"Ananus, the son of Ananus" in Josephus, Jewish Wars and Patristic/Patronymic Names

Context: winter of 67 AD and the Jewish War:

 

The leading figure in the moderate government had been Ananus son of Ananus, a former High Priest. Now his corpse was left unburied along with those of his comrades. Josephus mourned his death. He eulogized Ananaus as a patriot, a lover of freedom and democracy, and a realist. Ananus, he wrote, understood the terrible power of Rome. Had Ananus lived, wrote Josephus, he would have negotiated peace or, at the least, delayed Rome’s victory. “I would not be mistaken,” Josephus summed it up, “if I had said that the capture of the city began with the death of Ananus.” (Josephus, Jewish War, 4.318; cf. 4.151) (Barry Strauss, Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2025], 137)

 

The explication of a “patristic” name appears in Jewish War 4.160:

 

οἵ τε δοκιμώτατοι τῶν ἀρχιερέων Γαμάλα μὲν υἱὸς Ἰησοῦς Ἀνάνου δὲ Ἄνανος πολλὰ τὸν δῆμον εἰς νωθείαν κατονειδίζοντες ἐν ταῖς συνόδοις ἐπήγειρον τοῖς ζηλωταῖς

 

The best esteemed also of the high priests, Jesus the son of Gamala, and Ananus, the son of Ananus, when they were at their assemblies, bitterly reproached the people from their sloth, and stirred them up against the Zealots; (Whiston translation)

 

Steve Mason offers an alternative English translation:

 

And the most esteemed of the high priests, Gamalas’ son Iesous and Ananus’ Ananus, continually berating the populace in the meetings for their lethargy, kept trying to stir them up against the “Disciples” [Zealots] (Judean War 4 [Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary 2A; trans. Steve Mason; Leiden: Brill, 2022], 90-91)

 

 For previous discussions of "patristic names" on this blog, see:

Brief Note on Patristic Names in Antiquity

Examples of Patristic Names (Patronymics) in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Early 5th century Inscription from Lycaonia Attested to a Patristic Name (Patronymic), “Nestor Son of Nestor”

Herbert Bardwell Huffmon on Patronymics in the Amorite Mari Texts

 

J. Warren Smith on Tertullian's Theology of Baptism

  

Tertullian: Baptism as Spiritual Healing Tertullian, writing a generation after Justin, shares with him the view of baptism as the source of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, but Tertullian places his emphasis on baptism as a spiritual healing or recapitulation of God’s creation of humanity in the beginning. Even as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos at the creation of the world (Gen 1:2), so too the Spirit hovers over the water of the font. From the Spirit’s hovering, the water borrowed its holiness—“the sacramental power of sanctification”—by which the initiate is cleansed of her sin (Bapt. 4).

 

Tertullian weaves together the Genesis creation narrative with the story of the angel’s disturbing the water in the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-8). Similarly, the baptized were purified by the angel present at the font so that they might be made ready to receive new birth in the gifts of the Holy Spirit that came from the laying on of hands by the bishop and priests (Bapt. 6). This conferral of the Holy Spirit was, Tertullian explained, a symbolic reenactment of the creation of the first man who was fashioned in the image of God when God breathed into him the life-giving Spirit, which was taken away from him in punishment for the first sin (Bapt. 5). (J. Warren Smith, Early Christian Theology: A History [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2026], 21-22)

 

 

J. Warren Smith on Justin Martyr's Theology of Baptismal Regeneration

  

Justin Martyr: Baptismal Rebirth as Illumination By the mid-second century, Justin interpreted baptismal rebirth (anagennēsis) in terms of illumination (phōtismos). He explicitly grounds the imperative for baptism in Jesus’s words, “Except you are born again, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:3), and Isaiah’s words, “Wash, become clean. . . . Though your sins be as crimson, I will make them white as snow” (Isa 1:16, 18).

 

Appealing to the apostolic practice and teachings of Paul, whom he simply calls “the apostle,” Justin provides the logic behind baptism. Human beings’ first birth is from “wet seed” of their parents’ intercourse from which they are both in ignorance and therefore live as children of necessity reinforced by bad habits and an evil education—perhaps a reference to participation in the pagan rituals that paid honor to demons in the guise of the gods who deceived devotees. The second birth is from the water of baptism, now cleansed of sins by their repentance of sin and illumination in the name of “God the Father and Master of all . . . and of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus” (1 Apol. 61). This last clause, with its reference to the Spirit’s inspiration of the Old Testament prophets’ foretelling Jesus coming, whether intended or not, would have drawn a clear dividing line between Justin’s community and Marcion’s.

 

Justin is quick to distinguish Christian washing from the removal of shoes and the washing before entering pagan temples. The latter initiated by the demons, he explains, was a perverse imitation of baptism and of Moses’s removing his shows before the burning bush and receiving “mighty power from Christ” (1 Apol. 62). Thus, Justin implicitly treats Moses’s putting off his sandals and entry into Christ’s luminous presence in the burning bush as figures of baptismal purification and illumination. (J. Warren Smith, Early Christian Theology: A History [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2026], 21)

 

 

J. Warren Smith on Augustine's Misreading of Romans 5:12

  

Central to this argument, for Augustine, is Romans 5:12, which Augustine interprets radically differently from Pelagius. The Old Latin translation of the verse that Augustine read is as follows: “Through one man sin entered the world and through sin death and thus passed on to all human beings in whom [in quo] all have sinned.” Whereas the Greek manuscripts and the Vulgate specify that “death passed on to all” the Old Latin does not specify the subject of “passed on” (pertransiit). Consequently, Augustine inferred that the subject was “sin” not “death.” Thus, he read the passage as “and sin passed on to all” (Pecc. merit. 1.9.9). Moreover, Augustine took the following clause “in whom all sinned” to mean that not only did Adam’s descendants derive their nature from Adam, but they were in Adam when he sinned. (J. Warren Smith, Early Christian Theology: A History [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2026], 108)

 

 

Both the Old Latin and the Vulgate are misleading here. They translate the Greek expression eph’ hō, which means “because,” as in quo, which means “in whom.” Thus, Augustien’s text of Rom 5:12 is decidedly different from the sense of the Greek: “and death passed to all people because all people sinned.” Although Augustine’s overall argument does not stand or fall entirely on his reading of this verse, the errors in the Old Latin text contributed to his argument about the transmission of original sin. (Ibid., 108 n. 6)

 

Paul Foster on the Eucharist in the theology of Ignatius of Antioch

  

The Eucharist

 

Ignatius’s understanding of the Eucharist is closely linked to his ecclesiology. The link arises from his claim that the only legitimate Eucharist is that which is conducted with episcopal authorization. Thus Ignatius declares, “Only that Eucharist which is under the authority of the bishop (or whomever he himself designates) is to be considered valid” (Ign. Smyrn. 8.1b). It is notable that Ignatius does not state that the bishop must preside at every eucharistic celebration, but rather that those events must take place under his authority or with his delegated permission. In the wider context of this statement, Ignatius suggests that certain people “do not believe in the blood of Christ” (Ign. Symrn. 6.1), thus making themselves liable to judgment. Furthermore, it appears that certain opponents who hold docetic beliefs have abstained from the Eucharist. For Ignatius, refusal to participate in the Eucharist was not merely a rejection of the bishop’s authority, but it reflected deviant beliefs concerning the reality and redemptive nature of Christ’s death.

 

In this context, as a polemical response to those holding the beliefs that Ignatius opposes, he makes his strongest and most direct claim, affirming the Eucharist as “the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Ign. Smyrn. 6.2). While this statement is certainly compatible with later understandings of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and hence with a more developed notion of transubstantiation, it would nevertheless be unhelpful to take this statement out of its charged polemical context. In other passages, Ignatius perhaps does not go as far in equating the Eucharist with the flesh of Christ. For instance, writing to the Philadelphians, the community is instructed to unite in partaking of one Eucharist. The rational for this instruction is “for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup that leads to unity through his blood; there is one alter, just as there is one bishop together with the council of presbyters and the deacons, my fellow servants” (Ign. Phld. 4.1). Here the Eucharist, like Christ’s blood, and like church-leadership structures, should lead to unity rather than division. Ignatius does not provide a thoroughgoing theology of the Eucharist. However, what emerges is his strong and repeated belief that only a Eucharist. However, what emerges is his strong and repeated belief that only a Eucharist held under the authority of the bishop or his delegate is legitimate. Furthermore, Ignatius presses the comparison between the eucharistic elements and the flesh and blood of Christ. (Paul Foster, “The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Apostolic Fathers, ed. Paul Foster [Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies 4; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2025], 193-94)

 

 

William P. Le Saint: The Edict Which Occasioned Tertullian's "De Pudicita" was not from a Pope of Rome but an African Bishop

  

The problem of determining the authorship of the edict which occasioned the composition of the De pudicitia has been studied frequently and needs no more than a brief synopsis here. Three principal views have been proposed. Older editors and commentators attributed the decree to Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome from 198 to 217. With the discovery of the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus in 1850, scholars all but unanimously accepted Callistus (bishop of Rome 217–222) as the author, since they considered that the charge of laxity in forgiving sins of impurity which Hippolytus makes against Callistus (Philosoph. 9.12) must be understood as referring to his issuance of the edict of toleration which Tertullian condemns in De pud. 1.6. Other passages in the De pudicitia which are thought to prove the Roman provenance of the edict will be found in cc. 13.7 and 21.5, 9. In recent years, however, scholars have been abandoning the idea that the decree was issued by a bishop of Rome. K. Adam, P. Galtier, B. Poschmann and other authorities on the history of penance argue quite convincingly that it was promulgated by an African bishop, probably Agrippinus of Carthage. This view has, at present, a certain ascendancy, although it is not universally received and the decree continues to be referred to in the literature as the ‘Edict of Callistus.’ (William P. Le Saint, Tertullian: Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and On Purity [Ancient Christian Writers 28; New York: Newman Press, 1959], 47-48)

 

Dale C. Allison on the Demonology of James 2:19

  

καὶ τὰ δαιμόνια πιστεύουσιν καὶ φρίσσουσιν. Maximus the Confessor speaks in this connection of ‘mere faith’, Schleiermacher of ‘that shadow of faith which even devils may have’. The logic is clear. Demons are not atheists but rather have religious ‘doctrines’ (1 Tim 4:10), among which is monotheism, and shuddering proves their sincerity. But to no avail: τί τὸ ὄφελος Caesarius of Arles puts it this way: ‘The demons believe that God exists, but they do not perform what he commands’.

 

καί = ‘even’. Both δαιμόνιον and φρίσσω appear only here in James. The latter refers to something like fearful amazement, the traditional English rendering being ‘shudder’.²⁸⁷ Here fear must be connoted. Certainly it is fitting that demons, who instill fear in human beings, become the victims of fear before God.

 

James was not the first to link φρίσσω, which is sometimes paired with τρέμω, to the demonic. Indeed, we have here a far-flung topos; cf. 4Q510 1 (a prayer that the ravaging angels may be frightened and terrified); T. Abr. RecLng 16.3 (personified Death shudders and trembles before God, ἔφριξεν καὶ ἐτρομάξεν); T. Sol. 2.1 (τὸν δαίμονα φρίσσοντα καὶ τρέμοντα); Ps.-Ign. Phil. 3.5 (the ruler of this world ‘shudders’ [φρίττει] at the cross); Justin, Dial. 49.8 (‘before whom [that is, before Christ] the demons and all the principalities and authorities of the earth shudder [φρίσσει]’); Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.24.125.1 GCS 32 ed. Stählin and Früchtel, 411 (an Orphic fragment: ‘Ruler of Ether … before whom demons shudder [φρίσσουσιν], and before whom the throng of gods fear’); Acts Phil. 132 ed. Bonnet, 63 (‘God, before whom all the aeons shudder [φρίττουσιν] … principalities and powers of the heavenly place stremble [τρέμουσιν] before you’); Lactantius, Ira 23 SC 289 ed. Ingremeau, 208 (‘the Milesian Apollo, consulted about the Jewish religion, introduced this verse into his response: “God, the king and begetter of all, before whom the earth trembles [τρομέει] … whom the depths of Tartarus and demons dread” [δαίμονες ἐρίγγασιν]’); PGM 3.226–27 (‘god’s seal, at whom all deathless gods of Olympus and demons … shudder’, φρίσσουσι … δαίμονες); 4.2541–42 (‘demons throughout the world shudder at you’, δαίμονες … φρίσσουσι), 2829–30 (δαίμονες ἣν φρίσσουσιν καὶ ἀθάνατοι τρομέουσιν); 12.118 (πᾶς δαίμων φρίσσει); 3 En. 14.2 (Schäfer, Synopse 17 = 898: Sammael fears and trembles before God); Ps.-Bartholomew, Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ ed. Budge, fol. 2a (Death personified is greatly afraid and trembles and shakes before the triumphant Jesus). James was, however, evidently the first to associate this motif with the ‘faith’ of demons, an effective and memorable rhetorical move.

 

Although originally used of both good and bad deities, δαιμόνιον came, in post-exilic Judaism, to refer to malevolent spirits closely associated with Satan. James’ audience was presumably familiar with a large body of lore surrounding them. They were often identified with pagan gods (LXX Deut 32:17; 1 Cor 10:20); held to inflict disease (Sib. Or. 3.331; Mt 12:22); understood as sources of temptation and vice (T. Jud. 23.1); reported to indwell or possess unfortunate human beings (Mk 5:9; 9:26); and said to have issued from the mating of the sons of God with human women (Gen 6:1–4; 1 En. 6–21). But all that matters here is the notion that they, although corrupt, nonetheless recognize the ultimate power in the universe.

 

Why the demons are afraid of the one God goes unsaid. Commentators often assume that they know God will destroy or punish them in the latter days. But that may read too much into the text. Perhaps we have something here like the magic of powerful names: evil cannot tolerate the presence or name or even thought of the divinity; cf. Josephus, Bell. 5.438 (τὸ φρικτόν … ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ); PGM 36.261 (τῶν μεγάλων καὶ φικτρῶν ὀνομάτων ὧν οἱ ἄνεμοι φρίζουσιν); Apost.Const. 2.22.12 ed. Funk, 87 (ὀνόματί σου, ὃν πάντα φρίσσει καί τρέμει); PLond. 46.80–81 (τὸ μέγα ὄνομα … ὅν … πᾶς δαίμων φρίσσει).

 

Ecclesiastical interpreters have often expounded our verse and those surrounding it by associating it or them with the empty confession of Mt 7:21 = Lk 6:46. Bare brain belief comes to naught. (Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle of James [International Critical Commentary; New York: Bloomsbury, 2013], 476-78)