Alma Mater Studiorum – Università Di Bologna
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1 Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN STORIA Ciclo XXVII Settore Concorsuale di afferenza: 11/A4 Settore Scientifico disciplinare: 11 – STO/06 TITOLO TESI The Polemic Construction of Judaism at the origins of Christianity: from Paul to Justin Martyr Presentata da: Juan Pablo Sena Pera Coordinatore Dottorato Relatore Prof. Massimo Montanari Prof. Lorenzo Perrone Esame finale anno: 2015 2 To my beloved Barbara and Agatha for completing my life, and to my father Carlo, in memoriam. 3 One of the most difficult tasks at the end of an academic course is to weave thanks to the various persons who helped us on this journey. The difficulty is not on to demonstrate gratitude, but on the impossibility to list all the people who contributed to this moment. Therefore, I would like to state my sincere gratitude to Prof. Lorenzo Perrone, who very kindly volunteered to guide a foreigner who was then unknown. Prof. Perrone and Prof. Antonio Cacciari received me and my wife Barbara with sincere esteem and friendship. Prof. Perrone, besides having faithfully performed his work as advisor correcting my musings and suggesting readings, was a very humane and understanding person about the difficulty of health order I have faced. I also thank Prof. Antonio Cacciari for his friendliness and provinding books difficult to find in libraries. Special thanks also due to Prof. Claudio Gianotto which has been following my research and giving his precious cooments since the first Summer School and now is a member of this commission. I would like to thank also Professors Stefano Boni, Lorenzo Speranza, Angelo Varni and John Kloppenborg for their willingness to compose this comission and their valuable comments and corrections. Finally, I thank the people who helped me to come to Italy attend this PhD: Professor Gilvan Ventura da Silva, who very kindly volunteered to endorse my research project before Capes and Professors Sergio Alberto Feldman and José Pedro Luchi for their essential academic support. I also thank Capes for financing my stay and research here in Italy, without its support, it would not have been possible to come here. Very special thanks are due to my family: first of all, to my father Carlo, who always believed in me, greatly helped us to come here, and also always said would like to see me "taking off". Unfortunately his health did not resist and he needed to depart from last year. My heartfelt thanks are due also to my wife Barbara, who was the one who from the beginning believed in this project, and helped me through the most difficult times. Finally, to our daughter Agatha, who came to us as a gift at the beginning of this journey and fills our hearts with joy. 4 Abstract This doctoral research aims to contribute to a new understanding of the Christian emancipation process from its Jewish matrix. In order to accomplish this, we reviewd the historiografical understanding of the Jewish – Christian separation process and reconstructed the probable way by which the Christian faith arrived in Rome in the mid-first century. We further analyzed the ethnic and social profile of the early Roman Christians and the internal constitution of the first Christian communities in the capital of the Empire. We identified the relations between the Christian and Jewish communities, and between those and the imperial power, highlighting the acts of the government indicating awareness by the civil authorities of the existence of the Christian social phenomenon and the disassociation of it of the local Jewish circles. We discussed the status quaestionis of the studies on the Christian teachers of the first two centuries and presented to the reader a picture of Justin Martyr. We set the social profile of Justin and his disciples. Then, we reconstructed the probable environment of his philosophical school and identified the contents of Justin’s teachings. We also critically analyzed the Apology, identifying and explaining its main themes and arguments, as well as the situation of social and legal anomie experienced by Christians in the face of state power. Continuing with our research, we recapitulate the process of acceptance of Gentile converts in the Jewish – Christian community of Jerusalem, the first conflicts arised, based on the issue of the non observance of the the Mosaic Law by Gentile Christians. We then explained the Pauline theology of justification by faith in Christ and pointed out howJustin based himself on Pauline theology and drew its logical conclusion, ie, the Christian are the Verus Israel, that is, the true seed promised by God to Abraham in the Hebrew Scriptures. Finally, we critically analyzed the Dialogue with Trypho having as theoretical tool the sociological theories of Norbert Elias in order to identify the relations of symbolic power implicit in the representation of Jews and Judaism in the pages of the Dialogue. Keywords: Judaism; Christianity; Identity; Polemic; Paul of Tarsus; Justin Martyr. 5 Contents General Introduction and Methodological Tools………………………………………………9 The Status Quaestionis of the Jewish – Christian Separation………………………………...13 Chapter 1 - The Socio – religious background of Justin Martyr Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………..23 The Roman Jewish Community……………………………………………………………..25 The First Century: The arrival of Christianity in Rome………………………………….28 The "Edict of Claudius”: the beginning of the autonomy of Roman Christianity………31 The First generation of Roman Christians: the background of the Letter of Paul to the Romans………………………………………………………………....34 The Letter to the Romans……………………………………………………………………..39 The Second Generation: The First Epistle of Peter and the Epistle to the Hebrews……..44 The Third Generation: The First Epistle of Clement………………………………………50 The Second Century: the Jewish Heritage and the Development of Hierarchical Ecclesiastical Structures……………………………………………………...51 The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans……………………………………………………….51 The Shepherd of Hermas……………………………………………………………………..53 The Second Epistle of Peter…………………………………………………………………..57 The Works of Justin Martyr………………………………………………………………..58 The Internal Organization of the Roman Church from its Formation To Mid Second Century……………………………………………………………………..61 Christian Heterodox movements and the formation of Catholic Orthodoxy………….65 Αἵρεσις: from the Hellenistic “choice” to the Christian “heresy”……………………....65 6 Gnosticism: A Historical Survey of its Origins and its Importance to Catholic Orthodoxy………………………………………………………………………..70 The Challenge of Marcionism and the Catholic reaction………………………………77 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..83 Chapter 2 – Justin: Teacher, Philosopher and Martyr Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..85 Christian Teachers in the First Two Centuries…………………………………………86 The Status Quaestionis of the Studies About the Christian Teachers…………………86 Teachers in Graeco – Roman and Jewish Sources…………………………………...102 Justin: Teacher, Philosopher and Martyr..................................................................106 Biographical Elements…………………………………………………………………..106 The conversion to Christianity…………………………………………………………109 Justin as a philosopher………………………………………………………………….111 Justin’s philosophical school at Rome………………………………………………....112 Justin’s Christian Philosophy…………………………………………………………..116 The works attributed to Justin: authentic and unauthentic…………………………116 Justin’s Apology…………………………………………………………………………118 The Literary Structure of the Apology………………………………………………..120 The Literary Traditions………………………………………………………………..120 The Structure of Justin’s Apology…………………………………………………….122 Justin’s Apologetic Procedure………………………………………………………...125 The Religious Policy of Antoninus Pius………………………………………………125 The Legal Situation of the Christians………………………………………………...127 7 The Nomen Christianum………………………………………………………………129 Political Accusations…………………………………………………………………..129 The Charge of Impiety and Atheism………………………………………………...131 Christianity and Philosophy…………………………………………………………..134 Human Reason and Divine Logos……………………………………………………134 The Seminal Logos (λόγος σπερματικός) Concept..................................................135 The Origins of the Concept…………………………………………………………...136 True Philosophy………………………………………………………………………..137 The Theory of Plagiarism…………………………………………………………….137 The Only Christian Truth…………………………………………………………….138 The Prophetic Argument……………………………………………………………..139 Chapter 3 – The Verus Israel from Paul to Justin Paul of Tarsus and the conversion of the Gentiles…………………………………140 The First Jewish - Christian Conflict and the Council of Jerusalem……………..143 The Historical Context of the Dialogue with Trypho……………………………….149 The Historicity of the Dialogue and its Addressees…………………………………154 The Manuscript Tradition…………………………………………………………….166 The literary Structure of the Dialogue with Trypho………………………………...167 A Brief Stylistic Analysis of the Dialogue with Trypho……………………………...168 Accusations made by Justin in his works against the Jews…………………………171 General Characteristics of the Above Related Passages……………………………172 The Law in Justin, Christian Identity Factor………………………………………...176 Reshaping the Verus Israel: from the inclusion of the Gentiles to the Exclusion of the Jews…………………………………………………………….189 Paul and the lineage of Abraham………………………………………………………191 Abraham as the Father of Christians Only……………………………………………206 8 Reshaping the Verus Israel………………………………………………………………212 A Sociological Analysis of the Symbolic Power Relations Between Jews and Christians…………………………………………………………....216 General