Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Jaap Dekker: A Szolga és a szolgák Ézsaiás próféta könyvében

The first known Sethites-interpretation is found in Julius Africanus, to be dated to the first half of the third century.46 Africanus mentions two possible explanations. He explains that the expression ‘sons of God’ may refer to the Sethites, while the ‘seed of men’ refers to the descendants of Cain. But he also mentions the tradition known from the Enochic tradition, that the ‘sons of God’ are the angels, who taught all kinds of knowledge to women and begot giant children.47 Anyhow, Africanus makes no choice between the two options. He appears to have been an adventurer, and he seemed to be more concerned with perfecting his skills in bow-shooting48 and other sports. More interesting with respect to the theme of the ‘sons of God’, however, is the fact that Africanus spent some time at the court of king Abgar VIII in Edessa, trying to educate the king’s son. The arrow for the provenance of the Sethites-interpretation therefore may point to Syria. It may be in Syria that Africanus met the Sethites-exegesis. Other indications pointing to Syria are the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones. Even if they cannot be dated with certainty (somewhere between the second and fourth century c.e.), and even if these writings, as to their content, fit better the category of apocryphal literature, their provenance is probably Syria.49 In the Recognitiones, the ‘angels’ from the exegetical tradition on Gen 6:1—4 are allegorised as “righteous men who lived a live of angels”.50 These righteous ones were seduced by the beauty of women, and from these promiscuous relationships giants were born. The interesting fact is that the expression ‘to live a life of angels’ became a fixed expression for monastic life.51

5:203-204); Methodius, De resurrectione III,7 (PG 18:293); Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 11,15 (PL 6:330-331); Alexander of Lycopolis, De placitis Manichaeorum 25 (PG 18:445); Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica V,4 (PG 21:324); Ambrosius, De Noe et Area 1,3:8 (PL 14:385), Expositio in psalmum CX- VIII, Sermo 8:58 (PL 15:1388), De virginibus 1,8:53 (PL 16:214); Sulpicius Severus, Historia sacra 1,2 (PL 20:96-97).

46 Sextus Julius Africanus, died after 240. See Berthold Altaner and Alfred Stuiber, Patrologie: Leben, Schriften und Lehre der Kirchenväter (9th ed.; Freiburg: Herder, 1980), 209—210.

47 Julius Africanus, Chronographia 2 (PG 10:65). Cf. Wallraff et al., eds., Iulius Africanus Chrono- graphiae: The Extant Fragments, 48-51.

48

He even calculated the flight of an arrow, cf. George Agar Hansard, The Book of Archery (London: Bohn, 1841), 438.

49 Cf. Altaner, Patrologie, 134-135.

50 Pseudo-Clement, Rec. 1,29 (PG 1:1223)

51 aYYe2iKT| SurywYil, ßto? züv äyyiXwv. See Ambrosius, De virginibus 1,3:11; 1,9:51-52, written around 377, (translation: Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Philip Schaff, and Henry Wace, eds. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. 14 vols. Repr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991, hereafter: NPNP 10:632-700), Epistle 63:71 (NPNF2 10:789). Chrysostom described the ‘Christian philosophy’ as angelic life’, that is to say, a life being free from passions. This angelic life especially—but not exclusively—was displayed in monasticism, cf. A. Appleton Packard, “Chrysostom’s True Christian Philosophy,” A ThR 45 no. 4 (1963): 396-406. Cf. also Patrick Henry, “What was the Iconoclastic Controversy About?” CH 45 no. 1 (1976): 28—29; Ellen Muehlberger, “Ambivalence about the Angelic Life: The Promise and Perils of an Early Christian Discourse of Ascetism,” JECS 16 no. 4 (2008): 447-478. Understanding the resurrection as attaining an angelic existence, formed the thrust for an ascetic ideal, cf. J. Warren Smith, “The Body of Paradise and the Body of Resurrection: Gender and the Angelic Life in Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio,” HTR 29 no. 2 (2006): 207—228. It has also been observed that since the beginning of the Constantinian era, the ascetic became the successor of the martyr, cf. S.

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