Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Ignatius calling Prophets "Divine" (θεῖος) in his Epistle to the Magnesians

In his Epistle to the Magnesians 8:2, Ignatius called prophets "divine":

 

οἱ γὰρ θειότατοι προφῆται κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἔζησαν

 

For the divine prophets lived after Christ Jesus. (Kirsopp Lake [“after” in the sense of ‘according to’ and not temporally; Ignatius is not teaching post-NT prophets here])

 

For the most divine prophets lived according to Jesus Christ. (William R. Schoedel)

 

As Schodel notes in his Hermenia commentary noted:

 

Ignatius calls the prophets "most divine"—an epithet borrowed from Hellenistic Judaism (cf. Josephus Ant. 10.35; C. Apion. 1.279; Philo Mos. 2.188). Clearly they are modelled to a certain extent on the "divine men" of Hellenistic piety and are thought of as transcending normal humanity (cf. Josephus Ant. 3.180; C. Apion. 1.279). (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], 119)

 

The texts from Josephus and Philo reads as follows, for those who are interested:

 

for if anyone do but consider the fabric of the tabernacle, and take a view of the garments of the high priest, and of those vessels which we make use of in our sacred ministration, he will find that our legislator was a divine man, and that we are unjustly reproached by others: for if anyone do without prejudice, and with judgment, look upon these things, he will find they were everyone made in way of imitation and representation of the universe. (Antiquities 3:180)

 

Now as to this prophet [Isaiah], he was by the confession of all, a divine and wonderful man in speaking truth; and out of the assurance that he had never written what was false, he wrote down all his prophecies, and left them behind him in books, that their accomplishment might be judged from the events by posterity: nor did this prophet do so alone; but the others, which were twelve in number, did the same. And whatever is done among us, whether it be good, or whether it be bad, comes to pass according to their prophecies; but of everyone of these we shall speak hereafter.  (Antiquities 10:35)

 

It now remains that I debate with Manetho about Moses. Now the Egyptians acknowledge him to have been a wonderful and a divine person; nay, they would willingly lay claim to him themselves, though after a most abusive and incredible manner; and pretend that he was of Heliopolis, and one of the priests of that place, and was ejected out of it among the rest, on account of his leprosy;  (Contra Apion, 1:279)

 

I am not unaware then that all the things which are written in the sacred books are oracles delivered by him; and I will set forth what more peculiarly concerns him, when I have first mentioned this one point, namely, that of the sacred oracles some are represented as delivered in the person of God by his interpreter, the divine prophet, while others are put in the form of question and answer, and others are delivered by Moses in his own character as a divinely-prompted lawgiver possessed by divine inspiration. (Philo, Mos. 2:188)

 

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