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The Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John

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The Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John Scholars Crossing LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations 2001 The Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John Jintae Kim Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, History of Religions of Eastern Origins Commons, History of Religions of Western Origin Commons, Other Religion Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Kim, Jintae, "The Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John" (2001). LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations. 247. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs/247 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. [JGRChJ 2 (2001–2005) 100-116] THE CONCEPT OF ATONEMENT IN HELLENISTIC THOUGHT AND 1 JOHN Jintae Kim Alliance Theological Seminary, Nyack, New York The doctrine of atonement is an early Christian belief, but the debate on the roots of this doctrine still continues.1 In the Gospels, the idea of the sacrificial character of Jesus is attested primarily in the Last Supper nar- ratives (Mt. 26.26-29; Mk 14.22-25; Lk. 22.15-20; cf. Mk 10.45). The concept of the death of Jesus as atonement is more explicitly stated in a few places in the New Testament (Rom. 3.25; 1 Cor. 11.25; 15.3; 1 Pet. 1.18-19; Heb. 2.17; 9.13), but the concept is pronounced most explicitly in 1 John’s presentation of the death of Christ as an atoning sacrifice (ilasmoJ "v in 2.2; 4.10). The use of peculiar expressions such as iJlasmov" can be seen as evidence for 1 John’s usage of the religious phraseology and thought- forms of the Hellenistic world.2 This raises the question: Does it mean that 1 John’s concept of atonement has its roots in Hellenistic thought? This study will attempt to answer this question. Four aspects of Christ’s role in the forgiveness of sin are described in 1 John: (1) his death as the atoning sacrifice (iJlasmov" in 2.2; 4.10) for the sins of the world; (2) his death as an effective and vicarious self-sacri- 1. M. Hengel, Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament (trans. J. Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), p. 3; K. Wengst, Christolog- ische Formeln und Lieder des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Gütersloh Verlagshaus, 1972), p. 70; S.K. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept (HDR, 2; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), pp. 153-61. 2. C.H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946), p. xx; G. Strecker, The Johannine Letters (trans. L.M. Maloney; ed. H. Attridge; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 30. KIM Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John 101 fice; (3) his blood as a purificatory agent for all sin (1.7); and (4) his ongoing ministry as an advocate for believers before the Father (2.1). The correspondences between 1 John and the Hellenistic world are twofold: (1) the use of the term ilasmoJ "v for an atoning sacrifice; and (2) the death of Christ as an effective self-sacrifice (‘He laid down his life for us’, in 3.16). With regard to the first correspondence, the term iJlasmov" is found only in 1 John in the New Testament, but it occurs often in Plu- tarch (Sol. 12; Fab. 18, 3; Cam. 7; Mor. 555c, 560d, 972c) in the sense of cultic propitiation of the gods and expiatory action in general.3 With respect to the second correspondence, the concept of self-sacrifice is present in pre-Christian Greco-Roman literature.4 This study will examine the six uses of the term iJlasmov" in Plutarch to compare and contrast them to 1 John’s presentation of Jesus as the atoning sacrifice. Use of the Term iJlasmov" in Plutarch The word iJlasmov" is rarely used in classical Greek literature. Büchsel’s search produced a meager result. He could not find the word in the Attic orators, Sophocles, Thucydides, Epictetus, the Orphic fragments, the pre-Socratics or the older Stoics.5 My search, however, found two occurrences in Orpheus’s Argonautica (39, 554) and six occurrences in Plutarch. In Orpheus’s Argonautica, the word iJlasmov" is used twice with the means of ‘propitiation’ specified. However, these two occur- rences in Argonautica are irrelevant to our study because of its late dating. The Argonautica attributed to Orpheus is actually a pseud- onymous work written in the form of autobiographical narrative, in which Orpheus tells the story of his participation in the expedition led by Jason. Scholars generally agree that Orpheus’s Argonautica cannot be earlier and may be later than the fourth century AD, and that it is ascribed to Orpheus in order to give it proper dignity.6 Thus, we find no known instance of the usage of the word iJlasmov" in pre-Christian, non-Jewish Greek writings. Apart from Jewish writings, such as the LXX and Philo, the six occurrences in Plutarch represent the earliest known usage of iJlasmov", since his works date back to the New 3. F. Büchsel, ‘ilasmoJ "v ’, in TDNT, III, pp. 310-18 (317). 4. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event, pp. 153-61. 5. Büchsel, ‘ilasmoJ "v ’, p. 317. 6. M.L. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 37; W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (London: Methuen, 1935), p. 15. 102 Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 2 Testament period. Thus, we will focus on the six passages in Plutarch (AD 45–120). We will first examine these examples, and then compare and contrast the use of the term in 1 John. Of these six examples, two refer to propitiatory rites for ghosts, while four refer to propitiatory rites for angry gods. We will first examine two examples from Moralia that deal with propitiatory rites for ghosts. The Use of the Word iJlasmov" as a Propitiatory Rite for Ghosts Moralia 555C. The first example comes in Plutarch’s discussion of Pausanias, the nephew of the Spartan king Leonidas I, who commanded the allied Greek army that defeated the Persians at Plataea (479) and led the Greeks in the capture of Byzantium (478).7 Moralia is a collection of Plutarch’s surviving writings on ethical, religious, physical, political and literary topics. This amounts to more than 60 essays cast mainly in the form of dialogues or diatribes.8 Some of the works included in Moralia are no longer accepted as authentic, but the two essays, ‘On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance’ and ‘On the Cleverness of Animals’, in which the word iJlasmov" is used, are accepted as authentic. In the former, the word is used twice to refer to the propitiatory rites to appease the dead, and in the latter it is used once to appease an angry god, but the story line follows a similar pattern in all three examples. The first two examples of the use of iJlasmov" come from Plutarch’s dialogue ‘On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance’. As indicated in the passages (Mor. 552F, 553F, 556F, 560C), the scene of the dialogue is Delphi, where Plutarch was one of the two priests of Apollo.9 The speakers in the dialogue are Plutarch, his son-in-law Patrocleas, his brother Timon and Olympichus. According to De Lacy and Einarson, the dialogue may not have been written before AD 81 for two internal reasons: (1) Plutarch is described as a student at Delphi in 66/67 (Mor. 385B); and (2) he comments on the prophecy of the Sibyl about the eruption of Vesuvius (August 24-26, 79) and a good ‘emperor of those days’ who is to leave his throne through sickness (Mor. 566E). 7. ‘Pausanias’, in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998), IX, p. 212. 8. F.W. Walbank, ‘Plutarch’, in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, IX, pp. 529-30 (529). 9. P. De Lacy and B. Einarson, ‘Introduction: On the Delay of the Divine Ven- geance’, in Plutarch, Moralia (ed. G.P. Goold; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1959), VII, pp. 168-79 (173). KIM Concept of Atonement in Hellenistic Thought and 1 John 103 Continuing his argument for the delay of divine vengeance, Plutarch discusses the survival of the human soul, and supports this concept by quoting the story about Pausanias, who had to give certain propitiatory offerings to appease the ghost of Cleonice, whom he killed by mistake: When Pausanias was at Byzantium, he had in his insolent lust sent for her for the night. As she drew near, he was seized by some wild suspicion and killed her. Thereafter he often saw her in his dreams, saying to him: ‘Come meet thy doom; by pride are men undone’. As the apparition did not cease, he sailed (we hear) to the Passage of the Dead at Heracleia and with certain propitiatory rites and libations evoked the maiden’s ghost (iJlasmoi'" tisi kai; coai'" ajnekalei'to th;n yuch;n th'" kovrh"); it appeared to him and said that his troubles would be over when he went to Lacedaemon. On going there he presently died. ‘And so, if nothing exists for the soul when life is done, and death is the bourne of all reward and punishment…’ (Mor. 555C, LCL). What would have been involved in the propitiatory rites to appease the ghosts in Greek popular religion? Plutarch tends not to elaborate on the details of propitiatory rites, and so he does not answer this question.
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