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Mark's Gospel Compared with Virgil's Aeneid Liberty University Mark’s Gospel Compared with Virgil’s Aeneid A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Systematic Theology and Apologetics by Floyd E. Schneider Lynchburg, Virginia December, 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Floyd E. Schneider All rights reserved ii To Christine, who, while leading a ladies’ Bible study in Mark, asked the question, “I wonder what Mark’s audience was reading while he was writing his Gospel?” iii CONTENTS Chapter 1. Research Question, Methodology and Literature Review 1 Chapter 2. The Aeneid’s Importance as Propaganda 29 Chapter 3. Mark’s Knowledge of, and Access to, the Aeneid 43 Chapter 4. The Gospel of Mark’s Response to the Aeneid 154 Conclusions and Further Research 250 Bibliography 251 iv Abbreviations Aen. Aeneid ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung App. BC Appian, Civil Wars App. Pun. Appian, Punic Wars BibInt Biblical Interpretation CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly De. Or. De Oratore Dio Rom. Hist. Cassius Dio, Roman History HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Hom. Il. Homer, Iliad Hom. Od. Homer, Odyssey Hor. Ars. Horace, Ars Poetica Hor. Od. Horace, Odes Inst. Institutio oratoria (Quintilian) Jos. Ant. Josephus, Antiquities JETS Journal of the Evangelical Society JTS Journal of Theological Studies JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament: SAGE Journals KKNT Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Kilo Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte Liv. Hist.Rom. Livy, The History of Rome v Nic. Aug. Nicolaus of Damascus, Life of Augustus NovT Novum Testamentum NTS New Testament Studies Od. Odyssey Ov. Met. Ovid, Metamorphoses Plut. Ases. Plutarch, Caesar Plb. Hist. Polybius, Histories Plut. Caes. Plutarch, Caesar Poet. Poetics Rhet. Rhetoric Servius ad. Servius, 4th Century Aeneid Commentary Sib. Or. Sibylline Oracles Suet. Aug. Suetonius, Life of Augustus (Divus Augustus) Suet. Vita Verg. Suetonius, De Vita Vergili Suet. Vita Caes. Suetonius, Life of the Twelve Caesars (De Vita Caesarum) Tac. Ann. Tacitus, Annals Tac. Hist. Tacitus, Histories TAPhA Transactions of the American Philological Association Verg. Aen. Vergil, Aeneid Verg. Ecl. Vergil, Eclogues Verg. G. Vergil, Georgics VH Virgil, Homer WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament vi Abstract This dissertation will present the Gospel of Mark in light of the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem published by Augustus immediately after Virgil’s death in 19 B.C. The Aeneid’s genre, literary style, grammar, symbolic hermeneutics, and lasting influence has been thoroughly researched and dissected in literature courses throughout the centuries. It has been translated into numerous languages and widely distributed in terms of geography and nationalities. Virgil wrote the Aeneid to proclaim the deity of Augustus. “Hic Caesar et omnis Juli progenies magnum caeli ventura sub axem. Hic vir, his est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, Divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam.”1 This was the message the Romans wanted to hear: a Savior from the unending civil wars. In complete contrast to Augustus as the Progenitor / Savior, the Gospel of Mark proclaims Jesus as the Son / Servant of God. This study will seek to demonstrate three contentions, that 1) the Aeneid received wide dissemination immediately after Augustus had it published, that 2) Mark had knowledge of, and access to, the Aeneid, and that 3) one of the reasons that Mark wrote his Gospel was to engage the Aeneid’s concepts and theology. This paper will continue the research of previous scholars by revealing an original and additional component of Mark’s intentions as He wrote his Gospel. This dissertation will help the reader understand Mark from the perspective of Roman theology as found in the Aeneid, which elevated Augustus to the status of a god, and then demonstrate Mark’s contrast between the Aeneid’s presentation of Augustus and Mark’s presentation of Jesus. 1 Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. A. S. Kline (Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, LLC, Poetry in Translation, 2015): VI, 789-794. vii CHAPTER 1 Research Question David E. Garland contends that “Mark [Gospel writer] does not engage in apologetics for a non-Christian audience in providing his written argument.”2 This dissertation will disagree with Garland’s statement. It will seek to determine 1) if the Aeneid had wide dissemination soon after its initial publication, 2) whether Mark had knowledge of, and access to, the Aeneid, and 3) whether Mark addressed the concepts and theology of the Aeneid. Mark did not use foreign terms or alien concepts to induce the Romans to evaluate the differences between the two kingdoms, to switch allegiances, and to follow the true Son of God. Mark used Roman vocabulary and concepts that were political, imperial, economic, eschatological and rhetorical to weave the teachings and works of Jesus into his message for the Romans to read and compare with the Aeneid’s portrayal of Augustus. Augustus was viewed as the emperor who had reached the pinnacle of Roman rule by bringing stability to Rome after five vicious civil wars. Augustus’ influence was so great that the emperorship stayed within his family through the next five emperors. His accomplishments were so spectacular that no later emperor accomplished anything of significance in comparison with the 200-year Pax Romana (Roman Peace) ushered in by Augustus. Mark had no need to compare Jesus with any other emperor besides Augustus. The Aeneid proclaimed Augustus as the Roman hero who would bring peace to the world. The Gospel of Mark proclaims Jesus as the savior of mankind, bringing peace with God before bringing peace on the earth. This dissertation will attempt to determine if 2 David E. Garland, A Theology of Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015): 98. 1 Mark addressed those differences between the Aeneid and his Gospel, and the choices Mark’s audience faced because of those differences. Methodology Researching a subject written in the distant past presents almost insurmountable challenges. Some topics have so much information at hand that the historian has to selectively choose what “evidence” he / she wants to use to present his view of that particular past. The challenge for that historian is internal: he has to choose the right evidence so that his choice truly represents the past, and that his conclusion is not skewed because some vital part was left out. Some topics, however, have too little information to offer the luxury of selecting the appropriate artifacts to build the case that characterizes the past properly. These topics have had historians struggling with the missing pieces ever since historians have been studying history. The challenges for these topics are external. The historian has no choice but to accept and evaluate anything that might possibly even touch on that topic. For the historian with too little evidence, no eyewitnesses are still alive to be questioned about the actual event(s) being researched. Little, if any, forensic evidence remains to be tested in the laboratory. A case has to be built entirely around circumstantial evidence. Making connections of a puzzle that contains missing and faded pieces often requires more speculation than desired to produce a coherent whole. The task is not hopeless, however. Although direct evidence seldom exists in such research, such research and investigations have been successfully carried out for centuries based upon proper methods of historical study. 2 Mary Beard has written the most recent definitive history of Rome.3 She addresses the changing aspects of historical research. “This research is partly because of the new ways of looking at evidence, and the different questions we choose to put to it.”4 Beard notes that since Edward Gibbon’s book,5 information has surfaced about Rome through archaeology on land and under water, as well as lost manuscripts found in recently discovered libraries, so much so that she concludes that “in some ways we know more about ancient Rome than the Romans themselves did.”6 One historian today would be incapable of assimilating all the information available on even one aspect of Rome. This new evidence still requires analysis that connects as many dots as possible to arrive first at a reasonable conclusion, and to the most probable one. The methodology for this dissertation will employ fourteen pieces of evidence that will need to be taken collectively (to connect the dots) in order to build a case for the proposition that Mark had knowledge of, and access to, the Aeneid, that one of Mark’s main purposes was to engage the concepts and theology of Virgil’s Aeneid and Aeneas7 / Augustus as the savior of the world, and to offer Jesus as the only alternative. The evidence must be exhaustive, with as many pieces of the puzzle being brought to light as possible. This method has been used by theologians in the past. John Wenham (1912-1996), an Anglican Bible scholar, wrote an intriguing article postulating the date of Peter 3 Mary Beard, SPQR The History of Rome (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015). 4 Ibid., 16. 5 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, intro. Hugh Trevor-Roper (London: Everyman's Library, 2010). 6 Beard, 16. 7 The spelling of the main character in the Aeneid occurs in two forms. Some authors use “Aeneas,” while others use “Aeneis.” This dissertation will respect both uses. 3 and Mark’s time in Rome. Wenham justified his methodology with the following defense: “Another scrap of positive evidence is to be found in the presence of a Cephas-party in Corinth. It is evidence of the kind so effectively used in an earlier generation in William Paley's Horae Paulinae (1790)8 and in J.
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