Wednesday, December 7, 2022

William R. Schoedel on Ignatius, To the Philadelphians 8:2

  

I exhort you to do nothing from partisanship but in accordance with Christ's teaching. For I heard some say, "If I do not find (it) in the archives, I do not believe (it to be) in the gospel." And when I said, "It is written," they answered me, "That is just the question." but for me the archives are Jesus Christ, the inviolable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and faith through him—in which, through your prayers, I want to be justified. (To the Philadelphians, 8:2)

 

His opponents say that if they do not find it in the OT, they do not "believe (it to be) in the gospel." . . . Any lingering doubt as to whether "archives" can mean the Scriptures (OT) is set aside by the curiously neglected parallel provided by Josephus. In his Contra Apionem (1.29) the Jewish historian treats the Hebrew Scriptures (cf. 1.37-38) as literary phenomena parallel to the δημοσιαι αναγραφαι ("public records") of the Creeks (1.20-22) and of the societies of the Ancient Near East (1.28; cf. 1.9). Such public records, of course, are archives. This is confirmed by the fact that elsewhere Josephus employs the term "archives" itself with particular reference to the Phoenician records (C. Apion. 1.143; cf. Ant. 8.144; 9.283, 287). 11 (In C. Apion. 1.31 and 1.35 the term "archives" is used to refer to the sources for priestly genealogies, but these play a subordinate role to the Scriptures as public records.) Note that Philo also refers to the Scriptures as αναγραφαι ("records") or ιεραι αναγραφαι ("sacred records"). Ignatius replies that in fact, "It is written." that is the standard formula used to introduce quotations from Scripture. (a) Ignatius uses the expression only in reference to the OT (cf. Eph. 5.3; Mag. 12), and there is no convincing evidence that he puts any other source on the same level with it. (William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch [Hermeneia-A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], 207-8; Ephesians 5:2 reads " . . . For it is written, 'God resists the arrogrant' . . . "; Magnesians 12 reads " . . . I know that you blush—as it is written, 'the just man is his own accuser.'")

 

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