Adolf von Harnack · 25 of 39

Chapter I. The Christian Missionaries (Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets or Teachers: The Informal Missionaries) · II

One other preliminary inquiry is necessary before we can proceed to the subject of this chapter. We are to discuss apostles, prophets, and teachers as the missionaries or preachers of Christianity; the question is, whether this threefold group can be explained from Judaism.

Such a derivation is in any case limited by the fact that these classes did not form any triple group in Judaism, their close association being a characteristic of primitive Christianity. With regard to each group, the following details are to be noted:—

1. Apostles.—Jewish officials bearing this title are unknown to us until the destruction of the temple and the organization of the Palestinian patriarchate; but it is extremely unlikely that no “apostles” previously existed, since the Jews would hardly have created an official class of “apostles” after the appearance of the Christian apostles. At any rate, the fact was there, as also, beyond question, was the name—i.e., of authoritative officials who collected contributions from the Diaspora for the temple and kept the churches in touch with Jerusalem and with each other. According to Justin (Dial. xvii., cviii., cxvii.), the thoroughly systematic measures which were initiated from Jerusalem in order to counteract the Christian mission even in Paul's day were the work of the high priests and teachers, who despatched men (ἄνδρας χειροτονήσαντες ἐκλεκτούς) all over the world to give correct information about Jesus and his disciples. These were “apostles” that is, this task was entrusted to the “apostles” who kept Jerusalem in touch with the Diaspora.

Eusebius (in Isa. xviii. 1 f.) proves that the chosen persons whom Justin thus characterizes are to be identified with the “apostles” of Judaism. The passage has been already printed (cp. p. 59), but in view of its importance it may once more be quoted: εὕρομεν ἐν τοῖς τῶν παλαιῶν συγγράμμασιν, ὡς οἱ τῆν Ἱερουσαλὴμ οἰκοῦντες τοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνους ἱερεῖς καὶ πρεσβύτεροι γράμματα διαχαράξαντες εἰς πάντα διεπέμψαντο τὰ ἔθνη τοῖς ἁπανταχοῦ Ἰουδαίοις διαβάλλοντες τὴν Χριστοῦ διδασκαλίαν ὡς αἵρεσιν καινὴν καὶ ἀλλοτρίαν τοῦ θεοῦ, παρήγγελλόν τε δι᾽ ἐπιστολῶν μὴ παραδέξασθαι αὐτήν . . . . οἵ τε ἀπόστολοι αὐτῶν ἐπιστολὰς βιβλίνας κομιζόμενοι ἀπανταχοῦ γῆς διέτρεχον, τὸν περὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐνδιαβάλλοντες λόγον. ἀποστόλους δὲ εἰσέτι καὶ νῦν (so that the institution was no novelty) ἔθος ἐστὶν Ἰουδαὶοις ὀνομάζειν τοὺς ἐγκύκλια γράμματα παρὰ τῶν ἀρχόντων αὐτῶν ἐπικομιζομένονς. The primary function, therefore, which Eusebius emphasized in the Jewish “apostles” of his own day, was their duty of conveying encyclical epistles issued by the central authority for the instruction and direction of the Diaspora. In the law-book (Theodosianus Codex, xvi. 8. 14), as is only natural, another side is presented “Superstitionis indignae est, ut archisynagogi sive presbyteri Judaeorum vel quos ipsi apostolos vocant, qui ad exigendum aurum atque argentum a patriarcha certo tempore diriguntur,” etc. (“It is part of this worthless superstition that the Jews have chiefs of their synagogues, or elders, or persons whom they call apostles, who are appointed by the patriarch at a certain season to collect gold and silver”). The same aspect is adduced, as the context indicates, by Julian (Epist. xxv.; Hertlein, p. 513), when he speaks of “the apostleship you talk about” λεγομένη παῤ ὑμῖν ἀποστολή Jerome (ad Gal., i. 1) merely remarks: “Usque hodie a patriarchis Judaeorum apostolos mitti” (“To this day apostles are despatched by the Jewish patriarchs”). But we gain much more information from Epiphanius, who, in speaking of a certain Joseph (adv. Hær., xxx. 4), writes: οὗτος τῶν παῤ αὐτοῖς ἀξιωματικῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐναρίθμιος ἦν· εἶσὶ δὲ οὗτοι μετὰ τὸν πατριάρχην ἀπόστολοι καλούμενοι, προσεδρεύουσι δὲ τῷ πατριάρχῃ καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ πολλάκις καὶ ἐν νυκτὶ καὶ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ συνεχῶς διάγουσι, διὰ τὸ συμβουλεύειν καὶ ἀναφέρειν αὐτῷ τὰ κατὰ τὸν νόμον. He tells (chap. xi.) when this Joseph became an apostle (or, got the εὐκαρπία τῆς ἀποστολῆς), and then proceeds: καὶ μετ᾽ ἐπιστολῶν οὗτος ἀποστέλλεται εἰς τὴν Κιλίκων γῆν· ὅς ἀνελθὼν ἐκεῖσε ἀπὸ ἑκάστης πόλεως τῆς Κιλικίας τὰ ἐπιδέκατα καὶ τὰς ἀπαρχὰς παρὰ τῶν ἐν τῇ ἐπαρχίᾳ Ἰουδαίων εἰσέπραττεν . . . . ἐπεὶ οὖν, οἷα ἀπόστολος (οὕτως γὰρ παῤ αὐτοῖς, ὡς ἔφην, τὸ ἀξίωμα καλεῖται), ἐμβριθέστατος καὶ καθαρεύων δῆθεν τὰ εἰς κατάστασιν εὐνομίας, οὕτως ἐπιτελεῖν προβαλλόμενος, πολλοὺς τῶν κακῶν κατασταθέντων ἀρχισυναγώγων καὶ ἱερέων καὶ πρεσβυτέρων καὶ ἀζανιτῶν . . . . καθαιρῶν τε καὶ μετακινῶν τοῦ ἀξιώματος ὑπὸ πολλῶν ἐνεκοτεῖτο, κ.τ.λ. (“He was despatched with epistles to Cilicia, and on arriving there proceeded to levy from every city of Cilicia the titles and firstfruits paid by the Jews throughout the province. When, therefore, in virtue of his apostleship (for so is this order of men entitled by the Jews, as I have said), he acted with great rigour, forsooth, in his reforms and restoration of good order-which was the very business before him—deposing and removing from office many wicked chiefs of the synagogue and priests and presbyters and ministers . . . . he became hated by many people”).

Putting together these functions of the “apostles,” we get the following result. (1) They were persons of a very high rank; (2) they were sent out into the Diaspora to collect tribute for headquarters; (3) they brought encyclical letters with them, kept the Diaspora in touch with the centre and informed of the intentions of the latter (or of the patriarch), received orders about any dangerous movement, and had to organize resistance to it; (4) they exercised certain powers of surveillance and discipline in the Diaspora; and (5) on returning to their own country they formed a sort of council which aided the patriarch in supervising the interests of the law.

In view of all this one can hardly deny a certain connection between these Jewish apostles and the Christian. It was not simply that Paul and others had hostile relations with them their very organization afforded a sort of type for the Christian apostleship, great as were the differences between the two. But, one may ask, were not these differences too great? Were not the Jewish apostles just financial officials? Well, at the very moment when the primitive apostles recognized Paul as an apostle, they set him also a financial task (Gal. ii. 10); he was to collect money throughout the Diaspora for the church at Jerusalem. The importance henceforth attached by Paul to this side of his work is well known; on it he spent unceasing care, although it involved him in the sorest vexations and led finally to his death. Taken by itself, it is not easy to understand exactly how the primitive apostles could impose this task on Paul, and how he could quietly accept it. But the thing becomes intelligible whenever we assume that the church at Jerusalem, together with the primitive apostles, considered themselves the central body of Christendom, and also the representatives of the true Israel. That was the reason why the apostles whom they recognized were entrusted with a duty similar to that imposed on Jewish “apostles,” viz., the task of collecting the tribute of the Diaspora. Paul himself would view it, one imagines, in a somewhat different light, but it is quite probable that this was how the matter was viewed by the primitive apostles. In this way the connection between the Jewish and the Christian apostles, which on other grounds is hardly to be denied in spite of all their differences, becomes quite evident.

These statements about the Jewish apostles have been contested by Monnier (op. cit., pp. 16 f.): “To prop up his theory, Harnack takes a text of Justin and fortifies it with another from Eusebius. That is, he proves the existence of an institution in the first century by means of a second-century text, and interprets the latter by means of a fourth-century writer. This is too easy.” But it is still more easy to let such confusing abstractions blind us to the reasons which in the present instance not only allow us but even make it obvious to explain the testimony of Justin by that of Eusebius, and again to connect it with what we know of the antichristian mission set on foot by the Jerusalemites, and of the false apostles in the time of Paul. I have not ignored the fact that we possess no direct evidence for the assertion that Jewish emissaries like Saul in the first century bore the name of “apostles.”

(2) Prophets.—The common idea is that prophets had died out in Judaism long before the age of Jesus and the apostles, but the New Testament itself protests against this erroneous idea. Reference may be made especially to John the Baptist, who certainly was a prophet and was called a prophet; also to the prophetess Hanna (Luke ii. 36), to Barjesus the Jewish prophet in the retinue of the pro-consul at Cyprus (Acts xiii. 7), and to the warnings against false prophets (Matt. vii. 15, xxiv. 11, 25 = Mark xiii. 22, 1 John iv. 1, 2 Pet. ii. 1). Besides, we are told that the Essenes possessed the gift of prophecy; of Theudas, as of the Egyptian, it is said, προφήτης ἔλεγεν εἶναι (“he alleged himself to be a prophet, Joseph” Antiq., xx. 5. 1); Josephus the historian played the prophet openly and successfully before Vespasian; Philo called himself a prophet, and in the Diaspora we hear of Jewish interpreters of dreams, and of prophetic magicians. What is still more significant, the wealth of contemporary Jewish apocalypses, oracular utterances, and so forth shows that, so far from being extinct, prophecy was in luxuriant bloom, and also that prophets were numerous, and secured both adherents and readers. There were very wide circles of Judaism who cannot have felt any surprise when a prophet appeared: John the Baptist and Jesus were hailed without further ado as prophets, and the imminent return of ancient prophets was an article of faith. From its earliest awakening, then, Christian prophecy was no novelty, when formally considered, but a phenomenon which readily coordinated itself with similar contemporary phenomena in Judaism. In both cases, too, the high value attached to the prophets follows as a matter of course, since they are the voice of God; recognized as genuine prophets, they possess an absolute authority in their preaching and counsels. They were not merely deemcd capable of miracles, but even expected to perform them. It even seemed credible that a prophet could rise from the dead by the power of God; Herod and a section of the people were quite of opinion that Jesus was John the Baptist redivivnt (see also Rev. xi. 11).

(3) Teachers.—No words need be wasted on the importance of the scribes and teachers in Judaism, particularly in Palestine; but in order to explain historically the prestige claimed and enjoyed by the Christian διδάσκαλοι it is necessary to allude to the prestige of the Jewish teachers. “The rabbis claimed from their pupils the most unqualified reverence, a reverence which was to exceed even that paid to father and mother.” “Let esteem for thy friend border on respect for thy teacher, and respect for thy teacher on reverence for God.” “Respect for a teacher surpasses respect for a father; for son and father alike owe respect to a teacher.” “If a man's father and teacher have lost anything, the teacher's loss has the prior claim; for while his father has only brought the nian into the world, his teacher has taught him wisdom and brought him to life in the world to come. If a man's father and teacher are bearing burdens, he must help the teacher first, and then his father. If father and teacher are both in captivity, he must ransom the teacher first.” As a rule, the rabbis claimed everywhere the highest rank. “They love the uppermost places at feasts and the front seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the market-place, and to be called by men ‘rabbi'”(Matt. xxiii. 6 f. and parallel passages). “Their very dress was that of people of quality.”

Thus the three members of the Christian group—apostles, prophets, teachers—were already to be met with in contemporary Judaism, where they were individually held in very high esteem. Still, they were not grouped together; otherwise the prophets would have been placed in a more prominent position. The grouping of these three classes, and the special development of the apostleship, were the special work of the Christian church. It was a work which had most vital consequences.