The Midrashic Impulse
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:03 pm
There is much enthusiasm in some quarters here for seeing midrash as the key to explaining the creation of some elements of gospel narratives, i.e. the glossing of one scriptural text with another (often out of context) which can create something new as a by-product, something presented as historical fact. It's reasonable to ask if classicists, for example, see the same type of process at work in their texts. The answer is yes, though as this is not rabbinica, let's not call it midrash, rather creation by literary inference. Here's a small example.
According to Philostratus (Vit.Soph.488), during his exile under Domitian the sophist/philosopher Dio Chrysostom "planted, dug, and channeled water for baths and gardens, performing many such menial tasks for a living." We are reminded of Acts 18.3, a throwaway aside that Paul was a tentmaker by trade. It seems like a standard trope and we move on.
But there is a problem. Dio's speeches/essays have many autobiographical passages, and are undoubtedly Philostratus' source. But nowhere in the extensive extant corpus does the refined Dio admit to doing manual labour, poor though he was in exile. Of philosophic exemplars, Philostratus himself (Vit.Ap.5.19) has the exiled Musonius Rufus (Dio's likely teacher) in a chain-gang digging the Corinth canal; Diogenes Laertius (7.168) re-tells the story of Cleanthes being so poor that "by night he drew water in gardens."
But why pick on these particular examples ? Back in 1978, Christopher Jones noted that in Or.12.18, Dio, describing a visit to an army camp post-exile, said he was too weak to dig a ditch (not that he was there to do that). In Or.35.20, describing Indian irrigation systems, Dio continues "..just as 'we' convey the water of our gardens. And there are baths also close by.." Seemingly, out of context citations have pointed to examples which provide narrative events in the account of Dio's life.
Similarly, Philostratus has Dio, on Domitian's death, stop a mutiny at an army camp by imitating the 'big reveal' of Odysseus to the suitors, stripping off his beggar's rags, quoting Homer (while naked) to prove who he really is, denouncing the tyrant but counselling good order. Again, that camp visit (where nothing happened) was in Trajan's reign, with Dio's fortunes restored. Dio does claim to have denounced Domitian in public, but this episode is absent. Dio does compare his exilic appearance, "in the guise of a beggar", to that of Odysseus back on Ithaca (Or.1.50, 33.14-15), but there is no dramatic pay-off. Philostratus has joined the dots to make a plausible fiction. We have no need to posit lost written sources, or a 'rich oral tradition', (except in so far as previous readers of Dio could have made the connections which Philostratus took up - oral tradition doesn't have to start in the lifetime of the subject).
What then of Paul the tentmaker (σκηνοποιός) ? If we are convinced by F.C. Baur et al that the author of Acts is 'in dialogue' with Paul's letters, a joining of dots provides a rational explanation. Paul is insistent that he works with his hands, profession unspecified (1Cor.4.12). He metaphorically describes himself as a master-builder, the building seeming to be a temple/ναός (1Cor.3.10-17). Acts can hardly describe Paul as a ναοποιός, but (2Cor.5.1 etc) Paul helpfully also uses the word σκηνος ('tabernacle', but basically 'tent') as an equivalent to ναός. So you quickly end up with Paul the distinctly artisanal σκηνοποιός, a textually 'justified' answer to a (very) minor question, what was Paul's day-job ?
According to Philostratus (Vit.Soph.488), during his exile under Domitian the sophist/philosopher Dio Chrysostom "planted, dug, and channeled water for baths and gardens, performing many such menial tasks for a living." We are reminded of Acts 18.3, a throwaway aside that Paul was a tentmaker by trade. It seems like a standard trope and we move on.
But there is a problem. Dio's speeches/essays have many autobiographical passages, and are undoubtedly Philostratus' source. But nowhere in the extensive extant corpus does the refined Dio admit to doing manual labour, poor though he was in exile. Of philosophic exemplars, Philostratus himself (Vit.Ap.5.19) has the exiled Musonius Rufus (Dio's likely teacher) in a chain-gang digging the Corinth canal; Diogenes Laertius (7.168) re-tells the story of Cleanthes being so poor that "by night he drew water in gardens."
But why pick on these particular examples ? Back in 1978, Christopher Jones noted that in Or.12.18, Dio, describing a visit to an army camp post-exile, said he was too weak to dig a ditch (not that he was there to do that). In Or.35.20, describing Indian irrigation systems, Dio continues "..just as 'we' convey the water of our gardens. And there are baths also close by.." Seemingly, out of context citations have pointed to examples which provide narrative events in the account of Dio's life.
Similarly, Philostratus has Dio, on Domitian's death, stop a mutiny at an army camp by imitating the 'big reveal' of Odysseus to the suitors, stripping off his beggar's rags, quoting Homer (while naked) to prove who he really is, denouncing the tyrant but counselling good order. Again, that camp visit (where nothing happened) was in Trajan's reign, with Dio's fortunes restored. Dio does claim to have denounced Domitian in public, but this episode is absent. Dio does compare his exilic appearance, "in the guise of a beggar", to that of Odysseus back on Ithaca (Or.1.50, 33.14-15), but there is no dramatic pay-off. Philostratus has joined the dots to make a plausible fiction. We have no need to posit lost written sources, or a 'rich oral tradition', (except in so far as previous readers of Dio could have made the connections which Philostratus took up - oral tradition doesn't have to start in the lifetime of the subject).
What then of Paul the tentmaker (σκηνοποιός) ? If we are convinced by F.C. Baur et al that the author of Acts is 'in dialogue' with Paul's letters, a joining of dots provides a rational explanation. Paul is insistent that he works with his hands, profession unspecified (1Cor.4.12). He metaphorically describes himself as a master-builder, the building seeming to be a temple/ναός (1Cor.3.10-17). Acts can hardly describe Paul as a ναοποιός, but (2Cor.5.1 etc) Paul helpfully also uses the word σκηνος ('tabernacle', but basically 'tent') as an equivalent to ναός. So you quickly end up with Paul the distinctly artisanal σκηνοποιός, a textually 'justified' answer to a (very) minor question, what was Paul's day-job ?