen es als an Sicherheit grenzend wahrscheinlich erscheinen, daß bei der Abfassung der AscJes in ihrer jetzigen Gestalt nicht nur vormatthäische Tradition, sondern das Mt selbst bekannt war.”).

19 this project is not to establish one of these positions over the other; rather, the discussion initiated by Norelli and Verheyden will function as a site from which to ask other questions concerning Matthean reception. If the AscIs demonstrates reception of the Matthean tradition by way of formal lexical contacts, has that reception impacted the formation of the narrative as a whole? In other words, if it can be established that the AscIs reflects the reception of the Matthean tradition, are there, other, more ulterior, imprints of reception reflected throughout the text?

3.2. Social and Literary Function Conceptualizing the social and literary function of the pseudepigraphic narrative is highly contingent upon a preferred historical situation. The discussion between Norelli (et. al.) and Knight highlights this point clearly enough. Is the AscIs combating wider political oppression (Knight) or reflecting the polemical context of conflict between prophet guilds (Norelli)?70 In either case, scholars are interested in the function of this narrative, centering as it does upon a figure from the past who addresses issues relevant for a later community. The issue of social function is often focused on the selection of Isaiah as the protagonist. The answers provided here typically revolve around the authority that a figure such as Isaiah would provide for a community (as well as the prevalence of Isaiah in the Gospel tradition). In other words, production of communal authority is the usual explanation provided. For instance, communal authority is the underlying tone of Hall’s conclusion: “The author idealizes apostolic Christianity to mirror her or his own prophetic school.”71 Though in agreement with the production of communal authority as a function of the text, the present thesis seeks to push the discussion of the literary function of the AscIs further and consider how early interpretive traditions of the Matthean material in the AscIs may inform and contextualize the dynamics of inner group polemics and also illuminate the literary binding created between these two texts via reception.

4. The Guiding Form

70 Knight rightly does not see these two options as mutually exclusive, but structures them in terms of primary and secondary concerns. 71 Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 296.

The structure of this thesis takes the following form. Chapter 2 will examine and evaluate the reception of the Matthean Jesus tradition within the text of the AscIs. While this chapter will focus on textual affiliations at the lexical level, it does so only in part. For once a formal association between the Matthean tradition and the AscIs is established, this chapter will explore other indications of Matthean reception within the narrative. In sum, chapter 2 argues that the AscIs receives the Matthean tradition in order to fashion the figure of Isaiah as an imitation of Jesus as depicted in Matthew and that this act of mimicry forms a literary circle in which the AscIs and Matthew are interlocked and mutually informing. The third chapter, will explore the implications of Matthean reception for the literary function of the AscIs. To facilitate that exploration, chapter 3 will examine two intimate traditions relevant to the AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew, namely, martyred prophets and in-group Jewish polemics. The argument presented here is that by juxtaposing the AscIs and Matthew with these two traditions, the AscIs’ proximity to the Matthean tradition is further reinforced, and that Matthew’s polemical discourse against leadership groups and use of the martyred prophet tradition provides an appropriate tradition for the situation facing the community reflected in the AscIs. With respect to the AscIs then, the reception history of early Christian traditions and the literary function of the text are interrelated phenomena.

Chapter 1 The Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah: Reception and Figuration

…sie nicht die ‘Worte’, sondern die Geschichte Jesu zu ihrem Thema macht und rezipiert. – Wolf-Dietrich Köhler 72

In order to examine and evaluate the reception of the Matthean Jesus tradition within the text of the AscIs, this chapter will pursue three aims: (1) outline the basic contours of reception-history as a historical critical tool for contextualized interpretation, together with the associated terminology, namely, ‘Auslegungsgeschichte’ and ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’, (2) examine the lexical dimension of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs, and finally, (3) explore the narrative dimension of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs.

1. Reception History: Wirkungsgeschichte and Auslegungsgeschichte

The use of ‘reception history’ as a historical-critical tool for contextualized interpretation has become increasingly prominent within the study of early Christianity and early Judaism.73 As a diachronic exercise, reception-history (primarily) traces the presence of a given textual tradition within subsequent texts in order to identify both the morphologies and continuities that enable a narration of the development of religious movements. Within the field of philosophical hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer has been a significant theorist regarding the role of reception-history for conceptualizing the nature of interpretation and historical understanding. Among the (many) key terms in Gadamer’s thought, ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ has often been the

72 Wolf-Dietrich Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums in der Zeit vor Irenäus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 308 73 For recent treatments see e.g. Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Rachel Nicholls, Walking on the Water: Reading Mt. 14:22-33 in the Light of Its Wirkungsgeschichte (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Dan Batovici, and Kristin de Troyer, eds. Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches (Leiden: Brill, 2016); David W. Jorgensen, Treasure Hidden in a Field: Early Christian Reception of the Gospel of Matthew, Studies in the Bible and Its Reception 6 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016).

21 22 center of attention. In his investigation of the translation history of Wirkungsgeschichte, as well as the effects of translation upon subsequent conceptualizations of Gadamer’s approach, Robert Evans concludes that, for Gadamer, Wirkungsgeschichte does not represent a hermeneutical method, but “a principle that operates universally in every act of understanding and interpretation.”74 According to Evans, failure to identify this distinction is notable throughout the employments of Gadamer’s thought:

In the first English edition of Truth and Method (1975), ‘effective history’ was used for Wirkungsgeschichte, and in later editions this is ‘history of effect’. The English translation of Ulrich Luz’ commentary (see 1.c. below) gives ‘history of influence; and John Sawyer suggests ‘impact history’. However, many writers in English reify it as ‘a history of influence’ (with an indefinite article) or as ‘a history of effects’ (with an indefinite article, and a plural). This is indeed what it could describe in a tradition of scholarship before Gadamer, where it was ‘generally regarded as a mere supplement to historical enquiry’…[however,]Wirkungsgeschichte in Gadamer is not a history, nor a method, nor a type of reception, but a principle…75

Whereas Gadamer encourages the need for a ‘wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein’ – in which the interpreter becomes aware of their own effected consciousness – the use of Wirkungsgeschichte in this study is closer to a ‘type of reception’ rather than a method per se. Still, the study of reception may serve to awaken the interpreter to previously unseen interpretive traditions (i.e., expand the social and temporal context of the interpreter) and therein open new interpretive vistas that result in an expanded ‘horizon of meaning’. However, the present use of Wirkungsgeschichte reflects what Evans identifies as the pre-Gadamer function of the term, and therefore serves to indicate a type of reception rather than a principle. Specifically, following Luz, Wirkungsgeschichte brings into view the “history of influence”, in which the actualization of a text (Matthew) throughout history (the AscIs) is explored beyond formal association, that is, beyond commentary, citation, allusion, etc.76 For this reason, Wirkungsgeschichte is to be distinguished from its adjacent term, Auslegungsgeschichte.

Auslegungsgeschichte (often translated as ‘interpretation history’ or ‘exegesis history’) marks those instances of reception where a text (the AscIs) indicates – through lexical and narrative contacts – interpretive dependence upon an earlier text or textual tradition (Matthew).

74 Robert Evans, Reception History, Tradition and Biblical Interpretation: Gadamer and Jauss in Current Practice, Scriptural Traces Critical Perspectives on the Reception and Influence of the Bible 4 (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), 3. 75 Evans, Reception History, 7-8. 76 Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary, trans. Wilhelm C. Linss (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 95.

Auslegungsgeschichte operates on an interpretive level (that is, when a text adopts the language and context of an earlier text), whereas Wirkungsgeschichte is influential in focus (that is, it considers the informal and conceptual facets of reception).77 Thus, to preview the bivalent conclusion of this thesis, the following two chapters argue that the AscIs reflects dependence upon the Matthean tradition, both in isolated lexical instances and in the formation of Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus (examples of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition), and, moreover, that the AscIs has found in the Matthean tradition a template for in- group polemical disputes with proximate leadership groups and is therefore an example of the perpetuation of Matthean Christianity (an instance of the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition).

Though these the two descriptors are necessarily interrelated (as Wirkungsgeschichte will involve lexemes and still functions a part of an ‘interpretive’ history), they serve to indicate two distinct modes of considering the reception history of earlier texts upon later texts, and therefore reflect the pluriform manner of receptivity. The value of considering Wirkungsgeschichte explicitly is that it provides modern readers with a framework in which to recognize the impact of textual traditions beyond formal citations and lexical overlaps. However, it is Auslegungsgeschichte (in which an initial association between two texts can be determined) that provides a technical context for considering Wirkungsgeschichte. Accordingly, the following sections will consider two aspects of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition upon the AscIs, beginning with an examination of the lexical points of contact with Matthew (§ 2.), before exploring the narrative and figural aspects of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs. The subsequent chapter will transition into a consideration of the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition upon the AscIs.

2. The Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah Part I: Lexical Contact An examination of the Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs may approach that task synchronically (noting and weighing potential instances of reception

77 Hence the translation of ‘Auslegungsgeschichte’ and ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ in Luz’s commentary as “history of interpretation” and “history of influence” respectively (Matthew 1-7, 95).

24 throughout the text) or use the history of scholarship as a guiding principle (discussing previous work on various texts and offer an evaluation). These approaches are not without warrant. The structure of this section is, however, governed by textual traditions. Instead of working linearly through the text or mapping a history of scholarship, the approach taken here will work from a linguistic center to the lexical periphery. As a result, this examination will begin with the extant Greek papyri (§ 2.1), which attests approximately a sixth of the entire text (AscIs 2.4b-4.4a),78 before venturing into other extant manuscript traditions (§2.2). This structure is appropriate for a number of reasons: privileging the Greek edition of the AscIs is justified by the obvious reason that the Gospel of Matthew is a text written in Koine Greek, there is a general consensus that the original text of the AscIs was in fact Greek,79 and the clearest instances of Auslegungsgeschichte occur within a section of the AscIs that is fully attested by the (Greek) Amherst Papyri (3.13- 4.13).

2.1. Analysis of the Amherst Papyri The Amherst fragment provides a Greek witness to AscIs 2.4b-4.4a80 (lacunae notwithstanding). According to the original publication, the fragment is found in book form with a single column text on each side of the leaf.81 Grenfell and Hunt identify two scribal hands within the body of the text. The first scribal hand is found in col. I and cols. III-XIV, which “employed a square, formal, calligraphic uncial of the same type that is found in the Codex Alexandrinus.”82 The second scribal hand (col. II), “used a coarser and less regular uncial.”83 The overall quality of the fragment is considered by Grenfell and Hunt to be “poor”, as dittographies, interchanges, and

78 B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, Being an Account of the Greek Papyri in the Collection of the Right Hon. Lord Amherst of Hackney, F.S.A. at Didlington Hall, Norfolk: Vol. I, The Ascension of Isaiah and Other Theological Fragments (London: Oxford University Press, 1900), 1. 79 Enrico Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Textus, Corpus Christianum Series Apocryphorum 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), 133; Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), 12- 13; Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 2; Albert-Marie Denis, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo- hellénistique: II. Pseudépigraphes de l 'Ancient Testament (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 657. 80 See ‘Appendix A’ for the full text of the Greek Amherst Papyri. 81 Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 2. 82 Ibid., 2. Such tendency leads to a fifth or sixth c. dating (3). 83 Ibid., 3. The text in this column is closer and longer. It is also noted that this scribal hand, “…employs no punctuation or lection-marks and makes no corrections (3).”

25 omissions of single letters, and even words, are not uncommon.84

2.1.1. AscIs 3.13 The content of AscIs 3.13 features a brisk summation of select elements from the Jesus tradition. The Greek text from P. Amh. VIII.16-IX.16 is as follows:

ἦν γὰρ ὁ Βελιὰρ ἐν θυµῷ [ἐ]πι Ἠσαίαν ἀπὸ τῆς [ὁρά]σεως καὶ ἀπὸ το[ῦ δει]γµατισµοῦ ὅτι [ἐ]δειγµάτισεν τὸν [Σ]αµαήλ, καὶ ὅ[τι δι’ α]ὐτοῦ ἐφανε[ρώθη ἡ] ἐξέλευσις [τοῦ ἀγα]πητοῦ ἐκ [τοῦ ἑβδ]όµου οὐρα[νοῦ καὶ ἡ] µεταµόρ-φωσις85 αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ κατάβασις αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ εἰδέα ἣν δεῖ αὐτὸν µεταµορφωθῆναι ἐν εἴδει ἀνθρώπου, καὶ ὁ διωγµὸς ὅν διωχθήσεται, καὶ αἱ κολάσεις αἷς δεῖ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ αὐτὸν κολάσαι, καὶ ἡ τῶν δώδεκα µαθητεία, καὶ ὡς δεῖ αὐτὸν µετὰ ἀνδρῶν κακοποιῶν σταυρωθῆναι, καὶ ὅτι ἐν µνηµε[ί]ῳ ταφήσεται, (AscIs 3.13)86

Josephus Verheyden (et al.) has considered a number of potential affiliations with the Matthean tradition and AscIs 3.13: the noun “ἡ εἰδέα” (form, appearance) is only used in a christological setting in AscIs 3.13 and in Matt 28.3 (“ἦν δὲ ἡ εἰδέα αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀστραπὴ”),87 aside from AscIs 3.13, “ἡ κόλασις” is used only in Matt 25.46 and 1 John 4.18, the phrase “τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ” harkens the negative connotation of the same line in Matt 27.9 (“ὃν ἐτιµήσαντο ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ”), the reference to twelve disciples (“ἡ τῶν δώδεκα µαθητεία”) appears frequently in Matthew, and the verb “δειγµατίζω” in AscIs 3.13 is rarely used in early Christian texts (appearing in Matt 1.19 and Col 2.15).88 These suggestions are not all alike regarding their power to establish a connection with the Matthean tradition. To observe that the AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew both utilize lexical items that are rarely attested in other early Christian writings has limited convincing power to establish a formal association when there is no overlapping narrative context. For instance, the noun “κόλασις” is used to suggest ‘punishment’ in both AscIs 3.13 and Matt 25.46; however, the former is christological and the latter is an eschatological

84 Ibid., 3. 85 The end of col. VIII and beginning of col. IX separates ‘µεταµόρφωσις’. 86 Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 10: “[ ]” signals a lacuna in the text. Cf. also Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Textus, 143. 87 The noun is also used in the Letter of Jeremiah 1.62 (Baruch 6.62) (“ταῦτα δὲ οὔτε ταῖς ἰδέαις οὔτε ταῖς δυνάµεσιν αὐτῶν ἀφωµοιωµένα ἐστίν”), but the overlapping contexts in AscIs 3.13 and Matt 28.3 are far more relevant. 88 Joseph Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu: Examen de AI 3, 13-18,” in The New Testament in Early Christianity: La Réception Des écrits Néotestamentaires Dans Le Christianisme Primitif, ed. Jean-Marie Sevrin (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1989), 255, 264; Robert H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1900), 18-21.

26 descriptor.89 While the reference to “the twelve” is found throughout the Syntopics (see e.g. Mark 3.14, 4.10, 6.7, 9.35, Luke 6.13, 8.1, 9.1) the full expression that includes “disciples” is more Matthean (Matt 10.1-5, 11.1, 20.17, 26.20). The use of “δειγµατίζω” in Matt 1.19 and AscIs 3.13 might also be an example of lexical similarity without strong contextual overlap; however the use of Matt 1.18-19 in AscIs 11.2-15 is strongly convincing (see also § 2.2.6 below) and thus the use of “δειγµατίζω” in AscIs 3.13 might betray Matthean influence – since the same Matthean pericope is clearly seized upon later in the AscIs. The use of εἰδέα to describe the Beloved in the AscIs 3.13 and the resurrected Christ in Matt 28.3 is also suggestive of Matthean influence, as they both contain lexical and contextual similarity. In sum, AscIs 3.13 contains both strong (“εἰδέα”, “δειγµατίζω”) and fragile (“κόλασις”, “ἡ τῶν δώδεκα µαθητεία”) associations with the Matthean tradition.

2.1.2. AscIs 3.14 There are two elements that have garnered attention in AscIs 3.14 relative to the question of Matthean reception: the passive form of the verb, σκανδαλίζω (with the disciples as the subject), and the substantival participle from τηρέω.90 In Matt 26.31b, the disciples are told, “πάντες ὑµεῖς σκανδαλισθήσεσθε ἐν ἐµοὶ ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ”, and in AscIs 3.14 the disciples are similarly described (P. Amh. IX.16-19: κ[α]ὶ δώδεκα οἱ µετ’ α<ὐ>τοῦ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ σκανδαλισθήσονται). Verheyden highlights this contextual overlap, noting that the use of σκανδαλίζοµαι as a verbal action of the apostles with reference to Jesus is found only in Matt 26.31.91 There is, however, a Marcan parallel that deserves attention (as Verheyden himself acknowledges). Mark 14.27 reads, “καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι πάντες σκανδαλισθήσεσθε.” As in the Matthean context, the verb σκανδαλίζοµαι is used here with the apostles as the subject and Jesus as the referent; nevertheless, the fuller prepositional phrase in both AscIs 3.14a (ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ) and Matt 26.31b (ἐν ἐµοὶ) strengthens the possibility of locating a Matthean association here.92

The other point of interest is the substantival participle from τηρέω to describe the guards in

89 The noun is frequency used in the Maccabean literature, see 2 Macc. 4.38, 3 Macc. 1.3, 7.10, 4 Macc. 8.9. 90 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 264-265; Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, 18-21. 91 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 265: “…se trouve seulement en Mt 26,31…” 92 Ibid., 265. For Köhler, the Markan parallel disqualifies AscIs 3.14a as a possible instance of Matthean reception (Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 305: “Daß die Jünger an Jesus Anstoß nehmen würden (AscJes 3,14a), ist ebenfalls nicht spezifisch matthäisch, sondern wird in Mt 26,31 und Mk 14,27 berichtet.”

AscIs 3.14b and Matt 27.54, 28.4. For Norelli, the mutual use of this substantival participle to denote ‘guards’ does not reflect an editorial effort to achieve a Matthean association, but the mutual utilization of pre-Matthean traditions in the both Matthew and the AscIs.93 While the issue of direct Matthean dependence or mutual use of pre-Matthean sources does not comprise the central concern of this section, what is valuable to note is the precision of the textual overlap with a Matthean source. Moreover, and more importantly, Matthew is the only canonical source that makes any reference to guards keeping watch at the tomb (see Gos. Pet. 35).

2.1.3. AscIs 3.15-17 The primary interest of AscIs 3.15-17 is to mention the descent of various angels from the heavens, to note the role of two angels in opening the tomb on the third day, and to explicate the initial acts of the risen Beloved. The first angel to descend (ἡ κ[ατάβα]σις) is called “τοῦ ἀγγέ[λου τῆς] ἐκκλησίας” in 3.1594 and is followed by “ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ πν(εύµατο)ς τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ Μιχαὴλ ἄρχων τῶν ἀγγέλων” in 3.16.95 These latter two angels open the tomb (‘ἀνοίχουσιν τὸ

µνηµονεῖον’) on the third day. Matthew 28.2 similarly presents an “angel of the lord” who descends from heaven in order to roll back the stone covering Jesus’ tomb (28.2b ἄγγελος γὰρ κυρίου καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ προσελθὼν ἀπεκύλισεν τὸν λίθον καὶ ἐκάθητο ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ).

When considering the possibilities of Matthean influence in AscIs 3.15-16, the Gospel of Peter becomes relevant for the discussion. In Gos. Pet. (9.)36 two figures (“δυο ανδρας”) come down from the heavens near the sepulcher and the stone proceeds to roll away from the opening of the sepulcher (whether or not the men from heaven have something to do with this is unstated).96 After the figures enter the tomb, three figures are seen coming out, with two supporting the other (Gos. Pet. 39). This scene is very reminiscent of AscIs 3.15-17, especially v17, in which the Beloved is sitting on the shoulders of the angels; a point that is absent in Matthew. This

93 Enrico Norelli, “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” in L'Ascensione di Isaia: studi su un apocrifo al crocevia dei cristianesimi (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1994), 148. 94 P. Amh. IX. 22-X.1 (AscIs 3.15): καὶ ὡς ἡ κ[ατάβα]σις τοῦ ἀγγέ[λου τῆς] ἐκκησίας τῆ[ς ἐν οὐρα]νῳ…µε…… τος ἐν ταῖς ἐ[σχάταις] [ἡµ] έ[ραις], κα[ὶ]… ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ πν(εύµατο)ς (Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri I, 11). The ‘( )’ signifies the contracted form of ‘ΠΝΣ’. 95 P. Amh. X.2-7 (AscIs 3.16): τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ Μιχαὴλ ἄρχων τῶν ἀγγέλων ἁγίων ὅτι τῇ τρίτῃ ἡµέρᾳ αὐτοῦ ἀνοίχουσιν τὸ µνηµονεῖον (Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 11). 96 All citations from the Gospel of Peter are taken from Paul Foster’s publication of P. Cair.10759 in The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary, TENT 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 197-205.

28 similarity between the Gos. Pet. and the AscIs debilitates a unilinear conception of Matthean reception in AscIs 3.15-17, for the author of AscIs is clearly in contact with a plurality of Jesus traditions. Such a plurality, however, does not negate the fact that the Matthean tradition has impacted AscIs; in fact, the Matthean tradition may very well function as a major resource for the development of the resurrection narrative in both the Gos. Pet. and the AscIs, which was then expanded by these two texts with that aid of an additional Jesus tradition.

Norelli is persuaded that the descending angel in Matthew is not a reduction of the two angels in the Gos. Pet. and the AscIs, but arises from the tradition that was mutually used (and modified) by each of these three texts.97 This view follows Norelli’s wider perspective concerning the relationship between the Gospel of Matthew and the AscIs, namely, that both texts utilized pre- Matthean traditions and are not formally interlocked beyond such a mutual tradition. Still, might the direction of influence progress in the opposite direction? After all, Matthew reflects a basic narrative form that would certainly be amenable to narrative expansion similar to the one attested in AscIs and the Gos. Pet. (multiple angels with different actions relative to the resurrection account). Köhler is an agreement on this point, noting that the purpose of angels in the Lucan and Johannine contexts (see Luke 24.4, Jn 20.12) does not correspond to the narrative in AscIs 3, but that the angelic activity in Matthew is strikingly similar.98 In both contexts an angel descends from the heavens (Matt 28.2 “καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ”, AscIs 3.15 ἡ κ[ατάβα]σις…τῆ[ς ἐν οὐρα]νῳ) in order to open the tomb (Matt 28.2 ἀπεκύλισεν τὸν λίθον; Gos. Pet. 37 “αφ εαυτου κυλισθεις”; AscIs 3.16 ““ἀνοίχουσιν τὸ µνηµονεῖον”).99 The AscIs bifurcates these two actions, as the angel of the church descends, and the angel of the holy spirit and Gabriel open the tomb. The proximity of descent and angelic influence in the resurrection account is suggestive of

97 Norelli, “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 150. 98 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 305: “Zwei Angel - allerdings ohne nahere namentliche Bezeichnung - werden sowohl in der Passionsgeschichte des Lk 24.4 als auch in der des Joh 20,12 im Zusammenhang mit der Auferstehung Jesu genannt. Für die Aussage, daß diese Engel das Grab öffnen (werden), gibt es aber weder bei Lk noch bei Joh eine sachliche Entsprechung, sondern nur in Mt 28,2, wo allerdings nur von einem Engel die Rede ist. Wenn auch nicht fur die Zahl, so kann doch für die Tätigkeit des/der an der Augerstehung Jesu beteiligten Engel das Mt Quelle der AscJes gewesen sein.” 99 At this point the association between the Gospel of Peter and Matthew is stronger than between the AscIs and Matthew (‘rolling’ vs. ‘opening’).

Matthean influence.100 An additional similarity in AscIs 3.17 and Matt 29.18 further supports the prominence of the Matthean tradition as a source for this portion of the AscIs.

In AscIs 3.17 the Beloved comes out from the tomb on the shoulders of two angels and sends out the disciples (ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς µαθητὰς).101 Norelli discusses the possibility of a non-synoptic tradition that contains an immediate post-resurrection appearance to the twelve in which the risen Christ sends the disciples.102 However, since the chronological tempo of AscIs 3.13-4.22 moves rapidly from event to event, it is not necessarily the case that the Beloved sends out the disciples while upon the shoulders of angels, and since the ‘sending’ in Matt 28.19 (“πορευθέντες”) is set within the post-resurrection narrative, the idea contained in AscIs 3.17 remains most reflective of a Matthean tradition. This point is strengthened when juxtaposed with AscIs 3.18a, which more sharply reflects the concluding discourse in Matthew 28 (the next point of comparison).

2.1.4. AscIs 3.18a In both Matt 28.19 and AscIs 3.18a the disciples are instructed to teach (µαθητεύω) all the nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη).103 As a result, Massaux suggests that the author of AscIs was “inspired” by the Matthean text, but does not explicate further.104 Verheyden notes the similar expression in Lk 24.47 (καὶ κηρυχθῆναι ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόµατι αὐτοῦ µετάνοιαν εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁµαρτιῶν εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη), but notes that the parallel is not as formal as the one found in Matt 28.19.105 While the

100 Norelli is certainly right (“L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 158, contra Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 265) that the common terms found in Matthew and the AscIs must not bear the weight of Matthean dependence (“Benche non si debba dedurre troppo dalla ricorrenza in AI et Mt di termini comuni quali µνηµεῖον (o l’equivalente µνηµονεῖον), ἀνοίγω, ἐξέρχοµαι, che possono comparire spontaneamente in un racconto di resurrezione dalla tomba…”). Rather, these lexical contacts combined with the specificity of narrative overlap is suggestive of a Matthean association. Yet, again, since AcsIs 3.17 and Gos. Pet. 39 presents two angelic figures that support the risen Christ upon their shoulders, the Matthean tradition does not function as an exclusive source for the AscIs. 101 P. Amh. X. 8-12 (AscIs 3.17) καὶ ὁ ἀγαπητὸς καθίσας ἐπὶ τοὺς ὤµους αὐτῶν ἐξελεύσετια, καὶ ὡς ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς µαθητὰς (Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri I, 11). 102 Norelli, “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 160: “L'autore di AI 3 potrebbe dunque avere conosciuto un racconto in cui l'invio dei discepoli in missione seguiva immediatamente la resurrezione;…” 103 Matthew 28.19 πορευθέντες οὖν µαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνοµα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύµατος; P. Amh. X.13-17 (AscIs 3.18α) “…µαθητεὺσουσιν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη καὶ πᾶσιν γλῶσσαν (Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 11).” 104 Edouard Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature Before Saint Irenaeus: The Later Christian Writings (Marcon: Mercer University Press, 1993), 55. Similarly, see Eugène Tisserant, Ascension d’Isaie: traduction de la version éthiopienne, avec les principales variantes des versions grecque, latines et slave (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1909), 11; Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, 18-21. 105 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 264.

30 influence of Isaiah 66.18 is relevant for the addition of “καὶ πᾶσιν γλῶσσαν” in AscIs 3.18a,106 the lexical and contextual overlap between the AscIs and Matthew is notable enough to suggest Matthean influence.

2.1.5. AscIs 4.3 The final consideration stemming from the Amherst papyri is the use of ‘φυτεία’ and ‘φυτεύω’ in Matt 15.13 and AscIs 4.3.107 Unraveling the cryptic nature of the Matthean phrase, which contains Jesus’ response to a statement made by the disciples regarding the offense of the Pharisees, is not the primary concern. Moreover, there are obvious differences in the two contexts: the twelve apostles are the ones who plant in AscIs 4.3, whereas it is ὁ πατήρ who plants in Matt 15.13, the φυτεία is persecuted in AscIs and the plant is uprooted in Mattew (ἐκριζόω). Still, the overarching agriculture metaphor is strikingly similar and without parallel.108

Köhler suggests, following Tisserant, that the imagery used here is based upon “alttestamentlichen Vorbildern.”109 As a result, Köhler remains skeptical of any Matthean influence in AscIs 4.3, for the sole point of comparison is the word for ‘planting’.110 The point may be conceded if this were the only point of association with the Matthean tradition under consideration. However, since the presence of other lexical contacts with Matthew in the surrounding context are strongly attested, it is highly suggestive that this is another instance of Matthean reception.

2.2. Other Textual Recensions Now that the Amherst papyri has been examined for possible instances of Matthean reception, a consideration of the portions of the AscIs not attested by the P. Amh., but extant in other textual

106 Norelli, “L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 162. 107 Matthew 15.13 ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν· πᾶσα φυτεία ἣν οὐκ ἐφύτευσεν ὁ πατήρ µου ὁ οὐράνιος ἐκριζωθήσεται; P. Amh. XIV.6-9 (AscIs 4.3) ὁ βασιλεὺς οὗτος τὴν φυτ[ε]ίαν ἣν φυτεύσουσιν οἱ δώδεκα ἀπόστολοι τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ διώξε[ι],…(Grenfell and Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, 14). 108 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 254n19 109 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 306n2. For Tisserant, the use of ‘vine’ as a description for Israel (Is. 5.7) is suggestive of influence from earlier Jewish traditions (Ascension d’Isaie, 117). 110 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 306: “Als Vergleichspunkt kommt nur die bildhafte Verwendung des Wortes ‘Pflanzung’ in Betracht.”

31 traditions such as, the Ethiopic111 and the Greek Legend, 112 will help to fill out the study.

2.2.1. AscIs 1.4 Although the use of the ‘Beloved’ runs throughout the AscIs, the first reference to this titular designation is found in AscIs 1.4, and, accordingly, this text is usually cited when the question of Matthean influence is considered. Since ὁ ἀγαπητός is used three times in the Amherst papyri to refer to the ‘Beloved’, consistency of the term throughout the text, despite the lack of Greek attestation in AscIs 1.4, can be presumed.113 Is there any affiliation between AscIs 1.4 (cf. 1.5,13, 3.13, 17-18, 4.3, 6, 9, 13, 18, 21, 5.15, 7.17, 23, 8.17, 25, 9.12) and Matt 12.18 (cf. 3.7, 17.5)? After all, the reference to “ὁ υἱός µου ὁ ἀγαπητός” can be found throughout the synoptic tradition, both in the baptism narrative (Mark 1.11, Matt 3.17, Luke 3.22) and the ‘transfiguration’ scene (Mark 9.7, Matt 17.5). Moreover, Mark and Luke make reference to a ‘beloved son’ in the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12.6, Luke 20.13). The unique element that draws attention towards the Matthean tradition is the inclusion of the citation of Isaiah 42.1 in Matt 12.18 (‘ἰδοὺ ὁ παῖς µου ὃν ᾑρέτισα, ὁ ἀγαπητός µου εἰς ὃν εὐδόκησεν ἡ ψυχή µου’). The Isaianic link here is enticing:114 the designation of Jesus as the ‘beloved’ by means of an Isaianic citation would appear to be a fitting source for the appropriation of ὁ ἀγαπητός as the main christological title throughout the AscIs. Moreover, since both the MT and the LXX use terms and ὁ ἐκλεκτός µου) rather than a ‘beloved one’,115 ְבּ ִחי ִ֖רי) that reflect the idea of a ‘chosen’ one

111 Regarding the reliability of the Ethiopic text, Grenfell and Hunt conclude that “the Ethiopic is an extremely faithful representation of the original, and where it is unintelligible the fault is most often attributable to the Greek (The Amherst Papyri, 3).” See also Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 248, 270-272; Michael Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 2: Expansions of the ‘Old Testament’ and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo- Hellenistic Works, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1985), 146; Jonathan Knight, Disciples of the Beloved One: The Christology, Social Setting and Theological of the Ascension of Isaiah, JSPSup 18 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 23. 112 Although the Greek Legend is a later text, Norelli concludes that it remains a reliable witness to the Ethiopic text and is beneficial for exploring the Greek original (Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 30): “…la prudenza s'impone nell'uso della Leg per ritrovare espressioni grechi originarie di AI; e nondimeno Leg rimane una fonte preziosa al riguardo…[and that the]… Leg attesta la stessa forma di testo rappresentata da E (e da L1G).” 113 The term used in Gə’əz is ‘ለፍቁር’ and in Latin, ‘Dilecti’ (Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Textus, 357) 114 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 304n2: “Die substantivierte absolute Bezeichnung als "Geliebter" findet sich m.W. nur in der AscJes und in Mt. 12,18, wo diese Bezeichnung im - redaktionell hinzugefügten - christologisch interpretierten Zitat von Jes 42.1-4 steht.” 115 Discussions regarding the Matthean rendering of Isa 42.9 have generated a number of options (for a list of views see Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 [Dallas: Word Publishing, 1983], 206-10). Norelli prefers the view

32 the suggestion is unlikely that the AscIs was directly influenced by Isaiah,116 but has most likely adopted an early Christian tradition that utilized this title (cf. also 2 Peter 1.17), a suggestion that works smoothly with Matt 3.17.117

2.2.2. AscIs 1.7 Both Knibb and Knight have identified a portion of AscIs 1.7 that appears to reflect Matt 10.20.118 In AscIs 1.7, Isaiah addresses Hezekiah in order to notify him that Hezekiah’s word of instruction to Manasseh will have no effect in correcting Manasseh’s course of action (namely, to become a follower of Beliar). Isaiah opens this address with a threefold invocation (“as the

Lord lives”, invoking “እግዚአብሔር”, “ፍቁሩ”, and “መንፈስ”) and describes the “መንፈስ” (‘Spirit’) as one who speaks through him (ዘበላዕሌየ ፡ ይትናገር ፡ ከመ). In Matt 10.20 Jesus addresses his disciples before sending them “πρὸς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ” (10.6), informing them that it is not them who speak but “τὸ πνεῦµα τοῦ πατρὸς ὑµῶν τὸ λαλοῦν ἐν ὑµῖν.” There is a similar line in the Greek Legend (GL 3.18 “ζῆ τὸ πνεῦµα αύτοῦ τὸ λαλοῦν ἐν ἐµο”), which likely provides a witness to the Greek version of the Ethiopic line in AscIs 1.7, one that contains a very similar construction to the one found in Matt 10.20.

The notion of a πνεῦµα speaking through an individual (or a group of individuals) is a rather general idea. Still, it is relatively rare to find this expression in this exact form. In Barnabas 12.2 the “πνεῦµα” speaks “εἰς τὴν καρδίαν Μωϋσέως”,119 whereas in Hermas Sim. 9.1 the “τὸ πνεῦµα τὸ ἅγιον” speaks “µετὰ σοῦ ἐν µορφῇ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας”.120 In the Didache, true prophets are described as those who “λαλοῦντα ἐν πνεύµατι” (11.7, cf. also 11.12), although this appears to suggest the notion of ‘in accordance with’ rather than the simultaneity of two actors, one of the Matthew possessed a tradition of Isa 42.1 that had already undergone christological redaction (“L’AI e il vangelo di Matteo,” 259). 116 On the unlikelihood of ‘αγαπητος’ being a translation of ‘ελεκτοις’, see e.g. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (WBC 33a; Dallas: Word, 1993) 336; Richard Thomas France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), 471; John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 492. 117 The correlation between AscIs 1.4 and Matt 3.17 is also flagged by Michael Knibb (“Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” 156) and Erling Hammershaimb (Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium Jesajas, JSHRZ. Bd. 2 (Gütersloher Verlag-Haus Mohn, 1973], 24) 118 Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” 157; Knight, Disciples, 278. 119 “Epistle of Barnabas,” in The Apostolic Fathers Vol II, LCL 25. ed. and trans. Bart Ehrman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 56. 120 “The Shepherd of Hermas,” in The Apostolic Fathers Vol II, 386.

33 which being the “πνεῦµα”. The idea found in Acts 1.16, in which the “πνεῦµα” foretells “διὰ στόµατος Δαυὶδ” (cf. also Acts 4.25), has greater proximity to the phrase in AscIs 1.7. More to the prophets (הַדְּבָרִ ים) and words ( ַהתּוָֹ֤ר ) sends the law יְהָ֤וה ְצ ָבאוֹת similar is Zech 7.12, in which וַתָּ֙עַד “ ,and in Neh 9.30 the people are warned ( ָשׁ ֜ ַלח יְהָ֤וה ְצ ָבא ֙וֹת ְבּרוּ ֔חוֹ ְבּ ַ֖יד ַהנְּ ִבי ִ֣אים) through his spirit :Perhaps the most pertinent reference is 2 Sam 23.2, where David states .” ָ֧בּם ְבּרוּ ֲח ֛ך ְבּיַד־נְ ִבי ֶ֖איך The spirit of YHWH speaks through me, and his speech is upon“) ”֥רוּ ַח יְהָ֖וה ִדּ ֶבּר־ ִ֑בּי וּ ִמ ָלּ ֖תוֹ ַעל־ ְלשׁוֹ ִנֽי“ my tongue”). Since the idea of the πνεῦµα impacting individual’s speech contains many variations, the tight similarities between AscIs 1.7 and Matt 10.20 are evocative of Matthean influence – although the idea is firmly rooted within earlier Jewish texts and is therefore not an exclusive point of contact between Matthew and AscIs.

2.2.3. AscIs 4.14

In AscIs 4.14 the moment of the parousia is calculated and described. The “እግዚእ” will come

“with his angels” (“ይመጽእ እግዚእ ምስለ መላእክቲሁ”) and “with the glory of the seventh heaven”

(“ምስለ ስብሓተ ሳብዕ ሰማይ”) after a measurable number of days. In Matt 25.31 it is noted that when “ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου” comes he will come “ἐν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ’ and ‘πάντες οἱ ἄγγελοι µετ᾽ αὐτοῦ”. Evaluating Matthean reception is necessary limited by the linguistic distance between Gə’əz and Koine Greek, however the basic contours are notably similar. Yet, the parallel passage in Luke 9.26 records a fairly similar concept: “ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων.” In light of the adjectival addition (“τῶν ἁγίων”) in Luke and the mutual use of the possessive pronoun in both Matt 25.31 and AscIs 4.14 (“መላእክቲሁ”, “οἱ ἄγγελοι µετ᾽ αὐτοῦ”), the association between Matthew and the AscIs is stronger and is the most likely Synoptic candidate to provide influence for the eschatological interests found in AscIs 4.14.

2.2.4. AscIs 5.10 While Isaiah is being sawed in half, Belkira (with the aid of Mechembechus) asks Isaiah to recount his status as a prophet and affirm the legitimacy of Manasseh (AscIs 5.3-6). In exchange, Belkira will turn the hearts of the people and Manasseh in order that they all might reverence Isaiah (AscIs 5.4-8). Isaiah responds with a denunciation of Belkira that includes a final statement regarding the limitation of Belkira to only take Isaiah’s skin and nothing else (AscIs 5.9-10, “For you cannot take [from me] but the the skin of my body”). Hammbershaimb has

34 signaled the reader to compare AscIs 9.10 and Matt 10.28a.121 The statement made in Matt 10.28a is an imperatival clause to “µὴ φοβεῖσθε” the one who kills the “τὸ σῶµα” but cannot kill “τὴν ψυχὴν”.122

2.2.5. AscIs 9.17

The point of interest in AscIs 9.17 is the reference to a body of individuals who ‘ascend’ (‘የዐርጉ’) with the Beloved on the third day (cf 9.16). Conversely, in Matt 27.52, a number of tombs are opened at the moment of Jesus’ death (“ἀφῆκεν τὸ πνεῦµα”) and as a result, “πολλὰ σώµατα τῶν κεκοιµηµένων ἁγίων ἠγέρθησαν”. The AscIs reflects the more simplified narrative. The resurrection of saints is coterminous with the resurrection of the Beloved, whereas in Matthew, the point of resurrection is located at the moment of Jesus’ death and the group departure from tombs occurs subsequent to the resurrection account (“µετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ”, see Matt 27.52- 53). Moreover, the question posed by Norelli reflects the interpretive difficultly surrounding AscIs 9.17 itself: “Questo ‘e allora’ si riferisce all'ascensione dagli inferi a questa terra o a quella dalla terra al settimo cielo?”123 In other words, is this corporate ‘ascension’ in 9.17 referring to a group-resurrection similar to the Matthean narrative, or to an ascension from the earth into the seventh heaven (as in AscIs 9.18)? Despite the repeated use of the same verb, Norelli rightly suggests a shift in 9.16-18, in which 9.16-17a refers to the resurrection from the dead and 9.17b- 124 18 reflects the ascension into the seventh heaven. In agreement with Norelli, the use of “የዐርጉ” in 9.17 evokes the idea of a group resurrection at the time of the Beloved’s resurrection from the dead. As a result, a Matthean source for this portion of the AscIs has been suggested, as this idea is only found in the Matthean narrative.125 The affiliation between the AscIs and Matt 27 is largely a conceptual affiliation and therefore cannot be evaluated by means of textual overlaps. Still, the rarity of this idea within the Jesus tradition is highly suggestive of a Matthean impact (or the impact of Matthean sources), especially when combined with the other associations

121 Hammershaimb, Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium Jesajas, 31. 122 The whole of Matt 10.28 reads: Καὶ µὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶµα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν µὴ δυναµένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ µᾶλλον τὸν δυνάµενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶµα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ. 123 Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, 470. 124 Ibid., 470. 125 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 265: “La connaissance de Mt 27,51-53 est peut-être à la source de AI 9,17 (E), concernant l'ascension de beaucoup de justes avec le Seigneur après sa résurrection.” Knight, Disciples, 278: “[the notion of group resurrection in Matthew is]…quite dissimilar to anything else in the New Testament.”

35 previously identified.

2.2.6. AscIs 11.2-15 Köhler has identified the following convergences and divergences between AscIs 11.2-15 and Matt 1.18-19: (i) in contrast with the Lukan account, both Matthew and the AscIs present Bethlehem as the permanent residence of Mary and Joseph (AscIs 11.12, Matt 2.1,5), but in the AscIs they bypass the trip to Egypt and travel directly to Nazareth (AscIs 11.15, Matt 2.12-15),126 (ii) Joseph is only referred to as a carpenter in Matt 13.55 and AscIs 11.2, (iii) in the Lucan account the report of pregnancy is foretold, whereas in Matthew (1.18) and the AscIs (11.3) the pregnancy is announced after the fact (though Matthew includes “ἐκ πνεύµατος ἁγίου”), (iv) Joseph’s desire to leave Mary is attested in both Matt 1.19 and AscIs 11.3, though more detail is provided in the Matthean account (“δίκαιος ὢν καὶ µὴ θέλων αὐτὴν δειγµατίσαι”),127 (v) the role of the angel in AscIs 11.4 and Matt 1.20-24 is to prevent Joseph from leaving Mary, not, as in the Lucan account, to foretell the announcement of pregnancy,128 and finally, (vi) both Matt 1.25 and AscIs 11.5 are eager to state explicitly that there was no pre-birth relations between Mary and Joseph.129 These points of connection lead to Köhler’s assessment, that “die Geschichte der Geburt Jesu so dargestellt, daß der Handlungsablauf mit dem des Mt nahezu identisch ist.”130

2.3. Summary The foregoing analysis has shown that there are significant lexical contacts between Matthew and AscIs.131 What has guided this section has been the following factors: lexis, context, and

126 Cf. also Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 56; Tisserant, Ascension d’Isaie, 203; Antonio Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia: cristologia e profetismo in Siria nei primi decenni del II secolo (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1989), 150. 127 Cf. also Massaux (The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 56) who also notes Prot. Jas. 14.1; however the notion that the Prot. Jas. had any influence upon Matthew is unlikely. 128 Again, for Köhler, there is more detail given in the Matthean account: “In der AscJes wird dabei nur das 'daß' des Eingreifens des Engels berichtet sowie das erfolgreiche Ergebnis seiner Internvention. Im Unterschied zum Mt wird der Engel als 'Engel des Geistes" bezeichnet. AscJes 11,4 weiß nichts von einem Traum Josephs; es fehlt jedes Äquivalent für die ausführlich an Joseph gerichtete Engelrede von Mt 1, 20-23 (Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 304).” 129 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 303-304. 130 Ibid., 303. Köhler also notes, “Handlungsablauf und -rahmen erweisen den Verfasser von AscJes 11,2ff deutlich als abhangig von entweder der vormattaischen Tradition oder dem Mt selbst (304).” For a similar assessment see Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia, 152-153. 131 The debate between Verheyden and Norelli regarding dependence of the AscIs upon pre-Matthean sources or upon the Gospel of Matthew itself is not directly relevant. Moreover, for the historian to make a meaningful distinction

36 exclusivity. In other words, potential instances of reception are considered by precise lexical contacts, whether or not those points of contact reflect a similar context (speaker, audience, subject matter), and how exclusive the point of contact is between Matthew and the AscIs. As a result, the following table emerges:

AscIs 3.13 P. Amh. 4x Semi-Context 1. Exclusive; 2. Semi ex; 3. Semi ex; 4. Not ex AscIs 3.14 P. Amh. 2x Contextual 1. Not Exclusive; 2. Exclusive AscIs 3.15-17 P. Amh. Contextual Exclusive with Matthew AscIs 3.18a P. Amh. Contextual Exclusive with Matthew AscIs 4.3 P. Amh. Semi-Context Exclusive with Matthew AscIs 1.4 P. Amh. Semi-Context Not Exclusive (cf. Mk 1.11, 12.6, Lk 3.22, 20.13) AscIs 1.7 Ethiopic/GL Semi-Context Not Exclusive (cf. 2 Sam. 23.2) AscIs 4.14 Only Ethiopic Contextual Slightly exclusive. Matthean superior to Lucan. AscIs 5.10 Only Ethiopic Contextual Exclusive with Matthew AscIs 9.17 Only Ethiopic Contextual Exclusive with Matthew AscIs 11.2-15 Only Ethiopic Contextual Exclusive with Matthew

For some scholars, lexical contacts will not warrant the conclusion of formal reception, whereas others scholars will identify and weigh the same evidence and are positively persuaded of reception.132 Thus, while this exercise is necessarily marked by a degree of subjectivity, the power of the evidence is located in the collective presentation. Hence, while some debate remains concerning each of the individual examples listed here, it is argued that the amount of contact that is contextually sensitive and lexically grounded between Matthew and the AscIs confirms the reception of the former in the production of the latter.

3. The Auslegungsgeschichte of the Matthean Tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah Part II: Narrative Imitation

between either the AscIs’ development or contraction of an item from the Gospel of Matthew and the AscIs’ use of Matthean source material is markedly difficult. Furthermore, it has yet to be determined what exactly the M-material is, since any reconstruction that selects a portion of Matthew and designates it as the ‘M’ material is dependent upon a given hypothesis of Synoptic relations; a discussion that is beyond the scope of the present project. 132 For example, Köhler concludes that there are three indications that the AscIs made use of Matthew: the reference to guards at the tomb in AscIs 3.14 (cf. Matt 27.62-66), the overlapping birth narratives in AscIs 11.3-5 and Matt 1.18- 25, and the use of ‘the Beloved’ as a titular designator which is only used in Matthew (Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 303-304). As indicated in the above analysis, Köhler is not convinced that AscIs 13.3, 14a, 15- 18, 4.3, 9.9 and 9.14 provide evidence for Matthean dependence (305). On the other hand, Massaux uses only two points (AscIs 11.3-5 with Matt. 1.18-19 and AscIs 3.18a with Matt 28.19), rejecting the use of the ‘Beloved’ as a means of determining Matthean dependence and including the reference to teaching “τὰ ἔθνη” (AscIs 3.18a and Matt 28.19).

Having considered the lexical dimension of Matthew’s Auslegungsgeschichte in the AscIs, this section will explore the narrative and figural aspects of Matthew’s Auslegungsgeschichte within the AscIs, specifically, upon the figure of Isaiah. The argument of this section is that the figure of

Isaiah in the AscIs has been fashioned as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus.

3.1. Figural Associations The associations identified here are intended to provide a cumulative case that the figure of Isaiah has been fashioned after the Matthean Jesus and that, as a result, the AscIs constitutes an early interpretive reading of the Matthean Jesus tradition. This section will then lead into the final conclusion of this chapter, namely, that the AscIs functions as a literary prequel to the Gospel of Matthew.

(1) The AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew both feature a traveling prophet with an associated guild.133 Relatedly, Hammershaimb notes the affinity between the description of the prophets in AscIs 2.10-11 and the presentation of John the Baptist in Matt 3.4.134 In AscIs 2.10 the prophets are “περιβεβληµένοι” (clothed’) in “σάκκον” (‘sackcloth’) and in 2.11 they only eat “τίλλον[τε]ς ἐκ τῶν ὀρέων” (‘plucks from the mountains’). In Matt 3.4, John the Baptist wears camel’s hair (“τὸ ἔνδυµα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τριχῶν καµήλου”) and eats locusts and wild honey (“ἡ δὲ τροφὴ ἦν αὐτοῦ ἀκρίδες καὶ µέλι ἄγριον”). They both dwell in the “τῇ ἐρήµῳ/τοῖς ἐρήµοις” in the region of Ἰουδαία (cf. Matt 3.1 and AscIs 3.8: “ἀπὸ βηθλεὲµ ἐκά[θι]σεν ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἐν τόπῳ ἐρήµῳ”). The affiliation between John the Baptist and Isaiah (and followers) is evidently not a correlation between Isaiah and Jesus, still, this presentation does make a connection between the depiction of a prophetic group in Matthew and in the AscIs.

(2) The Gospel of Matthew and the AscIs both present the central protagonist as one who is in conflict with their respective social and religious leaders. For Matthew, the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the Sadducees face the brunt of Jesus’ polemical exchanges (cf. esp. Mt 9.3-7, 12.38-45, 15.1-14, 23.1-39, 27) whereas in the AscIs, Isaiah is centrally in conflict with the regal elite (AscIs 1-5). While the extent and degree of power exercised by the Pharisees over a

133 While this point remains a debate within Historical Jesus scholarship, the primary concern here is that Matthew is eager to present Jesus within a prophet framework (see Matt 10.41; 13.57; 21.11, 24; 23.37). 134 Hammershaimb, Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium Jesajas, 27n10a.

38 multifaceted Judaism after the First Jewish War is a disputed point,135 what concerns the present discussion is literary imitation. On a literary level, it is relatively uncontested that the two figures are presented as prophets in conflict with ruling authorities.136

(3) In both the AscIs and in Matthew, Jerusalem is an overarching negative site throughout the progression of the narrative. In the AscIs, Jerusalem is the central location of Beliar’s deception, leading many to “abandon the faith” (AscIs 1.9), and the rise of lawlessness (2.4, 7). This city is also the location of Belkira’s false prophesying activity (3.1-4), which is exemplified in his denunciation of Isaiah as a false prophet who purportedly voices prophesies against Jerusalem (3.6-7, 10). Since Isaiah had earlier departed from Jerusalem (see 2.7) and Belkira had taken his place, this denunciation, within the context of the AscIs, reflects the extent to which Jerusalem as departed from an ideal. Jerusalem is devoid of true prophecy and false prophecy has become ubiquitous.

In Matthew, the inhabitants of Jerusalem are described in positive terms (as ones who are baptized by John [Matt 3.5), and as those who initially follow Jesus [Matt 4.25]), and the city itself is (only in Matthew) referred to as the “holy city” (Matt 4.5, 27.53). Still, Jerusalem is also the central location of the chief antagonists (Matt 15.1), as well as the place in which Jesus will undergo “great sufferings”, “be killed”, and “be raised” on the third day (16.21, cf. 20.18). Moreover, throughout the synoptic tradition, Jesus’ actions within the temple court play a central role in the progression of each narrative.137

135 See the discussion in Peter J. Tomson, “Transformations of Post-70 Judaism: Scholarly Reconstructions and Their Implications for our Perception of Matthew, Didache, and James,” in Matthew, James, and Didache: Three Related Documents in their Jewish and Christian Settings (eds. Huub van de Sandt and Jürgen K. Zangenberg; Atalanta: SBL, 2008), 91-121; “The Wars against Rome, the Rise of Rabbinic Judaism and of Apostolic Gentile Christianity, and the Judaeo-Christians: Elements for a Synthesis,” in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, eds. P. J. Tomson and D. Lambers-Petr. WUNT 158 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003), 14–18; Bas ter Haar Romney, “Hypothesis on the Development of Judaism and Christianity in Syria in the Period after 70 C.E.,” in Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu?, ed. Huub van de Sandt (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2005), 13-33. 136 Concerning the place and nature of conflict in the Gospel of Matthew see e.g. J. Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 19-23, 141-49; Matthias Konradt, Israel, Kirche und die Völker im Matthäusevangelium, WUNT 215 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 181-284; Anders Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative World of the First Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016), 233-256; David C. Sim, The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The History and Social Setting of the Matthean Community (Edinburg: A&C Black, 1998), 118-23. 137 See esp. Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ (Yale

The primary point of interest here is, however, the proclamation given in Matt 23.37 concerning Jerusalem as a city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it (“ἡ ἀποκτείνουσα τοὺς προφήτας καὶ λιθοβολοῦσα τοὺς ἀπεσταλµένους πρὸς αὐτήν”), and the subsequent discourse given in Matt 24 regarding the destruction of the Temple (cf. 24.1-2). The AscIs depicts Isaiah being stoned by the ruling elite from Jerusalem (cf. 3.4) and being accused of prophesying against Jerusalem (that it should be ‘laid waste’). There is a fairly smooth association between Matthew and the AscIs at this point – an association in which the AscIs fills in the thrust of Matt 23.37 in a narrative form.138

(4) A central element in the narrative progression of the AscIs is the juxtaposition of Isaiah’s prophetic vision with the Mosaic statement in Exod 33.20. Isaiah claims to have “[seen] more than Moses the prophet” (3.8 “βλέπω πλέον Μωυσῆ τοῦ προφήτου”) which later incites the charge made against him (3.9, cf. 4 Bar. 9.19-21). A juxtaposition between Jesus and Moses is also presented quiet forcefully in Matthew. Dale Allison notes that the instances in which the presence of Moses are most ‘tacit’ in Matthew are the most compelling associations between Matthew and the narrative sequence found in the Pentateuch.139 Within this sequence, the prescriptions given in Matt 5.21-48 “demand more than Moses demanded,” and the exchange in Matt 11.25-30 presents Jesus as the “chief mediator between God and his people.”140 While some Matthean scholars have favored interpretive finality over notions of supremacy,141 the function and precise import of this ‘Moses typology’ within the Gospel of Matthew is not of central concern here. What is of importance is the historic possibility of identifying a Mosaic typology within the Matthean tradition and then finding that notion (perpetuated or) elaborated into supremacy via mimicry in a text such as the AscIs.

University Press, 2000), 111-14; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 61-90. 138 The content of Matt 23.37 also appears in Luke 13.34, but again, this does not preclude Matthean reception, especially if other elements that are found in association between the two texts are exclusive. 139 Dale Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 268. The sequence, according to Allison, is as follows: infancy narrative (Matt 1-2, Ex 1.1-2.10), crossing of water (Matt 3.13-17, Exod 14.10-31), wilderness temptation (Matt 4.1-11, Exod 16.1-17.7), mountain of lawgiving (Matt 5-7, Exod 19.1-23.33), reciprocal knowledge of God (Matt 11.25-30, Exod 33.1-23), transfiguration (Matt 17.1-9, Exod 34.29-35), commissioning of successor (Matt 28.16-20, Deut 31.7-9, Josh 1.1-9). 140 Dale Allison, The New Moses, 274. 141 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew, 64-65.

(5) The narrator states that Isaiah made use of parables in AscIs 4.20 (“And the rest of the vision regarding the Lord, behold, it is written in three parables according to my words which are written in the book which I publicly prophesied.”). Throughout the Gə’əz translation of Matthew,

“በምሳልያት” is the lexical item used for “παραβολη” (cf. e.g. Matt 13.24, 31, 33, 35, as well as Luke 8.11). Moreover, the Matthean Jesus is particularly favorable to the use of parables in key discourses throughout the Gospel (cf. Matt 13, 21, 25), rending some overlap between the mode of communication of the part of the central figures in these two texts.

(6) Massaux has identified eschatological and mythological motifs in AscIs 3.21-4.19 that also appear in the eschatologically oriented discourse found in Matt 24-25. Massaux groups these common motifs into three partitions: (i) common eschatological descriptions (the renunciation of love [AscIs 3.21, Matt 24.12], the lack of prophets and rise of false prophets [AscIs 3.21, Matt 24.10], hatred within the in-group [AscIs 3.27, Matt 24.10]), (ii) descriptions of a coming antagonist (false messianic self-description [AscIs 4.6, Matt 24.5]), the power of the antagonist to lead people astray [AscIs 4.9, Matt 24.5]), and (iii) common descriptions of the eschatological appearance of the protagonist (appearance with angels and saints [AscIs 4.9, Matt 24.31], appearance in glory [AscIs 4.14, Matt 24.30], the use of fire in judgement [AscIs 4.14,18, Matt 25.41]).142 While a number of these motifs can be observed in other early Christian texts, such as 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Jude, and the Book of Revelation, the concentration of these themes in AscIs 3-4 and Matt 24-25, coupled with the observation that the Matthean tradition is well attested in the earlier portions of AscIs 3, gives the impression that the central figures in the AscIs and Matthew engage in affiliated eschatological discourses.

(7) There may also been an imitative correlation between Isaiah’s final insistence to Hezekiah that the king not reveal the content of Isaiah’s vision to the ‘people of Israel’ (AscIs 11.39) and Jesus’ insistence that his status as messiah would not be widely disseminated (Matt 16.20). After curing many within a following crowd, Jesus orders them not to make him known, which is followed by a citation from Isa 42 (using the Matthean πληρóω formula). It is unclear whether the appropriation of Isa 42.1-4 in Matt 12 is intended to be associated with the notion of secrecy (since the spirit anointed servant of Isaiah 42 remains quiet, see Matt 12.19 “οὐδὲ ἀκούσει τις ἐν

142 Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 60-61.

ταῖς πλατείαις τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ”), or, whether the whole citation is intending to describe certain messianic activities that include, but are not limited to, the notion of maintaining the secret of Jesus’ messianic status. In either case, Isaiah and the Matthean Jesus refrain from widely disseminating key information.

(8) As noted in §2.2.4, Isaiah is tempted by Belkira to renounce his status as a prophet and to claim everything that he said was a lie (AscIs 5.4-5). The focus of §2.2.4 was the similarity between Isaiah’s response in AscIs 5.10 and Jesus’ imperative in Mt 10.28a. Here, the interest of this text is the parallel ‘temptation’ scenes in AscIs and Matthew. Verheyden has rightly identified what is perhaps the most central element of similarity between these two contexts; a demonic source lies behind the challenge to each protagonist (“L'auteur de AI trouve en Mt 4 une des references les plus explicites au combat entre le Bien-Aime et le Satan.”).143 Of the three test dialogues in Matt 4.3-11, the question in Matt 4.8-9 is most similar to Belkira’s question in AscIs 5.8.144

(9) Isaiah refers to his own death as a ‘cup’ prepared for him by God. Again, though Jesus refers to his death as a cup throughout the synoptic tradition (Matt 20.22/Mark 10.38, Matt 26.39/Mark14.36/Luke 22.42, cf. also Mart. Pol. 14.2, T. Ab. 1.3, 16.11-12, 17.16, 19.6, 19.16), this remains a (albeit non-exclusive) parallel with the Matthean Jesus.145

(10) The death of each figure is marked by self-restraint. When the final stage of the execution is being carried out, Isaiah “neither cried aloud nor wept” (AscIs 5.14). Tertullian picks up on this description in De Patientia 14, noting, “His patientiae viribus secatur Esaias et de domino non tacet.”146 The function of Isaiah’s patience supplements Tertullian’s larger aim; to present Jesus as the pinnacle of patience. In the Matthean account, Jesus does in fact express distress (Matt 27.46, 50); however, Jesus is presented as a one who exhibits no formal resistance in Matt 26.53- 57, 63, 27.12, 14, and never responds to comments made to him during the crucifixion scene.

143 Verheyden, “L'Ascension d'Isaie et l'évangile de Matthieu,” 270. 144 Knight, Disciples, 277. 145 Hammershaimb, Unterweisung in erzählender Form: Das Martyrium Jesajas, 32; Knight, Disciples, 277 (though Knight fails to mention any synoptic parallels). 146 For the critical edition see Jean-Claude Fredouille, De La Patience, Sources Chrétiennes 310 (Longuenesse: Imprimerie de l'Indépendant, 1999).

The actual mode of execution is not as obviously imitative as in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, though the method of crucifixion and sawing were both used by the Romans. As noted by Henten, Suetonius makes the claim that Caligula adopted the practice of sawing people in half.147 The selection of a Roman mode of execution might have the dual function in the AscIs of associating the death of Isaiah and Jesus via a common link, and serve as a means of associating the in-group opponents of the AscIs’ community with Roman oppressors, a tactic used in other martyrdom traditions as noted by Candida Moss.148

As with the other proposed affiliations in § 2.1 and § 2.2, the strength of these figural associations to suggest the impact of the Matthean tradition lies in their collective power. Moreover, some figural associations are not exclusive to the Matthean tradition, but are found elsewhere in the synoptic tradition. However, the presence of exclusive points of contact between the AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew allow these non-exclusive affiliations to be included within the argument. For the exclusive associations have transferable power to suggest that non-exclusive associations are still the product of Matthean influence. Hence, the collective presentation allows for the strongest possible argument, namely, that the AscIs has knowledgably fashioned the figure of Isaiah as a mimic of the Matthean Jesus.149

3.2. The Development of a Motif The reception of early Jesus traditions in martyrological texts is far from an uncommon practice. The AscIs falls broadly within this tradition in which the martyred figure is literarily intended to mimic the Jesus tradition (in this case, the Matthean tradition). Still, two further pieces of evidence supplement this reading of the AcsIs.

First, 4 Baruch (Paralipomena Jeremiae) incorporates the AscIs showcasing knowledge of the

147 Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 93n23; Suetonius Hist. Aug. Cal. 27.3. See Greg Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah: An Example of Early Christian Narrative Polemic,” JSP 9.17 (1998): 77. 148 See Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford University Press, 2010), 59-61. 149 The association between Isaiah and the Jesus tradition has been identified in previous studies, but lacks any sustained exploration. See Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 65: “Isaiah [is] a type of the Beloved…”; Bart Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 537: “There are parallels between the deaths of Isaiah and Christ: the former is executed because of his vision of the latter; both suffer at the hands of the people of Jerusalem inspired by Beliar; the death of both involve tree imagery (crucified on a tree; sawed in half by a treesaw).”

AscIs and further shaping the central prophetic figure of the narrative in christological terms. The text is closely associated with the AscIs as both (pseudepigraphic) compositions feature a prophet from Israel’s history who is martyred for proclaiming visionary content featuring a christological figure.150 After Jeremiah returns to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon (4 Bar. 8.1-9), he and his associates offer sacrifices for nine days (9.1). On the tenth day of sacrifice, Jeremiah prays in an Isaianic fashion (9.3, “ἅγιος ἅγιος ἅγιος …”) and then “became like one of those who had died” (9.7 “ἐγένετο ὡς εἷς τῶν παραδιδόντων τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ”). Those who begin to mourn the ‘death’ of Jeremiah proceeded to make the preparations for burial (9.10), but are interrupted when they hear a voice saying, “Do not bury the one who is still alive, for his soul is entering his body again (9.11).” Then, after three days, the soul of Jeremiah returns to his body and he begins to utter an eschatological discourse (9.13-18) which, in turn, angers “the people” (9.19 “ὁ λαὸς”).

The source of anger is rooted in the Jeremiah’s claim to have seen one who is “adorned by his Father and coming into the world on the Mount of Olives…” (9.18 “κεκοσµηµένον ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐρχόµενον εἰς τὸν κόσµον εἰς τὸν κόσµον εἰς τὸν κόσµον”). The people then draw a correlation between this claim and the one made by Isaiah in AscIs 3.9-10, noting, “These again are the words that were spoken by Isaiah, son of Amos, saying, “I saw God and the Son of God (4 Bar. 9.20).” As a result, they are determined to kill Jeremiah, as Isaiah before him was killed, only “not by the same sort of death as [Isaiah’s].” The similarity between 4 Bar. and the AscIs is striking at this point. Both texts feature a prophet who experiences a visionary illumination that is to be passed down to his prophet guild and is killed for having such knowledge, specifically, for ‘seeing’ the Beloved/Son. The ‘death’ of Jeremiah for three days, only to be followed by a resuscitation, explicitly confirms the christological association intended to be made between prophet and the Jesus tradition. In this conclusion (redacted or not), 4 Baruch confirms a developing tradition that is, in part, rooted in the AscIs’ presentation of Isaiah as an interpretive imitation of the Jesus tradition.

Second, Justin uses the tradition of the death of Isaiah in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. The tradition of Isaiah’s death functions as an example of the kind of treatment that is typical if and when Typho’s teachers truly comprehend the words of the prophets of Israel. In other words, for

150 Greek quotes from 4 Baruch comes from Jen Herzer, 4 Baruch [Paraleipomena Jeremiou]: Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 1-39.

Justin, if Trypho’s teachers had comprehended the words of the prophets, they would have responded to them in a similar fashion as they did to Isaiah, namely, with lethal intent. What is pertinent to note here is not only the fact that Justin attests the tradition of Isaiah being sawed in half, but that Justin further claims that Isaiah, particularly in the mode of his death, is a “mysterious type of Christ (Dialogue, 120.5: “µυστήριον καὶ αὐτό τοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ τέµνειν ὑµῶν τὸ γένος διχῆ µέλλοντος”).” Yet, since the basic tradition of Isaiah being sawed in half is widely attested,151 the association between Isaiah’s death and its function as a µυστήριον of Christ in Justin’s formulation is not necessarily dependent upon the AscIs (although influence in this direction remains possible). Still, what Justin’s reference attests is a tradition that sees in the death of Isaiah an association with the death of Jesus.

4. Conclusion: The AscIs as a Literary Prequel for the Gospel of Matthew Having surveyed formal instances of Matthean reception in the AscIs as well as the impact of the Matthean tradition on the figure of Isaiah, it is now evident that the AscIs offers an intentional figural reading of the Jesus tradition, displaying an interest to weave the narrative elements of this early Christian tradition into the fabric of its own narrative. Köhler rightly makes a similar observation: “sie nicht die ‘Worte’, sondern die Geschichte Jesu zu ihrem Thema macht und rezipiert.” 152 The AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew are then literarily bonded as a result of reception history.

Arising from this receptive-binding is a unique temporal dimension in which the AscIs functions as a prequel to Matthew and thereby ties off a literary circle first initiated by Matthew. The prevalence of the Book of Isaiah in Matthew – in which an assortment of texts from Isaiah are deployed as authenticating reference points throughout the narrative (see Matt 1.22-23, 3.3, 8.17, 12.17-21, 13.14-15, 15.7-9, 21.4-5, 21.13) – provides the Matthean half of this linkage. By offering a narrative that accounts for Isaiah’s knowledge and literary preservation of the Matthean Jesus tradition, the AscIs fills in the other half of this link. Still, the function of AscIs as

151 See e.g. the sources discussed in Henry A. Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet (A Study in Jewish Literature)," JQR 3 (1947): 277; Herzer, 4 Baruch [Paraleipomena Jeremiou], 155n90; Eli Yassif, “Traces of Folk Traditions of the Second Temple Period in Rabbinic Literature,” JJS 39 (1988): 217. 152 Köhler, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums, 308.

45 a literary prequel to Matthew is not only posited simply as an implication of reception, but can be identified within the text itself. For instance, in AscIs 4.20-21, Isaiah concludes the description of his vision stating that a more detailed articulation of its content is written in three parables within the “book which [he] publicly prophesied.” That this ‘book’ refers to the Book of Isaiah is suggested in AscIs 4.21, which specifically notes that the “descent of the Beloved” is written in the section that says “Behold my Son will understand”; a reference to Isaiah 52.13 (see Irenaeus Epid. 68). Again, in AscIs 11.39-40 Isaiah forbids Hezekiah from verbally or textually transmitting the contents of his vision; however – though the opening of 11.40 is broken – Isaiah notes that “such things you will read.” This also appears to reflect an intentional reference to the Book of Isaiah as first hand source that contains the contents of Isaiah’s vision – content that is thoroughly Matthean.

To summarize, the AscIs narrates how Isaiah acquires knowledge of the Jesus tradition and how he encoded that tradition for later dissemination in the Book of Isaiah – later unpacked in Matthew. As a result, the prevalence of Isaiah in the Gospel of Matthew can be interpreted as a historical unfolding of Isaiah’s vision in the AscIs. In other words, by rereading the Gospel of Matthew from the vantage point of the AscIs, the prevalence of Isaiah in Matthew is given a narratival and temporal context. On a literary level, then, the AscIs functions as a prequel for the Gospel of Matthew as both texts are bound together in a mutually informing relation, perhaps especially for the community affiliated with the AscIs.

Chapter 2 Martyred Prophets and In-Group Polemics: The Perpetuation of Matthean Christianity in the Ascension of Isaiah

Imitating something or someone involves an understanding of what that thing or person is, an interpretation of his or her significance. – Moss153

Efforts to narrate the literary and social function of the AscIs have recurrently opted to examine particular textual features that are claimed to provide the most relevant “extratextual conditions”.154 Jonathan Knight, for example, seizes upon AscIs 4.1-13 and distills an imperially conditioned situation (in which early Christians were required to sacrifice to the Roman emperor) in the reference to ‘sacrifice’ in AscIs 4.8.155 Others, such as Enrico Norelli, Antonio Acerbi, and Robert Hall, have offered a reconstruction of the communal dynamics of the AscIs community based upon the actions of Isaiah’s prophetic guild throughout the text, though these scholars articulate that correlation differently (that is, using different texts gleaned from the AscIs to recreate the interests of the prophet school).156 As noted earlier, the ‘prophetic school’ approach, which views the AscIs as a text representing an early Christian prophetic guild with a christological orientation that is defensively engaged with larger and more authoritarian movements, remains a compelling framework. Still, Greg Carey has pushed this discussion forward, in part, by offering a cautionary warning against what he terms a “two-level reading”.157

153 Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford University Press, 2010), 4. 154 Greg Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah: An Example of Early Christian Narrative Polemic,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 9.17 (1998): 66. 155 Jonathan Knight, Disciples of the Beloved One: The Christology, Social Setting and Theological of the Ascension of Isaiah, JSPSup 18 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 25-92 156 Antonio Acerbi, L’Ascensione di Isaia: cristologia e profetismo in Siria nei primi decenni del II secolo (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1989), 246-53; Enrico Norelli Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), 49, 169-78, 237-40; Robert G. Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah: Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early Christianity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 109.2 (1990): 289-99. 157 Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 66.

46 47

According to Carey, readers of the AscIs are often guided by a simple dictum: “textual details reveal traces of their origins.”158 But which textual details should be privileged, and why?159Accordingly, rather than pursue a two-level reading, Carey asks a literary-rhetorical question: “Why should the apocalypse purport to be a vision of Isaiah?”160 This question guides Carey into a wider examination of the ways that the Book of the Isaiah has been utilized in early Christian discourse, allowing Carey to compare the final form of the AcsIs with neighboring traditions in order to discover a common social and literary milieu.161 Carey’s attempt to access the rhetorical (and, by implication, social) function of the AscIs is certainly aided by the wider consideration of Isaiah’s function in early Christianity, as this strategy avoids locating the text’s functionality within a reconstructed reading that is itself dependent upon contentiously selected textual details.162 Instead, the approach adopted by Carey attempts to take the text as a whole and considers, through the tool of comparison, the most reliable historical context in which that text is to be placed.163 In light of Carey’s challenge, how might the literary and social function of the AscIs be considered without attempting to unearth historical situations from selective portions of the text (which continue to remain opaque in terms of historical referent)? How might the reception of the Matthean tradition (chapter 2) relate to the question of social and literary functionality?

158 Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 66. 159 Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 69. David Lincicum poses a similar challenge with regards to Pauline pseudepigraphy. See “Mirror-Reading a Pseudepigraphic Letter,” NovT 58 (2017):171-193. 160 Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 69. 161 Having considered the function of Isaiah in the Gospel of Mark, Revelation, Barnabas, Justin’s Dialogue, and Origen’s Contra Celsum, Carey identifies a number of similarities between the AscIs and this text pool regarding the claim of ignorance amongst Jewish groups regarding Jesus’ true identity and the resultant hard-heartedness, particularly with the aid of Isaiah 6 (“The Ascension of Isaiah,” 69-73). 162 While Carey’s method is laudable, the application of the method suffers in that it fails to reckon with the Matthean context for the use of the figure Isaiah, and it uncritically locates the AscIs with the streams of early Christianity that are most distant from the Jewish tradition. As a result, the thoroughly anti-Judaic usages of the Book of Isaiah function as an interpretive grid at the expense of the Jewish setting and background of the text. 163 While Robert Hall selects portions of the AscIs as a means of accessing the text’s rhetorical situation (namely, 3.13- 31 and 6.1-17), his approach is akin to Carey’s. Hall concludes that AscIs 3.13-31 and 6.1-17 reflect a rhetorical communal situation best described by Norelli and Acerbi, namely, that of a small prophetic school aiming to establish their communal interests before wider authoritative communities that remain opposed to either the practice of visionary ascent or the doctrine of the ascent and descent of the Beloved (“The Ascension of Isaiah: Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early Christianity,” JBL 109.2 [1990]: 289-300). Moreover, with the aid of Revelation, the Epistles of Ignatius, the Johannine Gospel and Epistles, and the Odes of Solomon, Hall suggests that the communal situation found in AscIs fits a late first- or early second-century date (“The Ascension of Isaiah,” 300-306).

The aim of this chapter will not be to explore the literary and social function of the AscIs through a wider comparison with related motifs. While it may be enticing to juxtapose the AscIs with other accounts of prophet-martyrdom and other polemic narratives which employ ancient heroes – traditions that the AscIs is intimately associated with – and then continue to articulate the AscIs’ place within these traditions, the findings of chapter 2 provide a more targeted, and unavoidable, direction to pursue. Since the previous chapter has argued that the AscIs receives the Matthean tradition in order to fashion the figure of Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus (focused particularly upon the themes of prophet and martyr) and for this reason, functions as a literary prequel that binds the AscIs to the Matthean tradition, this chapter asks: Since there is an association between Matthew and the AscIs by way of reception, is there any correlation between the literary and social function of Matthew and that of the AscIs?

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that there is indeed such a correlation. Accordingly, it will show that by juxtaposing the AscIs with the dual traditions of martyred-prophets and in- group Jewish polemics, the proximate association between the AscIs and the Matthean tradition is further reinforced. Additionally, and more to the point, these traditions provide an access point through which the perpetuation of Matthean Christianity in the AscIs can be identified. For by polemically engaging wider authoritative groups in order to substantiate the praxis of the smaller community, particularly with the aid of the martyred prophet and in-group polemics featuring an esteemed figure, the Matthean tradition functions as a template that is readily amenable for the interests of the community reflected in the AscIs. Hence, the focus of this chapter will be to articulate an aspect of the Wirkungsgeschichte (‘history of influence) of the Matthean tradition.

The following chapter will unfold in two central parts prior to a conclusion: the first section will focus on the ‘martyred prophets’ tradition as a means of showing that the Matthean tradition is the closest contextual referent for AscIs’ use of the theme, the second section will consider the use of esteemed figures from the Jewish tradition in polemical discourses, before juxtaposing this tradition with the polemic thrust of the AscIs and Gospel of Matthew, and the final section will synthesize these findings into a conclusion regarding the connection between the dual traditions of martyred prophets and in-group polemics, the Matthean tradition, and the literary and social function of the AscIs.

1. The Tradition of Martyred Prophets: A Matthean Access Point 1.1. The Tradition of Martyred Prophets The martyred prophet motif, of which the AscIs is a specific instantiation, is a subset within the larger literary martyrdom tradition.164 H. A. Fischel’s mid-twentieth-century study of martyred prophets in (mostly) rabbinic traditions collects much of this material into a single deposit.165 As noted by Fischel, et al., the general motif of martyred prophets is already embedded within the Chron 1 ,( ְו ֶאת־נְ ִבי ֶ֣איך ָה ָ֔רגוּ) Tanakh, citing, for example, the general statements found in Neh 9.26 The death 166.(’ ִאם־יֵ ָהֵ֛רג ְבּ ִמ ְק ַ֥דּשׁ ֲאד ָֹ֖ני כּ ֵֹ֥הן ְונָ ִבֽיא‘) cf. Ps 105.15), and Lam 2.20 ’וּ ִבנְ ִבי ַ֖אי אַ ָל־תֵּ ֽרעו‘) 16.22 of individual prophets, the threat of death, or a reference to some persecution or action of violence, is mentioned frequently in these early Jewish sources (see e.g. 1 Kings 22.24, 2 Chron 18.23 [Micaiah], Jer 26.21-23 [Uriah], 1 Kings 19.10, 14 [Elijah cf. Rom 11.3], (Jer 15.15, 17.18, 20.2, 11 [Jeremiah], and 2 Chron 24.21 [Zechariah]).167 References to this tradition can

164 When surveying the history of Jewish and Christian martyrological traditions, the book of Daniel is accented as a point of inception, especially chapters 3 and 6. Closely associated with this Danielic tradition are the records of death found in the Maccabean literature, specifically, 2 and 4 Maccabees (1 Macc. 6.43-6 is also relevant here; see Jan Willem van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People: A Study of and Maccabees [Leiden: Brill, 2005]). Jan Willem van Henten has posed both a working definition and literary pattern that encompasses much of the relevant Jewish and Christian literature. With respect to the definition of a ‘martyr’, Henten suggests that martyrs are: “persons who die a specific heroic death (2).” Since the term ‘heroic’ requires further elucidation and the term ‘specific’ is ambiguous, this definition is too encompassing. Still, Henten helpfully leaves aside points that can fluctuate, such as motivations, modes of execution, and rhetorical strategies. As a supplement to Henten, the definition offered by deSilva is instructive: “The term ‘martyr’ is usually used to describe a person who chooses to accept death rather than violate his or her allegiance to a higher cause; in religious environments, this generally means refusing to compromise his or her performance of his or her obligations to God and the values or behaviors prescribed by God as delineated by his or her particular religious tradition (Martyrs and Martyrdom in Jewish Late Antiquity,” in Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus [ed. Craig Evans; London: Routledge, 2008], 386).” Henten goes on to note that “the meaning (sic) ‘martyr’ referring to people who were executed because they remained obedient to their Christian faith and identity and refused to make concessions to the Roman authorities occurs for the first time in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (155–160 CE) (2).” Concerning the literary pattern found in written accounts of martyrdom, Henten distills the following pattern: (i) a (typically) pagan enactment is the catalyst for the narrative whereby breaching of the enactment is marked by a death penalty, (ii) the enforcement of this enactment challenges the loyalty of either Jews or Christians to their respective religious traditions, (iii) Jews or Christians decide to choose death rather than concede to the demands of the enactment and therein act unfaithfully, (iv) this decision is made known during an examination process and is occasionally followed by torture, (v) the final execution is either described or indicated (4). Accordingly, Henten concedes that the suitability of his definition of a martyr is particularly well tailored for Christian and Jewish sources rather than ‘pagan’ sources – which, instead, receive the label of ‘noble death’ (5). 165 H. A. Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet (A Study in Jewish Literature),” JQR.NS 37 (1946/47): 276–77. 166 Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet,” 270. See also 1 Kings 18.13, 19.10. 167 Fischel (“Martyr and Prophet,” 270) argues that the repeated references to the prophets not being obeyed or listened to, implies some form suffering on their part (citing 2 Chron 15.1, 8, 24.19, 36.14f, 2 Kings 17.13f, Dan. 9.6 10, Neh

50 also been found in Jubilees 1.12 and 1 Enoch 89.53, although the rejection of the prophets is here foregrounded rather than explicit persecution (though that may be implied).

For Fischel, this well attested, yet relatively basic, motif continued to develop into an established tradition in the first and second century, evidenced, in part, by the apparent assumption of this tradition in a number of texts from the period. The tradition can be stated in overarching terms, as it is in James 5.10 (which refers to the overarching “suffering and patience”/“τῆς κακοπαθείας καὶ τῆς µακροθυµίας” of the prophets) and the Testament of Levi 16.2 (“In perversion you will persecute righteous men”);168 however, more often, the source of persecution is located in, for example, “οἱ πατέρες” (Acts 7.52 ) or “ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰουδαίων” (1 Thess 2.14-15). Matthew 23.29-37 (par. Lk 11.48-51) stands out as a chief example of this (as does Mt 5.12, 21.35-36, cf. Jub. 1.12).169 Of the six recorded deaths in the Lives of the Prophets, five prophets are killed by leaders: Isaiah is sawed in half by Manasseh (Liv. Pro. 1.1), Ezekiel is killed in Judea by the “leader of the people of Israel” (Liv. Pro. 3.1-2), Micah is hanged by Joram (6.1), Amos is struck with a club by the son of Amaziah and later dies from his wound (7.1-2), and Zechariah is killed at the altar by Joash king of Judah (23.1). The death of Jeremiah is referenced in Liv. Pro. 2.1, and the location of his death is in Taphnes (in Egypt), and the mode of death is stoning (cf. Par. Jer./4 Baruch 9.31); however, the source of his death is simply ‘the people’ (2.1) and is therefore ambiguous. 1 Clement 45.4 is also (slightly) ambiguous regarding the source of prophet persecution. While the prophets appear to be the implied referent behind the use of “δίκαιοι” in 45.4, since the concrete example used in 45.6 is Daniel, the terms used to refer to the source of persecution (lawless [“ἀνόµων”], unholy [“ἀνοσίων”], transgressor [“παρανόµων”], defiled [“µιαρὸν”]) are most likely a general reference to those who oppose the prophets (and if any specific group is to be identified here it would be the Babylonian leadership as these are the persecutors in the example used in 45.6).

In the second-century text, 5 Ezra, the “word of the Lord” comes to Ezra and contains a recounting of the history of Israel. This historical review includes the line, “I sent you my

9.26, 30, 32, Lam 2.20; 4.16, Jer 7.25, 25.4f, as well as Baruch 1.21, 2.20, 24, 4 Ezra 7. 60). 168 The wider parallelism operative here suggests that ‘righteous men’ is a reference to the prophets (“[you] will disdain the words of the prophets, by evil perverseness. In perversion you will persecute righteous men.”). See also Matt 10.41. 169 Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet,” 265.

51 servants the prophets, but you have taken and killed them and torn their bodies in pieces; I will require their blood of you, says the Lord (1.32).”170 This section opens in 1.4-5 with, “Go, declare to my people their evil deeds, and to their children the iniquities that they have committed against me, so that they may tell their children's children.” Thus, the Jewish source of persecution is made clear and is used as a departure for the larger supersessionistic interests of the text (cf. 5 Ezra 2.10). Moving from the second century to the third, Tertullian seizes upon a number of prophets from this tradition who are killed by leadership groups in order to substantiate his larger purposes concerning the emotive aspirations of an ideal martyr (see Scorpiace 8; see also John Chrysostom Homilies on Matthew 74).

Turning to the Rabbinic tradition – the original focus of Fischel’s article – the tradition of martyred prophets continues to find attestation. Fischel identifies different articulations of this tradition, noting that the “words” of the prophets are rejected (citing e.g. Lam. Rab. 24, ʿOlam Rab. 24, Pesiq. Rab. 153b), that all the prophets face persecution by their own people (citing Tanh. Mishpatim 12, Pesiq. Rab Kah. 125af., Lev. Rab. 13.2, Exod. Rab. 7, Lam. Rab. 4), and that the persecution of the prophets is used as the reason for the destruction of Jerusalem in the First Jewish War (citing Exod. Rab. 31, Pesiq. Rab Kah. 14).171 Moreover, as Fischel notes, references to the death of individual prophets such as Uriah (citing Sifre Num 88, ʿOlam Rab. 24, Mo’ed Kat. 26a [referenced indirectly], Lam. Rab. 10, 24) and Jeremiah (citing y. Sanh., Pesiq. Rab Kah., Pesiq. Rab.) can also be found.172

As an inference from the wide spread attestation of this motif, Fischel concludes that the tradition of martyred prophets by various groups of Jewish leadership became a commonly held notion in the first and second century.173 The literary and chronological span of the textual evidence substantiates Fischel’s claim. This martyred prophet tradition reveals two overarching elements that are relatively common throughout. First, within the contexts of these narratives, the prophet is usually killed by some leadership group (for Jewish leadership see, Jer 26.21, 1 Kings

170 For critical edition of 5 Ezra see Theodore A. Bergren, “Appendix 2: 5 Ezra, An Eclectic Latin Text,” in Fifth Ezra: The Text, Origin and Early History, SBLSCS 25 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 395-99. 171 Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet,” 271. 172 Fischel, “Martyr and Prophet,” 272. 173 See also Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qurʾan and the Theme of Jews as ‘Killers of the Prophets’,” al-Bayān 10 (2012): 17.

19.10, 2 Chron 24.21, Neh 9.26, 1 Kings 18; for non-Jewish leadership see, 1 Clement 45.4). Second, the message (and subsequent rejection) of the prophet is often the catalyst for the martyrdom (see e.g. Jer 26.21; Liv. Pro. 3.2, 6.1). There is, however, a third consideration that deserves articulation. In the earliest references, this tradition functions as a key datum towards providing a negative description of a certain generation in Israel’s history, which, in turn, serves to explain the Babylonian exile (or the destruction of the Second Temple in the relevant Rabbinic texts). Transitioning into early Christian usage, the tradition of martyred prophets provides a framework that can be wielded for anti-Judaic discourse. There is, then, a chronological morphology of this tradition in terms of its literary function. Identifying the point at which this thoroughly Jewish tradition is used in a totalizing and anti-Judaic fashion, in which Jewish groups are wholly ‘other’, and those instances in which the tradition functions to perpetuate an in-group Jewish polemic, is not easy to parse out historically. Still, the difference between Neh 9.26, and, for example, Chrysostom’s Homilies on Matthew 74, is palpable.

The AscIs fits fairly comfortably within the first two generalizations of this tradition. Within the context of the narrative, Isaiah is killed by some partition of Jewish leadership, and the eschatological content of Isaiah’s visionary experience is the catalyst for the martyrdom. Locating the AscIs within the third distillation – the function of the tradition in a given context – is more difficult to determine. As noted earlier, disagreement on this point is evidenced in the differing proposals of Carey and, on the other hand, Henning and Nicklas. For Carey, the tradition of Isaiah’s death at the hand of the Jewish leadership is evidence for the anti-Judaic element of the text, whereas for Henning and Nicklas, since the text never uses a term for ‘Christian’ as a descriptor of the in-group, nor refers to ‘Jews’ as a totalized ‘other’, the death of Isaiah functions as an attempt to produce a valorizing history for a contemporary prophetic school that finds value in mystical ascent experiences.174 It is here that the reception of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs provides a constructive tool for conceptualizing the literary and social function of the AscIs. For while the AscIs occupies a place within this tradition of martyred prophets, it stands out from the tradition in that it exemplifies a much more elaborate

174 Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 69-77; Meghan Henning and Tobias Nicklas, “Questions of Self-Designation in the Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, eds. Jan N. Bremmer, Thomas R. Karmann, Tobias Nicklas. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 11 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 196.

53 expression of the motif.175 What often appears as a brief reference is manifest as an extended narrative in the AscIs. This disjunction between the martyred prophet tradition and the AscIs, coupled with the reception of the Matthean tradition as a means of presenting Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus, suggests that the AscIs is not simply a general narrative expansion of the martyred-prophet motif, seizing upon a well attested tradition and forming a narrative from out of its basic components; rather, the martyred prophet motif in the AscIs is designed to imitate and preview the Matthean Jesus. Therefore, it is profitable to examine whether there is any correlation between the function of the martyred prophet motif in Matthew as well as in the AscIs.

1.2. Martyrdom, Figure Valorization, and Communal Authority The Gospel of Matthew displays a dual interest in the tradition of martyred prophets. On the one hand, the tradition functions as a mechanism by which other groups are associated and, by implication, criticized. This use is evidenced in Matt. 5.12 (“µακάριοί ἐστε ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν ὑµᾶς καὶ διώξωσιν…οὕτως γὰρ ἐδίωξαν τοὺς προφήτας τοὺς πρὸ ὑµῶν” [vv11-12]) in which the whole premise is based upon knowledge of some prophet-persecution tradition and Jesus’ disciples are associated with the prophets.176 On the other hand, one of the chief narrative functions of the martyred prophet tradition is to present Jesus as the climactic successor of the martyred prophet tradition, who himself is killed as a martyred prophet at the hands of Jewish and Roman leadership.

Jesus is explicitly presented as a prophet in Matt 10.41, 21.11, 36, and implicitly in Matt 13.57. The ‘martyrdom’ element of the equation is clearly noted in Matt 21.33-46, the parable of the vineyard. In this parable, the landowner (“οἰκοδεσπότης”) sends his servants to the farmers of the vineyard (“τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ πρὸς τοὺς γεωργοὺς”), who beat (“ἔδειραν”), kill (“ἀπέκτειναν”), and stone (“ἐλιθοβόλησαν”) the servants (21.33-34). The use of δοῦλος in 21.34- 36 is clearly intended as a reference to the tradition of martyred prophets; echoes of 2 Kings 9.7, 17.13; Jer 7.25, 26.5, 29.19, 35.15, 44.4; Ezek 38.17, Zech 1.6, and Num 12.8 can be heard (see

175 For a similar observation see David Arthur deSilva, “Jewish Martyrology and the Death of Jesus,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins: Essays from the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, eds. James Charlesworth and Gerbern Oegema (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 57. 176 In Gundry’s reading ‘πρὸ ὑµῶν’ implies that the disciples of Jesus are to be seen as prophets (Matthew: A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982] 74).

54 also 5 Ezra 1.32, 2.1). Kloppenborg notes that “Matthew’s depiction of the ‘slaves’ in the role of prophets in turn associates the ‘son’ (=Jesus) with the prophets, something that Matthew is otherwise also quite happy to do (see Matt 5,12; 13,57; 23. 34. 37).”177 Gundry also makes the observation that the description of ‘stoning’ in Matt 21 anticipates Matt 23.37, in which Jerusalem is described as a city that “kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.”178 This latter text – Matt 23.29-37 – is perhaps the most poignant display of this tradition in the Gospel of Matthew.179 As the narrative of Matthew unfolds, Jesus joins the tradition evoked in Matt 23.29-37 and is thereby associated with a valorized history in Israel’s tradition which, in turn, validates the array of interpretive issues occupying the polemical exchanges in the earlier portions of the narrative. Hence, the tradition of martyred prophets possesses a dual import in Matthew. It vilifies the opponents of the Matthean community by associating them with a literarily deviant group and it validates the interpretive aims of the Matthean community as reflected in the Matthean Jesus, which is a form of authority generation.

The findings of the previous chapter, that the AscIs functions as a literary prequel for the Gospel of Matthew in which the content of the Matthean tradition was given to Isaiah in visionary form and later encoded within the Book of Isaiah, is further reinforced when both Matthew and the AscIs are juxtaposed with the tradition of martyred prophets. While this wider tradition of martyred prophets provides a general literary milieu that established the theme as a meaningful tool, such elaborate expressions of the martyred prophet tradition in the AscIs and Matthew, expressions that are imitative of one another, further reinforces the literary binding of these texts. Still, this juxtaposition has not substantially opened up new perspectives on the literary and social function of the AscIs beyond providing a specifically Matthean context for the AscIs’ desire to establish a validating communal history using an esteemed figure, whose principled death works to produce authority for the contemporary community. This rhetorical tactic embedded within the AscIs has been recognized without its specifically Matthean context.180 However, since the presentation of Jesus within the martyred prophet tradition is, in Matthew,

177 John S. Kloppenborg, The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine, WUNT 195 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 181. 178 Gundry, Matthew, 426. 179 Gundry, Matthew, 471, notes that the use of ‘murdered’ in 23.35, instead of ‘perished’, conforms to 2 Chron. 24.22. 180 Hall, “The Ascension of Isaiah,” 298-300.

55 subsumed within a larger polemical interest regarding neighboring Jewish leadership groups (scribes, Pharisees, elders, etc), it is appropriate to explore the polemical setting of both texts, together with the tradition of using esteemed figures for in-group Jewish conflicts.

2. Esteemed Figures and In-group Jewish Polemics: Defending Group Praxis 2.1. Esteemed Figures and In-Group Jewish Polemics In addition to the tradition of martyred prophets, the AscIs occupies a position within a group of texts featuring esteemed figures from the Jewish tradition who are engaged in polemical discourse with their respective leadership group or some adjacent group within a common religious milieu. John Marshall has previously examined a selection of tropes within a number of apocalyptic discourses in order to narrate the toxic redeployment of these inner-group Jewish resources for later inter-group disputes.181 Concerning the Enochic literature, Marshall highlights a passage within the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90) – the portion of 1 Enoch containing an allegorical retelling of Israel’s history – which focuses on the destruction of the first Temple from the vantage point of the internal strains entrenched within Judaism at the time of the Maccabean revolt.182 While Marshall identifies the power that divine causation has throughout the narrative, a power that can even override the autonomy of Gentile actors (a feature of apocalypticism relevant for examining the dynamics embedded within later Christian re- employments of the same literary mode), what is germane for the present discussion is how the author presents prophets who are sent to and rejected by the “sheep” (1 Enoch 89.51-52 referring to the Elijah narrative), and how the sheep later “abandon the house of the Lord” resulting in the “wild beasts” devouring the sheep and leaving their house desolate (1 Enoch 89.55-56). The point of interest here is the targeted audience and overall function of Enoch’s polemical focus. For the ‘Animal Apocalypse’ a partition of Israel is targeted as an unfaithful group (“abandoned”) and is therefore responsible for the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian exile.

181 John W. Marshall “Apocalypticism and Anti-Semitism: Inner-Group Resources for Inter-Group Conflicts,” in Apocalypticism, Anti-Semitism and the Historical Jesus: Subtexts in Criticism, eds. John S. Kloppenborg and John Marshall, Subtexts in Criticism 275 (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005) 68-82. 182 Marshall, “Apocalypticism and Anti-Semitism,” 71-72.

A similar perspective is found in 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and 4 Baruch, all texts written in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple. In a manner similar to 1 Enoch, these texts utilize an interrelated mixture of divine causation and human disobedience in order to discuss the destruction of the temple in the aftermath of the First Jewish War. In 2 Bar. 13.9-12, Baruch is given a prepared response when the exiled people of Israel ask him when they will be delivered. In that response Baruch is to say that God “did not spare his own sons first, but he afflicted them as his enemies because they sinned. Therefore, they were once punished, that they might be forgiven.” Further, the combination of divine causation and human disobedience is succinctly displayed in 2 Bar. 77.4, “And because your brothers have transgressed the commandments of the Most High, he brought vengeance upon you and upon them and did not spare the ancestors, but he also gave the descendants into captivity and did not leave a remnant of them.”183 A similar perspective on the exile (that is, an event caused by the sin of the people) is also described in 4. Bar. 1.8 (“I am going to destroy [Jerusalem] for the multitude of the sins of those who inhabit it.”

In these texts, the priests of Jerusalem are the polemical focus of the esteemed figure, with respect to either the exile or the destruction of the Second Temple. In 2 Baruch 10.18, Baruch rhetorically addresses the priests of the temple and instructs them to throw the keys of the sanctuary into the highest heavens so that God may guard the Temple. The reason for this resignation of duty is that, “[the priests] have been found to be false stewards (10.18).” Similarly in 4 Baruch 4.4-6, Jeremiah himself takes the keys of the temple and throws them into the sun, saying, “take the keys of the Temple of God and keep, them until the day in which the Lord will question you about them. Because we were not found worthy of keeping them, for we were false stewards.”

Similar themes can be found in 4 Ezra. In 4 Ezra 3.4-36 Ezra recounts the history of Israel, beginning with Adam, moving through the Davidic kingdom, and culminating in the Babylonian exile and resultant destruction of the temple. Having narrated the rise of David, Ezra describes how the inhabitants of Jerusalem exemplified an evil heart as Adam had done before them. As a result, “the inhabitants of the city [Jerusalem] transgressed, in everything doing just as Adam and

183 Cf. also 2 Bar. 36.7-11, 42.7, 62.5, 64.1-5, 79.2

57 all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart. So you [God] handed over your city to your enemies (4 Ezra 4.25-27).” Moreover, Ezra later chastises previous generations for their apparent disinterest in observing the stipulations of the Torah in 9.31-32 (“But though our fathers received the Law, they did not keep it, and did not observe the statutes.”), and is thoroughly pessimistic regarding the ultimate destiny of humanity in 10.10, which is presumably tethered to obedience to the law (“And from the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come; and behold, almost all go to perdition, and a multitude of them are destined for destruction.”).

Similar threads can also be identified in 5 Ezra, the Testament of Moses, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. While the religious location of 5 Ezra remains ambiguous, and the polemical function of the martyred prophet tradition is significantly escalated, 5 Ezra 1.4-23 contains a historical outline that, like 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Baruch, and 4 Ezra, focuses on the sins of the people as a catalyst for calamity (see esp. 5 Ezra 1.5-6). In T. Mos. 3.5, the two southern tribes say to the ten northern tribes, “Just and holy is the Lord. For just as you sinned, likewise we, with our little ones have now been led out with you.” Later in the narrative, the kings of Israel and the priests are portrayed as the chief parties culpable for the exile (see esp. T. Mos. 5.5, 6.1: “They will perform great impiety in the Holy of Holies.”). Finally, Ryszard Rubinkiewicz characterizes the perspective Apocalypse of Abraham regarding the destruction of the temple in distinction from 4 Ezra and 2 Bar., in that, for the Apoc. Ab., “The defeat was caused by the infidelity of Israel toward the covenant with God and the opportunistic politics of some leaders.”184 It is difficult to see how the Apoc. Ab. is manifestly different from 2 Bar. and 4 Ezra in this regard. During a vision that depicts the fate of Abraham’s descendants,185 which culminates in the destruction of the temple, Abraham asks:

Eternal One, the people you received from me are being robbed by the hordes of the heathen. They are killing some and holding others as aliens, and they burned the Temple with fire and they are stealing and destroying the beautiful things which are in it. Eternal, Mighty One! If this is so, why now have you afflicted my heart and why will it be so (27.4-6)?

The divine answer given to Abraham in 27.7 states that everything Abraham has seen regarding

184 Ryszard Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse of Abraham,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1983), 685. 185 Abraham’s descendants are described in 25.5: “the people who will come to me (God) out of you (Abraham) will make me angry.”

58 the destruction of the Temple, “will happen on account of your seed who will (continually) provoke me because of the body which you saw and the murder in what was depicted in the Temple of jealousy (cf. also 29.14).”

Pulling back from this tradition of esteemed Jewish figures used within polemical discourses allows for the extraction of some generalizations. The central concern of these texts reflects the division and dissonance generated by either the Maccabean revolt or by the First Jewish War (66-70 CE). As a result, when the destruction of either temple is under consideration, the general perspective of these texts is that Jerusalem was destroyed because of a lack of obedience to Torah (see e.g. 4 Ezra 3.27; 1 Enoch 89.51; 2 Baruch 1.3, 2, 62.5, 64.5, 77, 79.2; Apoc. Ab. 27.7; 4 Baruch 1.8, 4.6, 6.21; Jub. 15.33-34). Furthermore, if a leadership group is targeted for these events, it is typically the kings or priests who are culpable for the calamities (see e.g. 2 Bar. 10.1-14; 4 Baruch 4.4, T. Mos. 5.5, see also the Damascus Document [throughout] and the Community Rule [esp. 1.23-22, 8.13-14]). How then does the AscIs relate to this tradition and how does it serve to further establish a correlation between the literary and social function of Matthew and the AscIs?

2.2. Tailoring Matthean Christianity for the Defense of Group Praxis In his summary of this intra-Jewish conflict tradition (1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, T. Levi, Liv. Pro. are featured in the discussion), J. Andrew Overman inadvertently summarizes a central point of contact with the AscIs:

They [1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, T. Levi, Liv. Pro.] have interpreted the rejection and persecution they experience in terms of Israel's prophetic history and the fabled persecution of righteous men at the hands of corrupt leaders. These sectarian communities claim an association with the prophets of old, who were by this time widely recognized as righteous men and agents of God who were unjustly persecuted by corrupt leaders. In developing this theme these communities have begun to align themselves with some of the heroic underdogs of Israel's history. At the same time the Jewish leaders are being associated with some of the storied villains of the same history. The claim that the Jewish leaders have slain innocent blood and God's messengers or righteous becomes a common, albeit harsh, charge from the alienated communities in this period. It was one of several ways in which the community sought to discredit the leadership and to assert that

they, the sectarian community, were in truth God's chosen people.186

The mixture of vilifying contemporary opponents and validating one’s in-group by means of historical associations is a common thread that unites the AscIs with these texts. Additionally, the AscIs is also aligned with these texts in that it features the use of an esteemed figure from the Jewish tradition who has a visionary experience in which access to special knowledge is given.

Unlike this tradition, however, the AscIs is not concerned with either the divisions within Palestinian Judaism at the time of the Maccabean revolt, nor is it primarily concerned with the destruction of the Second Temple. Rather, the primary goal of the AscIs is reestablish the specific aspects of the community’s group praxis, namely, visionary ascent experiences. While the people who occupy Jerusalem are portrayed in a negative light, this presentation is not utilized as an explanation for the destruction of the Temple during the First Jewish War or the Babylonian Exile centuries earlier; rather, it is to explain the rejection of Isaiah, specifically, the content gleaned from his eschatological vision. Thus, as with the tradition of martyred prophets, the AscIs dwells within this tradition but contains significant adjustments that are worthy of note. Yet, these very adjustments function as another window into the association between the Matthean tradition and the AscIs and for the latter’s literary and social function.

The Jewish context of Matthew has long been recognized within Matthean scholarship, as scholars have repeatedly suggested that the Matthean community reflects a sectarian movement operating within Judaism, one that attempts to create a self-definition in relation to and distinction from other Jewish groups and therefore reflects a segment of the early Christian movement that does not conceptualize its own community as that which is differentiated from Judaism in toto.187 Still, Matthew remains a thoroughly polemical text, as Verheyden notes,

186 J. Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 23. 187 For example, Verheyden writes, “What these groups have in common is, negatively, that they do not outrightly reject their Jewish roots and religious heritage, nor do they even struggle to free themselves from it, but positively, rather to ‘master’ their past and keep it functioning as well as possible within the new reality that is installed with and by Jesus and that they also fully recognize as such (“Jewish Christianity, A State of Affairs: Affinities and Differences with Respect to Matthew, James, and the Didache,” in Matthew, James, and Didache: Three Related Documents In Their Jewish and Christian Settings, eds. Huub van de Sandt and Jürgen K. Zangenburg [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008], 135).” Similarly, David C. Sim notes that, “There is little doubt that the most obvious setting of this community is the conflict with formative Judaism, though there is little agreement over the implications that follow from this (“Reconstructing the Social and Religious Milieu of Matthew: Methods, Sources, and Possible Results,” in Matthew, James, and Didache, 32).” See also Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago:

“Matthew is generally recognized to be singled out from the two other documents by its strong and sustained polemics against representatives of the Jewish religious authorities.”188 Stephen Wilson has succinctly distilled the dual focus of the polemical element in Matthew, noting that the chief priests (“οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς”) and elders (“οἱ πρεσβύτεροι”) are presented in relation to the death of Jesus (Wilson points to Matt 16.21, 21.45, 26-28), whereas the conflict between Jesus and the scribes (“οἱ γραµµατεῖς”) and the Pharisees (“οἱ Φαρισαῖοι”) revolves around interpretation of Torah and group praxis.189 Wilson, et al., seizes upon the discussions in Matthew regarding meals (9.11), fasting (9.14), the Sabbath (12.2,14), hand washing (15.1,12), divorce (19.3), and civic issues (22.15-16),190 and concludes that the polemical element reflects a struggle over communal authority and proper teaching, one that results in the Matthean community “tenaciously defending its version of Judaism over and against other minorities or the Jewish community at large.”191

Parallels between this Matthean context and that of the AscIs are easily identifiable. The AscIs is attempting to defend a specific communal praxis in light of other groups of Christ-devotees who reject their prophetic activity, and since the polemical thrust of Matthew also functions to establish support and narrative context for the particularities of the Matthean community in light of perceived challenge from neighboring traditions, the Matthean tradition provides a contextually appropriate body of material for the later struggle of the AscIs community. Moreover, just as Matthew has depicted the Jewish leaders as the party that is culpable for the

University of Chicago Press, 1994); J. Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism; Matthias Konradt, Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014); Anders Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative World of the First Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016); Huub van de Sandt, ed. Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2005); Graham Stanton, “The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980,” in Studies in Matthew and Early Christianity, eds. Markus Bockmuehl and David Lincicum, WUNT 306 (Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 9-75; Daniel M. Gurtner, “The Gospel of Matthew from Stanton to Present: A Survey of some Recent Developments,” in Jesus, Matthew’s Gospel and Early Christianity: Studies in Memory of Graham N. Stanton, eds. Daniel M. Gurtner, Joel Willitts, and Richard A. Burridge. LNTS 425 (London: T&T Clark, 2011) 23–38; David C. Sim, “Matthew: The Current State of Research,” in Mark and Matthew I: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in Their First-Century Settings, eds. Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson; (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 33–51. 188 Verheyden, “Jewish Christianity, A State of Affairs,” 130. So also Stephen Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 50: “Matthew is notorious for his polemic against the Jewish leaders.” 189 Wilson, Related Strangers, 51. 190 Wilson, Related Strangers, 51. See also Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community, 124-64. 191 Wilson, Related Strangers, 51.

61 condition of the ‘sheep’ (Matt 9.36, 10.6, 15.24), and thereby links a contemporary situation with a wider (and older) tradition, the AscIs presents its own opposing ‘leaders’ in a manner that strongly echoes the Matthean style (see AscIs 3.24, “And there will be many lawless elders and shepherds dealing wrongly by their own sheep”). Thus, while the polemical interest of Matthew is focused upon its own historically and regionally conditioned points of praxis, and the community represented by the AscIs possesses its own specific interests, both of these texts are seeking to establish and defend their own communal interests in reference to surrounding authoritative groups that challenge those interests. Thus, these characteristics of Matthean Christianity are acutely relevant for the social context of the AscIs.

3. Conclusion: The Ascension of Isaiah as a Perpetuation of Matthean Christianity Candida Moss rightly observes that any mode of reception that is intentionally imitative is thoroughly interpretive.192 While the previous chapter has shown that the AscIs intentionally imitates the Matthean tradition, this chapter has provided an articulation of the interpretative significance of that reception for the social and literary function of the AscIs. In other words, this chapter has intended to investigate the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition by exploring what the AscIs did with that tradition. The argument presented here is that the AscIs, in facing challenges from neighboring early Christian authorities which reject the group praxis of the community, seizes upon the template used for group disputes embedded within the Matthean tradition, namely, using a recipe of the martyred prophet motif and praxis defense by means of a central protagonist. While the function of the martyr-prophet motif and in-group polemical discourse in Matthew is used by a group of (centrally) Jewish Christ-devotees who are in conflict with the wider Jewish community, the AscIs has utilized this Matthean strategy for a more targeted debated within early Christianity. Thus, while the AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew have dissimilar interests relative to the polemical function of their respective central protagonist, and are polemically engaged with different religious communities, the Matthean tradition has

192 Moss, Other Christs, 4: “Imitating something or someone involves an understanding of what that thing or person is, an interpretation of his or her significance. In the case of ancient communities presenting their martyrs as Christly imitators, this involves a particular reading of traditions about Jesus, his death, his significance, and his work. By presenting martyrs as Christly imitators, the authors of the early martyrdom accounts provide scholars with a window into early Christian understandings of scripture, Christology, and soteriology.”

62 provided an appropriate framework that is amenably tailored to address the contemporary, and analogous, interests of the AscIs community.

The AscIs and the Gospel of Matthew are then comfortably situated within the dual traditions of martyred prophets and esteemed figures who are engaged in polemical discourse with their respective leadership group. Since these traditions are highly useful for matters of sectarian self- definition in the Gospel of Matthew, and the Matthean tradition itself provides the resources for the AscIs to fashion Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus, it is argued here at the AscIs functions as a second-century perpetuation of Matthean Christianity in order to challenge proximate leadership groups that oppose the particular interests of the community. Specifically, the AscIs imbibes the dual traditions of martyred prophets and in-group polemical discourse from esteemed figures as a means of perpetuating Matthean Christianity’s polemic style against leadership groups – groups that possess competitive and authoritarian influence – in order to substantiate the particular praxis of the smaller community. The AscIs is therefore a key datum within the larger Wirkungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition upon subsequent textual history.

Conclusion

It would not be taking a great liberty to imagine the author of Matthew writing another work, a pseudepigraphon about, say, visions of Moses – Marinus de Jonge

If the author(s) of the Gospel of Matthew wrote a pseudepigraphon, what would it look like? James Davila, in discussing the procedure of determining religious provenance of pseudepigrapha, suggests this hypothetical scenario, noting, “It would not be taking a great liberty to imagine that author of Matthew writing….a pseudepigraphon about, say, visions of Moses….such a work would include Jewish signature features….[as well as] vaticinia ex eventu or editorial foreshadowing regarding Jesus and early Christian theology.”193 While Davila’s interest here is to demonstrate the difficulties in determining the religious affiliation of pseudepigraphic texts written in the latter half of the first century and beyond, his suggestion is certainly stimulating as an analogy for the reception of the Matthean tradition in the Ascension of Isaiah.

The argument presented in this thesis is not that Matthew and the AscIs share a compositional community; rather, the interest of this project has been to show the association between Matthew and the AscIs, first, on the level of receptivity, and second, in terms of literary and social function. The second chapter has argued, with the aid of Auslegungsgeschichte as a conceptual category, that the AscIs has received the Matthean tradition on not only a lexical level, but also in its fashioning of Isaiah as a martyred prophet. Isaiah intimates the Matthean Jesus. This imitation opens up the reader to perceive how the AscIs functions as a literary prequel to the Gospel of

193 James R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, Or Other? JSJSup 105 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 40.

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Matthew, insofar as Isaiah receives knowledge of the Matthean Jesus and records that knowledge within the Book of Isaiah. This narrative fits smoothly with the use and function of the Book of Isaiah in the Matthew, which, when read from the vantage point of the AscIs, is now seen as an unfolding of the visionary content experienced by Isaiah in the AscIs.

This analysis has also provided an alternative vantage point by which to consider the social and literary function of the AscIs. Accordingly, chapter 3 set the AscIs within two intimate traditions, namely, that of martyred prophets and esteemed figures used for in-group Jewish polemics. This exercise has shown that the AscIs, although occupying a place within these traditions, is closely connected with the function of these traditions within Matthean Christianity. In Matthew, the tradition of martyred prophets and the nature of the in-group polemics are both geared towards substantiating the particularities of the Matthean community (the interpretation of Torah, issues of praxis, christology, etc) within a multifaceted Judaism. The AscIs has imbibed the dual traditions of martyred prophets and in-group polemical discourse from esteemed figures as a means of perpetuating Matthean Christianity’s polemic style against leadership groups in order to substantiate the praxis of its own community. It is in this sense that the AscIs serves as an example of the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Matthean tradition. Thus, this thesis has aimed to provide a more thorough reading of the reception history of the Matthean tradition in the AscIs and to relate that reception to the literary and social function of the text.

Appendix A: The Greek Amherst Papyri of the AscIs194

AscIs 2.4 […Μ]ανασσῆ, καὶ κατε[δυ]νάµου αὐτον ἐν [τῆ] ἀποστάσει καὶ τῆ [ἀν]οµία, ὡς ἐσπαρη ἐν 5 [Ι](ερουσαλ)ήµ. Κα[ὶ] ἐπλήθυνεν [ἡ] φαρµακεὶα καὶ ἡ µαγεία καὶ ἡ µαντεία καὶ οἱ κληδονισµοὶ καὶ ἡ πορνεία καὶ ὁ διωγµός τῶν δικαὶων ἐν χερσὶ Μανασσῆ καὶ ἐν χερσὶν τοῦ Τουβὶ τοῦ Χανανὶτου καὶ ἐν χερσὶν ’Ιωνὰν τοῦ Ναθὼθ καὶ ἐν χερσὶν τοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν πραγµατε[ι]ῶν. 6 καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ λόγοι ἰδού γεγραµµένοι εἰσ[ὶν ἐ]ν τοῖς βίωλοις τῶν [β]ασ[ιλέων 7 ’Ιούδα καὶ ’Ι[σραήλ] [κ]αὶ τὴν ποµπὴ[ν αὐ]τοῦ ἀνεχώρησεν ἀπ[ὸ ‘I(ερουσαλ)ὴ]µ καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐν Β[ηθ]λεέµ τῆς ’Ιουδαὶας. 8 [καὶ] ἐκεῖ δὲ ἦν ἀνοµ[ία π]ολλή, καὶ ἀναχωρήσα[ς] ἀπὸ Βηθλεέµ ἐκά[θι]σεν ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἐν τόπῳ ἐρήµῳ. 9 καὶ Μιχα〈ί〉ας ὁ προφήτης καὶ ’Ανανίας ὁ γέρων καὶ 〈’Ι〉ωὴλ καὶ ’Αµβακούµ καὶ ’Ισασούφ ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν πιστῶν τῶν πιστευόντων εἰς οὐρανούς ἀναβῆναι ἀνεχώρησαν, καὶ 10 ἐκάθισαν εἰς τὸ ὄρος, πάντε〈ς〉 σάκκον περιβεβληµένοι, καὶ πάντες ἦσαν προφῆται, οὐδὲν ἔχοντες µετ’ αὐτῶν ἀλλὰ γυµνοὶ ἦσαν, πενθοῦντες πένθος µέγα περὶ τῆς πλ[ά]νης τοῦ Ἰσραήλ. 11 καὶ οὗτοι οὐκ ἤσθιον εἰ µὴ βοτάνας τίλλον[τε]ς ἐκ τῶν ὀρέων καὶ…………[…]αν µετὰ ’Ησα[ίο]υ οἰκοῦντες. καὶ ἐπε[ὶ] ἦσαν ἐν τ[ο]ῖς ὄρεσιν καὶ ἐν τοῖς βουνοῖς [δ]ύ[ο ἔ]τη 12 ἡµερῶν 〈ἐπὶ〉 τοῦ ε[ἶ]ναι αὐτοὺς [ἐν] τοῖς ἐρή[ο]ις καὶ…………… ἐν Σαµαρία ᾧ 〈ὄ〉νοµα ἦν Βελιχειὰρ ἐκ τῆς συγγενίας Σεδεκίου υἱοῦ Χανανὶ τοῦ ψευδοπροφήτου ὃς ἦν κατοικῶν ἐν βηθανία. καὶ Σεδεκίας υἱὸς Χανανὶ ὄς ἦν ἀδελφὸς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡµέραις ’Αχαὰβ βασιλέως τοῦ Ἰσραήλ ἦν διδάσκαλος τῶν τετρακοσίων προφητῶν τοῦ Βαάλ, καὶ αὐτὸ[ς] ἐράπισεν καὶ ὕβρισεν τὸν Μικαίαν υἱὸν Ἰεµµαδὰ τὸν προφήτην. 13 καὶ αὐτòς δὲ ὑβρ[ίσ]θη ὑπὸ ’Αχαὰβ καὶ ἐβλήθη {Μικαίας} εἰς φυλακήν. καὶ ἦν µ[ε]τὰ Σεδεκίου τοῦ ψευδοπροφήτο[υ] ὄντος. ἦσαν µετὰ ’Οχοζείου υἱοῦ ’Αλὰ[µ] ἐν Σεµµωµα……14 καὶ ’Ηλείας [ὁ προφή]της ἐκ Θες[βῶν…] καὶ τὴν Σαµαρίαν, καὶ αὐτòς ἐπροφήτευεν περὶ ’Οχοζείου ὅτι ἐν κλίνῃ ἀρωρστίας ἀποθανεῖται καὶ ἡ Σαµαρία εἰς χεῖρας ’Aλνασὰρ παραδοθήσεται ἀνθ’ ὢν ἐφόνευεν τοὺς προφήτας τοῦ θ(εο)ῦ. 15 [κα]ὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ προφῆται [ο]ἱ µετὰ ’Οχοζείου υἱοῦ ’Αλὰµ καὶ [ὁ] διδάσκαλος αὺτῶν ’Ιαλλαρίας ἐξ ὄρους Ἰσρα〈ή〉λ, 16 καὶ αὐτòς ἦν {ὁ Βεχειρ〈ὰ〉} ἀδελφὸς τοῦ Σεδεκίου, ἀκούσαν[τ]ες µετέπεισαν τὸν ’Οχοζείαν Βασίλεα Γοµόρρων τὸν Μιχαί[α]ν.

AscIs 3.1 καὶ Βεχειρὰ ἔγνω [κ]αὶ εἶδεν τὸν το[π]ον τοῦ ’Ησαίου [καὶ τῶ]ν προφη[τῶν τῶν] µετ’ αὐ[τοῦ. οὗτο]ς γὰρ ἦν οἱκῶν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ Βηθλεέµ, καὶ ἐκολλήθη τῷ Μανασσῇ. καὶ αὐτòς ἦν ψευδοπροφητεύων ἐν ‘Ιερουσαλὴµ ἐκολλήθησαν πρὸς αὐτόν. καὶ αὐτός δὲ ἦν ἀπὸ Σαµαρίας. 2 καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἐλθεῖν ’Αλνασὰρ ’Ασσυρίων βασιλέα καὶ αἰχµαλωτίσαι τὴν Σαµαρίαν καὶ λαβεῖν τὰς ἐν[νέ]α ἥµισυ φυλὰς ἐν αἰχµαλωσίᾳ καὶ ἀπενέγκαι αὐτοὺς εἰς ὄρη Μήδων καὶ ποταµοὺς {καὶ} Γωζάν, 3 οὗτος ἦν νεώτερος, καὶ ἔφυγεν καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς ‘Ιε[ρου]σαλὴµ ἡµ[έρ]αις [‘Εζεκίου βασ[ιλέως ’Ιούδα. Κα[ὶ οὐκ ἐ]πάτει ἐν Σαµαρίᾳ ἐν ὁδῷ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, ὅτι τὸν ‘Εζεκίαν ἐφοβεῖτο. 4 καὶ εὑρέθη ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ ‘Εζεκίου λαλῶν λόγους ἀνοµίας ἐν ‘Ιερουσαλήµ, 5 καὶ κατηγορήθη ὑπò τῶν παίδων Εζεκίου καὶ ἔφυγεν εἰς τὴν χώραν Βηθλεέµ. καὶ ἔπεισαν, 6 καὶ κατηγόρησεν Μελχειρὰ τοῦ ’Ησαίου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν λέγων ὅτι ’Ησαίας καὶ οἱ προφτῆται οἱ µετὰ ’Ησαίου προφητεύουσιν ἐπὶ ‘Ιερουσαλὴµ καὶ ἐπὶ [τὰ]ς πόλεις ’Ιούδα [κα]ὶ Βε[νι]αµεὶν ὅτι [πο]ρεύ[σο]νται ἐν γαλε[άγ]ρ[αις κα]ὶ ἐν πέδαις, [καὶ σύ, κ(ύρι)ε,] ἀπελεύση, 7 καὶ αὐτοὶ ψευδοπροφητεύουσιν καὶ τὸν ’Ισραὴλ καὶ τὸν ’Ιούδαν καὶ τὸν Βενιαµεὶν αὐτοὶ µισοῦσιν, καὶ ὁ λόγος αὐτῶν κακὸς ἐπὶ τὸν ’Ιούδαν 8 καὶ τὸν ’Ισραήλ. καὶ αὐτὸς ’Ησαίας εἴπεν αὐτοῖς, βλέπω πλέον Μωυσῆ τοῦ προφήτου. 9 εἴπεν γὰρ Μωυσῆς ὅτι οὐκ ὄψεται ἄνθρωπος τὸν [θ(εὸ)ν] κ[α]ὶ ἰδού ζῶ. 10 βασι[λ]εῦ [γί]νω〈σ〉κε ὅτι ψευδή[ς] ἐκάλεσεν, κ[αὶ τοὺς] ἄρχοντα[ς ’Ιούδα] καὶ ’Ισραὴλ [λαὸν Γοµόρρας πρ[οσηγόρευσεν. [κ]α[ὶ πολλὰ κατηγόρει ἐπὶ τοῦ Μανασσῆ 〈τοῦ ’Ησαίου〉 καὶ τῶν προφητῶν. 11 καὶ ἐκάθισεν Βελιὰρ ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῶν ἀρχόντων ’Ιδούδα καὶ Βενιαµεὶν καὶ τῶν εὐνούχων καὶ τῶν συµβούλων τοῦ βασιλέως, 12 καὶ ἤρεσaν αὐτῷ οἱ λόγοι τοῦ Βελχιρὰ καὶ ἀπέστειλεν καὶ ἐκράτησεν τὸν ’Ησαίαν. 13 ἦν γὰρ ὁ Βελιὰρ ἐν θυµῷ [ἐ]πι Ἠσαίαν ἀπὸ τῆς [ὁρά]σεως καὶ ἀπὸ το[ῦ δει]γµατισµοῦ ὅτι [ἐ]δειγµάτισεν τὸν [Σ]αµαήλ, καὶ ὅ[τι δι’ α]ὐτοῦ ἐφανε[ρώθη ἡ] ἐξέλευσις [τοῦ ἀγα]πητοῦ ἐκ [τοῦ ἑβδ]όµου οὐρα[νοῦ καὶ ἡ] µεταµόρφωσις αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ

194 B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, The Amherst Papyri, Being an Account of the Greek Papyri in the Collection of the Right Hon. Lord Amherst of Hackney, F.S.A. at Didlington Hall, Norfolk: Vol. I, The Ascension of Isaiah and Other Theological Fragments (London: Oxford University Press, 1900), 4-14.

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κατάβασις αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ εἰδέα ἣν δεῖ αὐτὸν µεταµορφωθῆναι ἐν εἴδει ἀνθρώπου, καὶ ὁ διωγµὸς ὅν διωχθήσεται, καὶ αἱ κολάσεις αἷς δεῖ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ αὐτὸν κολάσαι, καὶ ἡ τῶν δώδεκα µαθητεία, καὶ ὡς δεῖ αὐτὸν µετὰ ἀνδρῶν κακοποιῶν σταυρωθῆναι, καὶ ὅτι ἐν µνηµε[ί]ῳ ταφήσεται, 14 ταφήσεται, κ[α]ὶ δώδεκα οἱ µετ’ α〈ὐ〉τοῦ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ σκανδαλισθήσονται, κα[ὶ] ἡ τήρησις τῶν τ[η]ρητῶν τοῦ µνηµονείου, 15 καὶ ὡς ἡ κ[ατάβα]σις τοῦ ἀγγέ[λου τῆς] ἐκκλησίας τῆ[ς ἐν οὐρα]νῷ…µε……. τος ἐν ταῖς ἐ[σχάταις ἡµ]έ[ραις], κα[ὶ]… ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ πν(εύµατο)ς 16 τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ Μιχαὴλ ἄρχων τῶν ἀγγέλων τῶν ἁγίων ὅτι τῇ τρίτη ἡµέρᾳ αὐτoῦ ἀνοίξουσιν τὸ µνηµονεῖον, 17 καὶ ὁ ἀγαπητὸς καθίσας ἐπὶ τοὺς ὤµους αὐτῶν ἐξελεύσεται, καὶ ὡς ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς µαθητὰς 18 αὐτοῦ καὶ µαθηεύσουσιν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη καὶ πᾶσαν γλῶσσαν εἰς τὴν ἀν[ά]στασιν τοῦ ἀγαπ[η]τοῦ, καὶ οἱ [π]ιστεύσαντες τ[ῷ] σταυρῷ αὐτοῦ σωθ〈ή〉σονται καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀναβάσει αὐ[τ]οῦ εἰς τὸν ἕβδοµον [ο]ὐ[ρ]ανὸν ὅθεν καὶ [ἦλθε]ν. καὶ ὡς π[ο]λ[λοὶ, 19 κ]αὶ πολλοὶ [τ]ῶν [πιστε]υόντων εἰς [αὐτὸν] ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ π[ν(εύµατ)ι] 20 [λαλήσους]ιν, καὶ ὡς πολλὰ σηµεῖα καὶ τέρατα ἔ[σ]ται ἐν ταῖς ἡµέπαις ἐκείναις. 21 καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν αὐτ[ὸ]ν [ἀ]φήσουσιν οἱ µαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ τὴν προφητείαν τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν ἁγνείαν αὐτῶν. 22 καὶ ἔσονται αἱρέσεις πολλαὶ ἐν τῷ ἐγγλίζειν αὐτόν, 23 καὶ ἔσονται ἐν ταῖς ἡµέραις ἐκείναις πολλοὶ θέλοντες ἄρχειν καὶ κενοὶσοφίας. 24 καὶ ἔσονται πολλοὶ πρεσβύτεροι ἄνοµοι κα[ὶ] ποιµένες ἄδικοι ἐ[π]ὶ τὰ πρόβατα αὐτῶν………µ[ε]να διὰ τὸ µὴ ἔχειν π[οι]µένας ἁγνούς. 25 κα[ὶ π]ολλοὶ……………… ἐνδυµάτων…[τ]ῶ[ν] ἁγνῶ[ν]………φιλα………………αι[…ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ οἱ φιλοῦντες τὴν δόξ[αν] τοῦ κόσµου τούτου. 26 καὶ ἔσονται καταλαλιαὶ πολλαὶ καὶ κενοδοξία πολλὴ ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν τὸν κ(ύριο)ν, καὶ ἀναχωρήσει τὸ πν(εῦµ)α τὸ ἅγιον ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν. 27 καὶ οὐκ ἔσονται ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡµέραις προφῆται πολλοὶ λαλοῦντες ἰσχυρὰ ἤ εἷς καὶ εἷ[ς] καὶ εἷς ἐν τόποις καὶ 28 τόποις διὰ τὸ πν(εῦµ)α τῇς πλάνης κ[αὶ τ]ῆς πορνείας καὶ τῆς κενοδοξίας καὶ τῆς φιλαργυρ[ί]α[ς… 29……30……..ζ]ῆλος γὰρ ἔσται π[ολὺς] ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡµέραις, ἐσχάτος γὰρ τὸ ἀρεστὸν ἐν τοῖς ὀφθαλµοῖς αὐτοῦ λαλήσει. 31 καὶ ἐξαφήσουσιν τὰς προφητείας τῶν προφητῶν τῶν πρὸ ἐµοῦ καὶ τὰς ὁράσεις µου ταύτας καταρ[γή]σουσιν ἵνα τὰ [ὀ]ρέγµ[α]τ[α] τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν λαλήσωσιν.

AscIs 4.1 καὶ νῦ[ν,] ‘Εζ[ε]κία καὶ ’Ιασοὺβ υ[ἱ]έ µ[ου], αὗταί εἰσίν α[ἱ ἡµέ]ρα[ι] τῆς πληρ[ώσεω]ς τ[οῦ κ]όσµου… 2 τος αὐτοῦ ἐ[ν εἴδει] ἀνθρώπου βαιλέως ἀνόµου µητραλωου ὅστις αὐτὸς 3 ὁ βασιλεὺς οὗτος τὴν φυτ[ε]ίαν ἦν φυτεύσουσιν οἱ δώδεκα ἀπόστολοι τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ διώξε[ι], καὶ [τ]ῶν δώδεκα [εἷς] ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ 4 π[αραδ]οθήσεται. οὗτος [ὁ ἄρ]χων ἐν τῇ ἴδεα τοὺ βασιλέως ἐκείνου ἐλεύσετια, [κ]αὶ αἱ δυνάµεις πᾶσαι [ἐλ]εύσ[ον]ται τ[ο]ύτ[ου] [τ]οῦ κό[σµου.]

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