University of Groningen Peregrinus' Christian Career Bremmer, Jan Published in: EPRINTS-BOOK-TITLE IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2007 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Bremmer, J. N. (2007). Peregrinus' Christian Career. In EPRINTS-BOOK-TITLE Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 11-02-2018 PEREGRINUS’ CHRISTIAN CAREER by JAN N. BREMMER One of the more fascinating figures for the history of Christianity and Judaism in the middle of the second century undoubtedly is the pagan philosopher Peregrinus of Parion, a port situated in Mysia on the eastern entrance of the Hellespont. 1 His spectacular suicide in AD 165 led the ancient social satirist Lucian to dedicate a ‘debunking’ pamphlet, De morte Peregrini , to his life. As Peregrinus stayed for a while in Palestine where he joined a Christian congregation, this ‘biography’ may be also of some interest to my esteemed colleague, as he himself, more recently, also has started to work on the crossroads of Judaism and Christianity. It would transcend the available space to write a commentary on the whole of the pamphlet, however interesting that would be, and therefore I will mainly limit myself to the chapters that discuss Peregrinus’ career as a Christian (11-13, 16) or that suggest a Christian influence (40). My principal aim is to ask what Lucian’s views, if taken seriously, tell us about the nature of Peregrinus’ congregation and Lucian’s knowledge thereof. Lucian had traveled widely between Greece and Samosata in Commagene, where he was born around AD 120. He was also well read and had a keen eye for the more outrageous figures of his time. He thus may be an interesting case by which to ascertain what knowledge a contemporary pagan intellectual had of the new religion. 2 Lucian starts his treatise with a description of Peregrinus’ suicide, which the latter staged himself during the Olympian Games of AD 165. In this beginning we already hear different voices: there is praise by a fellow Cynic, Theagenes (4), but also blame by an 1 For all testimonia see P. Frisch, Die Inschriften von Parion (Bonn, 1983) 47-96. 2 For our purpose the most important studies are: D. Plooij and J. Koopman, Lucianus, de dood van Peregrinus (Utrecht, 1915), which is much more useful than J. Schwartz, Lucien de Samosate: Philopseudès et De morte Peregrini (Paris, 1951), but overlooked by all the more recent notable contributions: H.D. Betz, ‘Lukian von Samosata und das Christentum’, Nov. Test . 3 (1959) 226-37, reprinted, with ‘Nachtrag’, in Betz, Hellenismus und Urchristentum (Tübingen, 1990) 10-21; C.P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge Mass., 1986) 117-32; M.J. Edwards, ‘Satire and verisimilitude. Christianity in Lucian’s Peregrinus’, Historia 38 (1989) 89- 98; D. Clay, ‘Lucian of Samosata: Four Philosophical Lives (Nigrinus, Demonax, Peregrinus, Alexander Pseudomantis), ANRW II 36 5 (Berlin, 1990) 3406-50 at 3430-38; P. Pilhofer et al ., Lukian, der Tod des Peregrinos (Darmstadt, 2005), whose text I follow. unknown bystander who related that, in his youth, Peregrinus had been caught in flagrante ‘in Armenia’ (9), 3 had committed himself to paederasty (9), 4 and had even strangled his father (10), parricide being perhaps the worst crime in Greek culture. 5 Consequently, he had to leave Parion and to wander from city to city. This is of course information from Lucian, which has to be taken with a pinch of salt, as Parion erected a statue for Peregrinus, 6 presumably shortly after his death. It is immediately after this introduction, which clearly suggests an extremely roguish and criminal character, that Lucian continues in Chapter 11 with Peregrinus’ conversion to Christianity. It is interesting to see that Lucian already calls the followers of Jesus by the name of ‘Christians’, as this particular name was not yet generally accepted at his time. 7 Apparently, Peregrinus was one of those contemporary wandering philosophers, who moved through the Mediterranean. Wandering was especially a well- known characteristic of Cynicism, 8 and Peregrinus may already have been attracted to that movement before his conversion, as he became a Cynic later. However that may be, it is in the aftermath of his parricide that he became attracted to, as Lucian ironically remarks, 9 the ‘wondrous wisdom of the Christians’ in Palestine by associating himself with τοῖς ῖερεῖσιν καῖ γραµµατεῖσιν αὐτὐν, ‘their priests and scribes’. Although these titles do occur separately in pagan associations, their combination is not attested there: pagan examples of these titles therefore hardly provide a persuasive parallel. 10 Betz notes that priests may be assumed for early Christianity and that Christian scribes are already mentioned in Matthew (13.52, 23.34), but neither category is 3 Is this a mistake made by Lucian, whose town of birth, Samosata, was not that far from ancient Armenia, whereas Parion was nowhere near? Cf. K.J. Rigsby, ‘Peregrinus in Armenia’, Class. Quart . 54 (2004) 317f. 4 In the course of time, paederasty had become less and less accepted, see Lucian, Amores , 28. 5 Bremmer, ‘Oedipus and the Greek Oedipus Complex’, in idem (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London 1988 2) 41-59 at 45-53. 6 Athenagoras, Leg . 26.4-5. For the possible appearance of the statue see R.R.R. Smith, ‘Cultural Choice and Political Identity in Honorific Portrait Statues in the Greek East in the Second Century A.D.’, J. Roman Stud. 88 (1998) 56-93. 7 For the origin and gradual acceptance of the name ‘Christians’ see Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (London and New York, 2002) 103-08, 175-78, overlooked by T. Hegedus, ‘Naming Christians in Antiquity’, Studies in Religion 32 (2004) 173-90. 8 S. Montiglio, ‘Wandering Philosophers in Classical Greece’, J. Hell. Stud. 120 (2000) 86-105. 9 Jones, Culture and Society , 121 note 19. 10 Contra Pilhofer, Lukian , 59. 2 mentioned in second-century Christianity, 11 whereas the New Testament always uses the combination οῖ ῖρχιερεῖς καῖ οῖ γραµµατεῖς.12 It is only once that we find οῖ ῖερεῖς καῖ γραµµατεῖς τοῖ ῖεροῖ in an enumeration of Jewish offices in Flavius Josephus. 13 In fact, we know that, at the time, the scribes functioned as copyists of Torah scrolls and as teachers of children, whereas the priests remained authorities on Jewish law also after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 .14 It is perhaps their contemporary relevance that makes that these titles were apparently taken over by the leaders of the Christian congregation. In any case, it strongly suggests that Peregrinus had joined one of the Judaeo-Christian congregations that existed, not surprisingly, in Palestine and Syria. 15 The association with the Christians was clearly a success, as in no time Peregrinus became an important person in the congregation: προφῖτης καῖ θιασῖρχης καῖ ξυναγωγεῖς (11). How do we analyse these terms? Betz suggests a certain hierarchy in these terms, but this is hardly obvious. Moreover, like Plooij&Koopman, Schwartz and Jones, he is inclined to see a Christian phenomenon behind this mention of a ‘prophet’. 16 However, the term should not be taken out of context but looked at as part of the enumeration. When we approach the problem from that angle, it is immediately clear that Lucian uses prophêtês in the meaning of ‘manager of an oracle’, 17 as the other two terms also suggest the leadership of a religious institution. A thiasarchês was the head of a thiasos , a term most often used for a Dionysiac association, 18 but not necessarily so: 11 Contra Betz, ‘Lukian’, 229 note 5. 12 Matthew 2.4, 16.21, 20.18 etc. 13 Jos. AJ 12.142; note also ῖρχιερεῖς καῖ τοῖς ῖερεῖς καῖ τοῖς γραµµατεῖς in Protevangelium Jacobi 6. 14 C. Hezser, The social structure of the rabbinic movement in Roman Palestine (Stuttgart, 1994) 467-75 (scribes), 480-89 (priests). 15 See most recently R. Kimelman, ‘Identifying Jews and Christians in Roman Syria-Palestine’, in E.M. Meyers (ed.), Galilee through the Centuries (Winona Lake, 1999) 301-33. 16 Contra Plooij&Koopman, Lucianus , 67; Schwartz and Jones, Culture and Society , 122. 17 Bremmer, ‘Prophetes IV’, in Der Neue Pauly X (Stuttgart & Weimar, 2001) 421-2; add now the personal name Prophetes in F. Rumscheid, ‘Inschriften aus Milas im Museum Bodrum’, Epigr. Anat . 37 (2004) 43-61 at 43-47; A. Busine, ‘The Officials of Oracular Sanctuaries in Roman Asia Minor’, Arch. f. Religionsgesch . 8 (2006) 275-316, passim . 18 A.-F. Jaccottet, Choisir Dionysos. Les associations dionysiaques ou la face cachée du dionysisme , 2 vols (Zürich, 2003) II, passim , cf. index s.v. 3 thiasoi of Jews, 19 of Heracles, 20 of the Mater Oureia ( Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum [= SEG ] 41.1329A.4), of the Agathodaimôn ( SEG 48.1120), and of the Theos Hypsistos ( CIRB 1259) are well attested.