Holiness Achieved

In spite of their contribution to theories of ascribed holiness, the Hebrew biblical texts provide later readers with other methods of constructing the notion of a holy people. The levitical call to holiness lays itself open to alternative ways of being holy - ways that highlight human behavior rather than (or at least in addition to) God’s choice. I want to focus now on types of holiness achieved, and in particular those that depend on sexual practices. The biblical texts link holiness and sexuality in various ways that later writers develop to suit their needs.

The Christian view

Paul, in his discourse on holiness achieved, reduces his understanding of the holy people to the level of community practices, particularly sexual behavior. In 1 Corinthians 6, for instance, he argues that the individual Christian, as a member of the larger community of believers, has become one (metaphorically) with the holy body of Christ, and is thereby holy by extension. Hence a believer must not defile his holy body with what Paul calls porneia (bad sexual behavior), for it will also necessarily pollute the whole community of believers, and by metaphorical extension the holy body of Christ of which they are jointly members. Without defining porneia in detail, Paul maintains in 1 Corinthians that there is holy behavior (avoiding porneia) and unholy behavior (indulging in porneia). While for Paul an individual’s holiness depends first on faith, the community’s holiness depends on its ability to monitor the sexual behavior of its members. In other passages, Paul suggests in the same way that a holy community differentiates itself from other nonholy communities by its behavior, particularly sexual behavior. 1 Thessalonians 4, for instance, distinguishes between holy Christian marriage and unholy Gentile marriage.

Turning to subsequent expressions of this notion - of holiness achieved through properly adjusted sexual behavior - we find new patterns of thought and argument evolving. The third-century Syriac Acts of Judah Thomas, for instance, assert that in order to be fully Christian one must sanctify oneself - that is to say, one has to pursue actively some sort of sanctifying behavior in order to become a Christian. Moreover, the Acts place holy sexual behavior above faith as the defining Christian characteristic. Real Christians achieve holiness by avoiding porneia. Yet the text goes even further: ‘‘holy sexual behavior’’ means either strict monogamy (one spouse for life) or full sexual abstinence. Paul’s admonition to avoid certain ‘‘bad’’ forms of sexual behavior as an integral part of one’s faith is, among some ascetically inclined Christian authors, displaced as the basis for achieving and maintaining Christian holiness by more restrictive sexual practices, even sexual renunciation.

This tendency to equate holiness with some sort of sexual behavior - be it chastity in marriage (that is, either monogamous marriage or sex for procreation only) or full sexual renunciation - can be found throughout the literature of the more ascetically inclined church Fathers (Clement, Origen, and Tertullian, to name but a few). They often attempted in their polemical works to defend or moderate what seemed to others culturally offensive positions. Yet, within communities already claiming chosenness, these exegetes’ hermeneutics of achieved holiness also provided in the end alternative ways of enhancing their divinely sanctioned, ascribed holiness, resulting in the creation of a hierarchy within their respective communities that placed ascetics a notch or two above the rest of the laity.

Aphrahat, for instance, argues that, while God blesses both marriage and celibacy, he elevates celibacy over marriage. Aphrahat makes that argument by appealing to celibacy’s holiness. He inherits thereby, within the Syrian tradition, the trend displayed in the Acts of Judah Thomas. The basic expression of his religious selfidentity is not just holiness but qaddishutha, a technical term for total sexual renunciation, adopted by Aphrahat as his life’s vocation. In Demonstrationes 18, entitled ‘‘Against the Jews concerning Virginity and Holiness,’’ he argues that Moses’ command, when Israel stood before Mount Sinai, that they should not ‘‘go near a woman’’ anticipated God’s Sinaitic revelation. Crucial to his argument is his interpretation of the verb qds - which appears in Exodus 19: 10 and 14 and there describes the ritually purifying actions that the Israelites must undergo before they can attend upon God. Aphrahat, however, understands the verb to connote sanctification (a permanent status) rather than ritual purification (a temporary status). He argues further, ‘‘And if with Israel, that had sanctified itself for only three days, God spoke, how much better and more desirable are those who all their days are sanctified, alert, prepared and standing before God. Should not God all the more love them and his spirit dwell among them?’’ (Demonstrationes 18. 5, Pat. Syr. i: 830. 8-15)

Aphrahat suggests here that ritual acts of washing and temporary celibacy can sanctify rather than just ritually purify. And not only that: God, through Moses, commands the people to perform these acts in preparation for the greatest moment in their history, the divine revelation. As Aphrahat understands Exodus 19, before God can give Israel the covenant, Israel must sanctify itself through temporary sexual abstinence. He further argues that, if a whole community should choose to sanctify itself permanently through full sexual renunciation, would not God prefer them (that is to say, choose them) from among all other communities? Aphrahat places this particular exegetical reading within his polemic against the Jews. The Jews, he laments, claim an exclusive hold on holiness; a holiness achieved through their fulfilling of the divine laws, in particular the law to be fruitful and multiply. Aphra-hat’s counter-argument opposes this supposed Jewish belief on several fronts. First, he allows that some Christians do legitimately procreate (but this does not make them holy - they are already that by their faith). Second, and more important, he argues that those who do not procreate sanctify and further elevate themselves, because God commanded the Israelites to be celibate before Sinai and called that action ‘‘holy.’’ Only celibate Christians have grasped the import of this command by adopting it as the basis of their religious vocation of‘‘standing before God.’’ Holiness is not only a sign of a whole community’s chosenness, but also proof of divine approval for a community that follows God’s ‘‘real’’ commandments to their logical conclusions. Aphrahat’s celibates are holy not only because they understand that the command to ‘‘sanctify’’ in Exodus 19 implies sexual renunciation, but also because they, as opposed to the Jews, truly sanctify themselves - that is, fulfill the command of the holiness code in Leviticus by truly obeying God. Thus, the Jews misunderstand the biblical texts’ import when they focus on the commandment to be fruitful and multiply as evidence of their obedience. As we shall see below, Aphrahat’s Jews, whether fictitious or real, do not represent the theological stance of all fourth-century Mesopotamian Jews; but Aphrahat, certainly, and some rabbinic Jews understand the relationship between holiness and sexuality in strikingly similar ways.

Nevertheless, Aphrahat proves unable or unwilling to condemn marriage and procreation entirely. Rather, he and other like-minded Christian exegetes, in elevating celibacy above procreation, create a hierarchy of holiness within their communities. In Demonstrationes 16, Aphrahat argues that all Christians are holy in that they, as believing Gentiles, have displaced the disbelieving and particularly disobedient Israelites. Here he draws a line between holy (Christian) and unholy (Jews). In Demonstrationes 18, however, he draws a three-way division: Jews, procreating Christians, and celibate Christians. In arguing against Jewish claims based on a command to procreate, Aphrahat subdivides his own community into the holy faithful and the more holy celibate. The goal in the end is not to be ‘‘Christian’’ or ‘‘Jewish,’’ but rather to exemplify holiness: belonging to God. And ifyou or your followers embody more holiness than others - all the better for you and your community. While Aphrahat argues that celibacy achieves holiness, some rabbis (as we shall see below) posit that other ascetic sexual practices could achieve similar results. Hence sexual abstinence cannot be seen as a strictly Christian category in the middle of the fourth century; nor can holiness be seen as a strictly Jewish one.

The Rabbinic view

In their own discussions concerning individually achieved holiness, the rabbis make two similar moves. Some agree with Aphrahat’s reading of Exodus 19 - that the nature of Moses’ call to temporary celibacy at Mt. Sinai is expressed by the word qaddosh (Avot de Rabbi Natan 2. 3; Mekhilta Yitro Bahodesh 3) and means ‘‘holy.’’ But few, if any, rabbis would proceed to Aphrahat’s conclusion that God prefers the celibate. The texts suggest rather that Moses needed to be celibate in order to serve God and Israel in the desert (although he did have two sons before that). He was special (that is, holier), as Deuteronomy 34: 10 notes: ‘‘and there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face’’ (Sifre 103). Certain other rabbis, however, agree with Aphrahat’s overall theory that certain ascetic practices (sexual and other) gain extra holiness for the practitioner. In this way, the rabbis also create a hierarchy: there is holy Israel and the more holy (more ascetic) rabbis - thus strengthening further their authoritative positions.

This final notion can be seen in the following exchange recorded under the names of two famous fourth-century rabbis:

Abaye stated, ‘‘whosoever acts in accordance with the rulings of the Rabbis is called a holy man.’’ Replied Rava to him, ‘‘Then he who does not act in accordance with the rulings of the Rabbis is not called a holy man, nor is he called a wicked man either.’’ ‘‘Rather,’’ said Rava, ‘‘sanctify yourself by that which is permitted to you.’’ (Babylonian Talmud Yev. 20a; my translation)

These statements come at the end of a long discussion about the categories of holiness applicable to all Israelites. If some biblical texts refer only to priestly holiness, what are the rest of Israel? Based on other biblical texts that see holiness as resulting from following the commandments (the holiness code), the rabbis conclude that fulfilling the biblical commandments makes (or confirms) an Israelite (as) holy too. Hence, if all Israel is holy, then the priests must be more holy. Abaye further suggests that only Jews who follow rabbinic understandings of biblical law should be allowed to call themselves holy. Rava wonders, then, what of the nonconformist Jew? Is he no longer part of Israel? Rava, unlike Ezra or the author of the Book of Jubilees, does not wish to follow that line of inquiry. He clearly holds that all Israel is holy, whether they behave themselves or not (as was suggested in the rabbinic texts quoted above). So, he suggests instead, ‘‘sanctify yourself by that which is permitted to you’’ - that is, restrict yourself even in your permitted actions; in other words, be ascetically inclined. By limiting one’s sexual activity, for instance, one moves oneself into a higher category of holiness - in the same way that God bestowed upon the priests a higher level of holiness among the other Israelites. Sexual limitation provides Aphrahat with similar mechanisms, and even some rabbis create extra avenues of individual spiritual achievement within a community’s already delimited sacred boundaries.

For these late ancient authors, holiness was the prize of God’s exclusive attention both ascribed and achieved. It afforded these Christian and Jewish exegetes several ways to define themselves, both as communities vis-a-vis competitors and internally as divided between the laity and those that would claim some religious authority. Melito and Justin Martyr diverted God’s exclusive attention and gift of holiness from historic Israel to the growing Gentile Christian communities, in order to support their new-found faith. Aphrahat used sexuality within his discourse on holiness as a primary tool of community organization and self-awareness. The rabbis turned to the priestly precedence of internal hierarchy to create internal divisions of their own, based on individual sexual practices. All communities seeking access to God attempted to interpret the biblical notions of holiness to their exclusive advantage. In the end, these various hermeneutics of holiness - ascribed or achieved - became indispensable tools in Christian and Jewish exegetical hands for constructing internal and external community boundaries. Late antique Jewish-Christian relations can be defined then, in part, by how each community constructed its borders and divisions. The writings we have examined here demonstrate how hermeneutics of holiness aided these exegetes in their community-building projects in a world of competing claims on the truth of shared sacred texts. These groups did not aspire to be Jewish or Christian as much as they wished to claim God’s holiness exclusively for themselves. Moreover, sexuality emerged for late ancient Jews and Christians as the shared criterion by which to measure their achievement of that ambition.

In conclusion, Jewish-Christian relations in the late antique period are not easily defined. Geography, politics, and cultural context helped in some small degree to determine the possible relationships between the many and variously configured Jewish and Christian communities around the Mediterranean basin and Near East. Material culture also provides some evidence of both hostility and harmonious contact between communities. Yet the literature, particularly the exegetical and polemical treatises, does most to open a window onto the complexities of constructing community boundaries between groups that in essence shared more cultural, religious, and literary resources than they were willing often to admit.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Students who wish to start at the beginning should read both Harnack 1883 and Simon 1986. Others who wish to jump right into the contemporary debates would do well to start with Becker and Reed 2003. The introduction’s bibliography is particularly useful. Other books of interest are: Sanders 1980-2; Rokeah 1982; Wilken 1983; Drijvers 1985; Segal 1986; Wilson 1995; Gregg and Urman 1996; Hirshman 1996; Cohen 1999; Porter and Pearson 2000; Boyarin 2004; Lieu 2004.

For greater ease of reference, I note the following editions and translations:

Aphraates, the Persian Sage (Aphrahat) (1894-1907), Demonstrationes, Syriac text and Latin tr. by John Parisot, in R. Graffin (ed.), Patrologia Syriaca, i: Ab initiis usque ad annum 350, 3 vols., Paris, Firmin-Didot.

Aphraates, the Persian Sage (Aphrahat) (1988-9), Les Exposes, 2 vols., French tr. by Marie-Joseph Pierre, Paris, liditions du Cerf.

Avot de Rabbi Natan (1887), ed. S. Schechter, London, Nutt.

Justin Martyr (1948), Dialogue with Trypho. Text: PG 6. 471A-800D. English tr. by Thomas B. Falls, Washington, DC, Catholic University Press.

Mekhilta de-rabbi yishmael (1960), ed. H. S. Horoviz and I. Rabin, Jerusalem, Bamberger & Wahrman.

Melito of Sardis (1979), On Pascha and Fragments, ed. Stuart George Hall, Oxford, Clarendon Press; English tr. by Alistair Stewart-Sykes, Melito of Sardis, On Pascha: with the Fragments of Melito and Other Material related to the Quartodecimans, Crestwood, NY, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001.

Midrash Rabbah (Genesis-Deuteronomy Rabbah plus the five Scrolls) (1884-7), Midrash Rabbah al Hamishah Humshe Torah ve-Hamesh Megillot, 2 vols., Vilna, ha-almana veha-ahim rom; English tr. by H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, 10 vols., 3rd edn., London and New York, Soncino Press, 1983.

Midrash Tehillim (also called the Shoher Tov) (1891), ed. S. Buber, Vilna, Wittwe & Gebriider Romm.

Mishnah: Shisha Sidrei Mishnah (1952-9), ed. Ch. Albeck, 6 vols., Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Mosad Bialik/Dvir.

Sifre de-BeRav (Sifre to Numbers) (1864), ed. M. Friedman (Ish Shalom), Vienna, Holzwarth.

Talmud, Babylonian (1882), Talmud Bavli, Prague, Landau; English tr. by I. Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud in English, London, Soncino Press, 1935-52.