The Making of the New TestamentBacon, Benjamin Wisner
Religion
The Making of the New Testament
Bacon, Benjamin Wisner
Bible. New Testament -- Introductions
That aspect of Judaism which was most conspicuous to the outsider in
Paul's day was not the legalism of the scribes and the Palestinian
synagogue, perpetually embalmed in the Talmud and orthodox rabbinism of
to-day. It was the superstition and magic which excite the contempt of
satirists like Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, and call forth descriptions
like that of the letter of Hadrian to Servianus, characterizing the
Samaritans, Jews _and Christians_ dwelling in Egypt as "all astrologers,
haruspices, and quacksalvers." It is this type of Jew who is most widely
known in the contemporary Hellenistic world; whose spells and
incantations, framed in Old Testament language, are perpetuated in the
leaden incantation rolls and magic papyri of the Berlin collection;
whose portrait is painted in the Simon Magus of Acts viii. 14-24, the
Elymas the sorcerer of Acts xiii. 6-12, the "strolling Jews, exorcists,"
and the "seven sons of Sceva" of Acts xix. 13-20. A Christian writer
early in the second century is so impressed with this characteristic of
contemporary Judaism that he even distinguishes as the third type of
religion, besides idolatry and Christianity, "the Jews, who fancy that
they alone know God, but do not, worshipping angels and archangels, the
moon and the month," and seeks to prove his case by citing the Old
Testament festal system. Indeed this idea of Judaism is the predominant
one among the second-century apologists. Jewish "superstition" is a
notorious fact of the time. The transcendentalizing of Jewish theology
after the Persian period had led inevitably to an elaborate angelology
and demonology. When as part of this process a more and more
supernatural character was attributed to the Law it could but have a
two-fold effect. The learned and orthodox would treat it soberly as a
revelation of the divine will. This is the legalistic development we see
in the Talmud and the Palestinian synagogue. The ignorant and
superstitious, especially in the Greek-speaking world, would use it as a
book of magic. This is what we see among many Jewish sects, particularly
in Samaria, Egypt and among the Greek-speaking Jews. The tendency was
marked even in Galilee. Jesus Himself stigmatizes the morbid craving of
His countrymen for miracles as the mark of an "adulterous" generation,
because the power invoked was not divine, but always angelic, or even
demonic. Paul alludes to the same trait (1st Cor. i. 22). But while
there is a singular absence both from the Pauline and the Johannine
writings of any reference to exorcism, the typical miracle of Synoptic
story, it has been justly remarked that no element of Paul's thought
has been so little affected by that of Jesus as his angelology and
demonology. Paul's world-view, like that of the apocalypses of his time,
is a perfect phantasmagoria of angels and demons, "gods many and lords
many." His conception of the redemption conflict is not a wrestling
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