IRENAEUS on the REBELLION in the DESERT of PARAN Susan L

THE NEXT GENERATION: IRENAEUS ON THE REBELLION IN THE DESERT OF PARAN

Susan L. Graham Saint Peter’s College

The spy story and the Israelites’ rebellion in the wilderness of Paran recounted in Num 13:1–14:45 and Deut 1:19–46 receives scant notice among Christian authors before Irenaeus of Lyon.1 Second-century authors mostly address the name change of Hoshea, son of Nun, while NT allusions to the episode generally point to the rebellion and punishment, ignoring Joshua. The extended narrative of the episode in chapter 27 of Irenaeus’s Epideixis (Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching) is therefore unexpected.2 Further, it is not immediately obvious why Irenaeus included this episode in his very selective narrative of biblical history. It requires closer examination of the literary features of Epid. 27, its themes, and its place in the treatise to begin to discover Irenaeus’s insight into the story and his purpose for including it in his treatise.3

1 This is a revision of papers presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2002 and the annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Associa- tion in 2003. The author gratefully acknowledges summer funding from the Reverend George Kenny, S. J., Fund at Saint Peter’s College and resources made available by the University Associates Program of New York University’s Faculty Resource Network that facilitated completion of the revisions. 2 The Epideixis survives only in a seventh-century Armenian translation. The critical edition is K. Ter-Mekerttschian and S. G. Wilson, ΕΙΣ ΕΠΙ∆ΕΙΞΙΝ ΤΟΥ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΙΚΟΥ ΚΗΡΥΓΜΑΤΟΣ: The Proof of the Apostolic Preaching with Seven Fragments (PO 12/5; Paris: Firmin Didot, 1919). The most recent edition is A. Rousseau, Irénée de Lyon, Démonstra- tion de la prédication apostolique (SC 406; Paris: Cerf, 1995); for accessibility, quotations used here will come from an ET based largely on it; J. Behr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: On the Apostolic Preaching (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997). 3 Commentators on the Epideixis say very little about this chapter: see Rousseau, Démonstration, 60–62, 264; the notes ad loc. in Behr, Apostolic Preaching; L.-M. Froidevaux, Irénée de Lyon, Démonstration de la prédication apostolique (SC 62; Paris: Cerf, 1959); J. P. Smith, St. Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (ACW 16; New York: Newman, 1952); also A. Jaubert, Origène, Homélies sur Josué (SC 71; Paris: Cerf, 1960) 21–22, 43–44. There is no comment on the chapter by J. A. Robinson, St. Irenaeus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (Translations of Christian Literature: Series IV: Oriental Texts; London: S.P.C.K., 1920). 184 susan l. graham

Irenaeus’s Narrative

On its face, Epid. 27 seems to be a simple paraphrase of Num 13–14 with some omissions.4 It is not. Irenaeus incorporates the major features shared by both versions of the story, but follows the basic outline of Deut 1:19–46, adding details from Num 13–14 and some amplifi ca- tions.5 His narrative may be classifi ed as an example of implicit com- positional use of the Scriptures in a biblical expansion.6 Its features begin to reveal his purposes. As he tells the story, the Israelites draw “near to the land”; he does not name the location, which the biblical accounts place in the wilder-

4 Irenaeus’s authoritative Scriptures were the Greek Septuagint (LXX) (Haer. 3.21.1–3), and it will be presumed in what follows; see D. Farkasfalvy, “Theology of Scripture in St. Irenaeus”, RBén 78 [1968] 319–33). Absent Irenaeus’s original Greek, there will be no search for direct verbal correspondences with the LXX, and allusive markers will be treated as paraphrases, though Greek fragments do permit retrieval of some vocabulary (B. Reynders, Vocabulaire de la «Démonstration» et les fragments de saint Irénée [Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1958] 73–74; Rousseau, Démonstration, 30–40). The ensuing discussion will use therefore the language of literary allusion from R. Alter, The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age (rev. ed.; New York: W. W. Norton, 1996) 111–40; cf. Z. Ben-Porat, “The Poetics of Literary Allusion”, PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 1 (1976) 105–28; C. Perri, “On Alluding”, Poetics 7 (1978) 289–307; B. D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998) 1–31; and S. P. Ahearne-Kroll, “Abandonment and Suffering: The Use of Psalm 40 (LXX) in the Markan Passion Narrative”, in G. Wooden and W. Kraus (eds.), Issues and Challenges in the Study and Translation of the Jewish Greek Scriptures (Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming). 5 Irenaeus names Deuteronomy in Epid. 28 and 95 (both passages allude to Epid. 27), but does not name Numbers in the Epideixis. His preference for Deuteronomy is manifest in Haer. 4.2.1; 4.16.2–5 (P. Bacq, De l’ancienne à la nouvelle Alliance selon s. Irénée: Unité du Livre 4 de l’Adversus Haereses [Collection «Le Sycomore», Série Horizon 58; Paris: Lethielleux, 1978] 127, n. 1). Useful recent studies comparing Deut 1:19–46 to Num 13–14 include J. Van Seters, The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994) 363–82; and G. J. Wenham, Numbers (OTG; Sheffi eld: Sheffi eld Academic Press, 1997) 104–6. Van Seters is among those who suggest that Num 13–14 is later, not earlier, than Deut 1:19–46; however, source- and tradition-critical issues need not detain us here: for Irenaeus all the books of the Pentateuch were written by Moses (e.g., Epid. 43–44; Haer. 3.18.7). 6 The terms come from D. Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha”, in M. J. Mulder (ed.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (CRINT 2/1; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 400–1, 409; cf. G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Bible Rewritten and Expanded”, in M. E. Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus (CRINT 2/2; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 89–156.