Satan’s request for veneration
also can be a part of the evangelists’ Adam Christology: Satan, who lost his
celestial status by refusing to venerate the first Adam, is now attempting to
reverse the situation by asking the last Adam to bow down.
Although the tradition of Satan’s
request for worship is also found in Luke, Matthew appears to reinforce this
veneration theme further by adding the peculiar terminology of prostration and
by concluding his temptation story with the appearance of servicing angels. It
is possible that these embellishments are intended to affirm the traditions of
devotion to and exaltation of the last Adam that are constructed both
negatively and positively by invoking the memory of the first Adam’s veneration.
Scholars have noted wide usage of
the formulae of worship and veneration in the Gospel of Matthew that appears to
be more consistent than in the other Synoptic Gospels. In view of this
tendency, the Adamic tradition of veneration of humanity might also be
perceived in other parts of Matthew, including the magi story narrated earlier
in the gospel. It is noteworthy that both the temptation and the magi
narratives contain identical terminology of worship. First, in the magi story
one can see repeated usage of the verb προσκυνέω (cf. Matt 2:2, 8, 11), which
is also prominent in the temptation story (Matt 4:9, 10). In both accounts this
terminology appears to have a cultic significance. Also, both in the magi story
and in the third Matthean temptation of Jesus, one can find a distinctive
juxtaposition of the expression “falling down” (πεσόντες/πεσών) with the
formulae of worship (προσεκύνησαν/προσκυνήσῃς). (Andrei A. Orlov, “The
Veneration Motif in the Temptation Narrative of the Gospel of Matthew: Lessons
from the Enochic Tradition,” in Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels:
Reminiscences, Allusions, Intertextuality, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck and
Gabriele Boaccaccini [Early Judaism and its Literature 44; Atlanta: SBL Press,
2016], 343-44)
The suggestion that the
veneration motif found in the temptation story might be connected to the theme
of worship of Jesus in Matthew is hinted by the usage of the verb προσκυνέω.
Larry Hurtado (How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions
about Earliest Devotion to Jesus [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], 143)
suggests that the “pattern of preference for προσκυνέω, with its strong
associations with cultic worship, suggests that Matthew has chosen to make
these scenes all function as foreshadowings of the exalted reverence of Jesus
familiar to his Christian readers in their collective worship.… The net effect
of Matthew’s numerous omissions and insertions of προσκυνέω in cases where
Jesus is the recipient of homage is a consistent pattern. It is not simply a
matter of preference of one somewhat synonymous word for others. Matthew
reserves the word προσκυνέω for the reverence of Jesus given by disciples and
those who are presented as sincerely intending to give him homage. As Günther
Bornkamm, Gerhard Barth, and Heinz Joachim Held concluded from their analysis
of scenes where Jesus is the recipient of the gesture in Matthew, προσκυνέω is
used ‘only in the sense of genuine worship of Jesus.’” (Ibid., 343-44 n. 21)
The story of the magi speaks of
mysterious visitors from the East who came to pay homage to the newborn king of
the Jews. Some details of the account suggest that one might have here not
simply the story of veneration by foreign guests, but possibly the theme of
angelic reverence. Some scholars have pointed to the angelological details of
the narrative. For example, it has been
observed that the mysterious star, which assists the magi in their journey to
the Messiah, appears to be an angel, more specifically a guiding angel whose
function is to lead the foreign visitors to Jesus. Other features of the story
are also intriguing, as they, like the details of the temptation narrative,
seem to betray some traces of apocalyptic traditions. It is also possible that,
here, as in the temptation story, one can see a cluster of Adamic motifs. The
baby Jesus, for instance, might be depicted as an eschatological counterpart of
the first human, and, just as in the creation of the protoplast, which in the
Primary Adam Books is marked by angelic veneration, the entrance of the last
Adam into the world is also celebrated by a similar ritual of obeisance.
Let us now explore more closely
other possible Adamic allusions in the story of the magi. First, the origin of
the magi from the East (ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν) might show a possible connection with
Eden, a garden that according to biblical testimonies was planted in the East.
Gifts of the magi, including frankincense and myrrh, which were traditionally
used in antiquity as ingredients of incense, bring to mind Adam’s sacrifices,
which according to Jewish extrabiblical lore, the protoplast was offering in
the garden of Eden in fulfillment of his sacerdotal duties. Such sacrifices are
mentioned in Jub. 3:27, a passage depicting Adam as a protological high priest
who burns incense in paradise. In view of the possible cultic flavor of the
magi story, Jesus might be understood there not simply as the last Adam but as
a priestly eschatological Adam in a fashion reminiscent of the book of
Jubilees. In the context of these traditions, the magi could be understood as
visitors, possibly even angelic visitors, from the garden of Eden, once planted
in the East, who are bringing to a new priest the sacerdotal tools used in the
distant past by Adam. This exegetical connection is not implausible given that
some later Christian materials, including Cave of Treasures, often associate
the gifts of the magi with Adam’s sacrifices
Moreover, it appears that other
details of the magi narrative, including the peculiar juxtaposition of its
antagonistic figure with the theme of worship, again bring to mind the
protoplast story reflected in various versions of the Primary Adam Books, with
its motifs of angelic veneration and Satan’s refusal to worship the first
human. Recall that Matthew connects the main antagonist of the magi story,
Herod, with the theme of veneration by telling that the evil king promised to
worship the messianic child.
The magi narrative demonstrates
that the veneration motifs play an important role in the overarching
theological framework of Matthew’s Gospel. The cultic significance of the
veneration motif can be further illustrated in Matthew’s transfiguration story in
chapter 17. There, at the end of Jesus’s transfiguration on the mountain, the
already familiar veneration motif is evoked again when the disciples,
overwhelmed with the vision, throw themselves down with their faces to the
ground. It is noteworthy that this depiction of the disciples’ prostration at
Jesus’s transfiguration is strikingly absent from both Mark and Luke. In
Matthew this motif seems to fit nicely in the chain of previous veneration
occurrences, thus evoking the memory of both the falling down of the magi and
Satan’s quest for prostration—traditions likewise absent from other Synoptic
accounts. (Andrei A. Orlov, “The Veneration Motif in the Temptation Narrative
of the Gospel of Matthew: Lessons from the Enochic Tradition,” in Enoch and
the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences, Allusions, Intertextuality, ed. Loren
T. Stuckenbruck and Gabriele Boaccaccini [Early Judaism and its Literature 44;
Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016], 344-48)
