Heb 5:13 - 'Melchizedekians', λόγου δικαιοσύνης & Hermetica?
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:41 am
I've been translating Moriz Friedländer’s “La Secte de Melchisédec et l'Épître aux Hébreux” in Revue des Études Juives Vol. 6, No. 12 (1882), Part 3: pp.187-199 (third part wrapping up: almost there!).
As indicated elsewhere, whether Friedländer's ideas are accepted by modern consensus is largely immaterial to my purpose, because I am following through a thesis linking the Alexandrian Therapeutae with a modern recovery cult/revised 'First Century Christianity' (apparently derived from Friedländer's theories). So my own key focus is a) what Friedländer argued and b) how the Anonymous Authors responded to Friedländer (c.1938)', not c) any 21st C. theological debate (however fascinating).
Friedländer is credited by Pearson (1973) and Piovanelli (2012) as the first Western scholar to link Melchizedek to the transformation of Enochic-Essene Judaism into Christian gnosticism and to forcefully address Pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism generally. (Friedländer was mostly ignored by contemporaries.) But my Anonymous Author personally knew Gershon Scholem and Hans Jonas as peers, and in 1937 the Melchizedek question had been addressed at some length by Marcel Simon, so it would have been fresh in my Anonymous Author's mind (1938).
As I now understand Friedländer on the pertinent background, here:
1) Apollos is the anonymous author of Epistle to the Hebrews, c.60 AD.
2) Apollos has become a Paulist preacher, he writes to a backsliding 'Melchizedekian' Gnostic Jewish synagogue (perhaps in Alexandria).
3) From Alexandria originally, Apollos was the popular preacher of a then-advanced Christos doctrine as a 'Melchizedekian' gnostic (Therapeut/Essene) theosopher before he adopted Aquila & Priscilla's Paulism.
While Friedländer's work strongly appears to be the foundation for my Anon.'s assumptions, they need not have limited themselves to his radical start 35 years earlier. Whatever these 'Melchizedekian' Hebrews called themselves, Friedländer suggests, in Hebrews these "Gnostic" Essene/Therapeut Jews employed a book called 'Discourse on Perfect Righteousness'. My question is about that. Could this be 'The Perfect Discourse' of Ascelpius, or something similar - known or unknown - from the Hermetica? Because that is the direction my Anonymous Author(s) certainly went with: that some Alexandrian 'Therapeutae' (viz., Apollos' background) were in fact also Hermeticists. I have been unable to find this leap in Friedländer; I presume it's their own radical thesis unless I can prove otherwise. It is certain my Anon. were writing a book on Ascelpius at the time: THAT cannot be coincidental. Enoch/Imhotep/Hermes certainly suggests the possibility a learned Alexandrian 'Jewish Gnostic' theosopher c.60 AD might have referred to a known or lost work of the Hermetica. So:
What is the 'Discourse on Perfect Righteousness'? And what else might tie the supposed 'Melchizedekians' to the Hermetica?
Excerpts from my working trans. of Friedländer’s “La Secte de Melchisédec et l'Épître aux Hébreux” in Revue des Études Juives Vol. 6, No. 12 (1882), Part 3: pp.
* λόγου δικαιοσύνης = 'Discourse on Righteousness'
As indicated elsewhere, whether Friedländer's ideas are accepted by modern consensus is largely immaterial to my purpose, because I am following through a thesis linking the Alexandrian Therapeutae with a modern recovery cult/revised 'First Century Christianity' (apparently derived from Friedländer's theories). So my own key focus is a) what Friedländer argued and b) how the Anonymous Authors responded to Friedländer (c.1938)', not c) any 21st C. theological debate (however fascinating).
Friedländer is credited by Pearson (1973) and Piovanelli (2012) as the first Western scholar to link Melchizedek to the transformation of Enochic-Essene Judaism into Christian gnosticism and to forcefully address Pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism generally. (Friedländer was mostly ignored by contemporaries.) But my Anonymous Author personally knew Gershon Scholem and Hans Jonas as peers, and in 1937 the Melchizedek question had been addressed at some length by Marcel Simon, so it would have been fresh in my Anonymous Author's mind (1938).
As I now understand Friedländer on the pertinent background, here:
1) Apollos is the anonymous author of Epistle to the Hebrews, c.60 AD.
2) Apollos has become a Paulist preacher, he writes to a backsliding 'Melchizedekian' Gnostic Jewish synagogue (perhaps in Alexandria).
3) From Alexandria originally, Apollos was the popular preacher of a then-advanced Christos doctrine as a 'Melchizedekian' gnostic (Therapeut/Essene) theosopher before he adopted Aquila & Priscilla's Paulism.
While Friedländer's work strongly appears to be the foundation for my Anon.'s assumptions, they need not have limited themselves to his radical start 35 years earlier. Whatever these 'Melchizedekian' Hebrews called themselves, Friedländer suggests, in Hebrews these "Gnostic" Essene/Therapeut Jews employed a book called 'Discourse on Perfect Righteousness'. My question is about that. Could this be 'The Perfect Discourse' of Ascelpius, or something similar - known or unknown - from the Hermetica? Because that is the direction my Anonymous Author(s) certainly went with: that some Alexandrian 'Therapeutae' (viz., Apollos' background) were in fact also Hermeticists. I have been unable to find this leap in Friedländer; I presume it's their own radical thesis unless I can prove otherwise. It is certain my Anon. were writing a book on Ascelpius at the time: THAT cannot be coincidental. Enoch/Imhotep/Hermes certainly suggests the possibility a learned Alexandrian 'Jewish Gnostic' theosopher c.60 AD might have referred to a known or lost work of the Hermetica. So:
What is the 'Discourse on Perfect Righteousness'? And what else might tie the supposed 'Melchizedekians' to the Hermetica?
Excerpts from my working trans. of Friedländer’s “La Secte de Melchisédec et l'Épître aux Hébreux” in Revue des Études Juives Vol. 6, No. 12 (1882), Part 3: pp.
Now let us try to explain the difficult passage of Chapter 5: ‘For whoever is fed only milk is incapable of hearing the Discourse on Perfect Righteousness*’ (5:13). ‘What is the Discourse on Perfect Righteousness?’ is what all the commentators wonder. We know that the very name of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:2), ‘who according to etymology is called first ‘the King of Righteousness,’ for much of the mystery is attached to this Old Testament character. This is indicated by this relation of Epiphanius78: “The aforementioned sect makes offerings in Melchizedek’s name and claims that offerings must be made through him: because he is the intermediary to God and, because he is the Archon of Righteousness ordained by God in heaven for this purpose, having been a spiritual being and instituted as Son of God. And (they say) we must present gifts to him, so through him they may be offered on our behalf, and through him we may find life. And (they say) Christ was chosen to summon us back by many ways to this one knowledge (gnosis), having been anointed by God and chosen to turn us away from idols and show us the way...” After that, Melchizedekians thought that Melchizedek is the true intermediary and that by him alone one can be pleasing to God, because he is ‘the Chief of Perfected Justice.’ It is also for this reason he was raised so high by God, while Christ's only task was to bring men from their many errors to the one way, that is to say to the path traced by Melchizedek.
Therefore, if we consider that this idea of ‘Righteousness’ attached to ‘Melchizedek’ name is central to Melchizedekian gnosis and moreover that it’s precisely on the occasion of Christ’s priesthood ‘according to the order of Melchizedek’ that Hebrews’ author mentions the Discourse on Perfect Righteousness, then don’t we have the right to conclude there is an allusion to Melchizedekian ‘Justice’ in this passage? Isn’t it very plausible to say the author of Hebrews, addressing his blind readers on this occasion, exclaims: ‘Since you have strayed from the right path, you have lost your faculty to judge and therefore {p.191} you have become incapable of hearing the Discourse on Righteousness; you must not therefore risk yourselves on this slippery ground, which easily leads to deviations, because ‘whoever is fed only on milk is incapable of hearing the Discourse on Righteousness?’
Therefore, if we consider that this idea of ‘Righteousness’ attached to ‘Melchizedek’ name is central to Melchizedekian gnosis and moreover that it’s precisely on the occasion of Christ’s priesthood ‘according to the order of Melchizedek’ that Hebrews’ author mentions the Discourse on Perfect Righteousness, then don’t we have the right to conclude there is an allusion to Melchizedekian ‘Justice’ in this passage? Isn’t it very plausible to say the author of Hebrews, addressing his blind readers on this occasion, exclaims: ‘Since you have strayed from the right path, you have lost your faculty to judge and therefore {p.191} you have become incapable of hearing the Discourse on Righteousness; you must not therefore risk yourselves on this slippery ground, which easily leads to deviations, because ‘whoever is fed only on milk is incapable of hearing the Discourse on Righteousness?’
* λόγου δικαιοσύνης = 'Discourse on Righteousness'