Circumcision

Izates and Circumcision

There is some evidence that during the intertestamental period at least some Jews thought that circumcision was required for a convert to Judaism. In Josephus Antiquities 20.2.4 we read the story of Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, who “changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs.”

Queen Helena's Tomb by William Henry Bartlett.

Queen Helena’s Tomb by William Henry Bartlett.

What is interesting here is that Izates desires zealously to embrace Judaism, and decides to be circumcised. Helena and the Jewish Ananias tries to dissuade him on the grounds that he is a king, and the people will not accept the rule of a king that practices a foreign religion. Ananias seems to be arguing that if there is a mortal danger, circumcision can be ignored (if the person as a hemophiliac, for example.) Since allowing himself to be circumcised might lead to the rebellion of his people and the loss of his and his family’s life, Ananias recommends that he not be circumcised. After Izates decides to forgo circumcision, another Jew Eleazar, described as being “extremely strict” with respect to the Law, tells Izates that he is breaking the Law if he does not submit to circumcision. Izates does immediately receive circumcision, and Josephus tells us that God preserves him in the dangers he faces later in life because he obeyed the Law fully!

In the Loeb Edition of Josephus there is a lengthy footnote on this story. A few scholars have drawn attention to the fact that the debate between Ananias and Eleazar reflects the two schools of rabbinic thought in the first century, that of Hillel and Shammai, with respect to circumcision. In Talmud Yebamot 46 a there is a description of a Rabbi Joshua who taught that only baptism was necessary for a Gentile convert, and the Rabbi Eleazar who argued that circumcision was necessary for the Gentile convert. J. Klausner argued that the dichotomy between Joshua and Eleazar is similar to that of Paul/Barnabas and Peter/James (as suggested by Klausner), but this may be reading the Paul / Peter relationship as a strict dichotomy alá Bauer.

Does the story of Izates indicate that Hellenistic Jews were more liberal on circumcision than Palestinian Jews? Assuming that Ananias is a Hellenistic Jew and Eleazar is a Palestinian Jew, Schiffman (127) notes that the argument has been made that Hellenistic Jews did not require circumcision. But this is not the case since Ananias never argues that circumcision for a convert is not required, but that in this case there is an acceptable and legal “out” of Izates that will perhaps preserve his life. Josephus’ comments at the end of the story make it clear that he approves of Izates’ decision to be circumcised. This brief survey indicates that the practice of circumcision was one of the most important issues to Jews of the first century. Even for a Gentile convert, circumcision was required in order to be part of the “people of God.”

Does this story from Josephus help illustrate what is at stake in Acts 15 and Galatians?

Bibliography: Schiffman in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition Volume 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 115-156, especially 125-127; J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (1943), 39-40.

The First Controversy – Circumcision

The first major controversy the early church had to contend with strikes the modern reader a bit strange.  Rather than debating who Jesus was or beginning to develop the doctrine of the Trinity, the first major theological problem to solve was the status of the Gentile who has put their faith in Jesus.  Are Gentiles converting to Judaism? If so, then at what level ought they keep the Law? Are they “God Fearers”?  Perhaps there is an implied secondary status for the Gentile who believes in Jesus as savior but does not fully convert to Judaism and keep the Law.

Why was circumcision of Gentiles such a controversial issue? In Acts 13-14 Paul begins to have success among Gentiles and establishes several churches that have mixed congregations of Jews and Gentiles. That these churches included some Gentiles who were not previously “God Fearers” seems to be clear from the response Paul gets in Lystra.

GalatiansBased on Galatians, it appears that Paul had taught the Gentiles that they do not have to keep the Jewish Law, especially circumcision.  Undoubtedly this also included food laws and Sabbath worship, the other major boundary markers for Jews living in the Diaspora.  After Paul established these churches and re-visited them once to appoint leaders (Acts 14:21-28), he returned to Antioch and reported that God had “opened a door of faith” among the Gentiles.

Sometime after Acts 14, some teachers arrived in Paul’s Gentile churches and told the Gentiles that they were required to fully convert to Judaism in order to be fully a part of the people of God in the present age. I think that this teaching focused on the boundary markers of food and Sabbath as well, but Galatians and Acts 15 is concern only the practice of circumcision. If Gentiles are going to be considered full participants in the people of God in the present age, they must be Jews; this requires conversion and obedience with the law.

This is no small controversy for several reasons. First, circumcision was a major factor in Jewish identity. For many in the Greco-Roman world, it was circumcision which set the Jews apart, usually for ridicule.  Marital, for example, seems to find a great deal of humor in the Jewish practice (Epigrams 7.35.3-4; 7,82, 11.94.  Some of Marital’s comments on circumcision are so crude the original Loeb translators did not translate them into English so as not to offend sensitive readers, choosing instead to translate them into Italian.  A new edition of Marital has been produced for the Loeb series by D. R. Shackleton Baily which not only translates these epigrams, but seems to strive to offend!)

Second, Paul argues in Galatians and other letters that the church is neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal 3:28). If Gentiles convert to Judaism, then the church is Jewish; if a Jew rejects the Law and acts like a Gentile, then the church is “Gentile.” Paul’s point is that there is something different than Judaism happening in the present age, the “church” is not a form of Judaism, nor is it a Gentile mystery religion. The church in Paul’s view transcends ethnicity (neither Jew or Gentile), gender (neither male or female) and social boundaries (neither slave nor free).

For Paul, if the Gentiles are forced to keep the Jewish boundary markers, then they have converted to Judaism and they are not “in Christ.”  This view would have been radical in the first century, and it still is difficult for Christians two thousand years later.  One does not “act like a Christian” to be right with God, any more than one “acted like a Jew” in the first century to be right with God.

Galatians 2:4-5: Gentiles and Circumcision

Paul describes a meeting in Jerusalem with the Pillars of the Church in Galatians 2:4-5.  It appears the meeting was to be a private meeting between Paul, Barnabas and Titus and the three  leaders of the Jerusalem church, Peter, James the Lord’s brother, and John.  But there is another party at the meeting described by Paul as “false brothers.”  Paul is clear on the intentions of these “false brothers.”  They have spied on the meeting with the intention of imposing Law on the Gentiles.

The language Paul uses is military and political.  These false brothers are “undercover agents and conspirators” (Witherington, Galatians, 136).  It seems most likely that the false brothers are similar to the “men from James” mentioned in Galatians, or the priests and Pharisees mentioned in Acts 15:1.  They are Jewish believers who understand the church as a reform movement within Judaism.   Whoever these people were, they found a way to sit in on the meeting between Paul and the Apostles with the intention of causing trouble for Paul.  That they intend to “bring us into slavery” indicates that they will insist that Gentiles be circumcised if they are to be full members of the messianic community.

In his commentary, Witherington asks “Who would have insisted Titus submit to circumcision?”  Someone was arguing for conversion of the Gentiles to Judaism, including full obedience to the Law.  If they are accepting the gospel by faith just like Abraham, then they ought to be circumcised just like Abraham.

There was an internal debate within Judaism concerning Gentile conversion.  This debate is illustrated by the story of  Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, who “changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs” (Josephus, Antiq. 20.2.4).  In this story, Izates feels he ought to be circumcised in order to be a “true convert.”  Two rabbis turn up to give him advice, one insisting on circumcision, the other arguing that in some cases circumcision would not be required.

Another factor is the importance of circumcision during the Maccabean revolt.  The Maccabees insisted on circumcision as a clear boundary marker of what it meant to be Jewish.  They took this to the extreme of forcibly circumcising children when their parents did not keep the tradition.  The early, Jewish Christian movement had extremely vibrant messianic hopes.  Acts 2 and 3 indicates that they really expected the messiah to return almost immediately.  If that was the case, it is possible that some within that community would have seen an uncircumcised Gentile as a threat to the purity of the community.

What is odd is that this issue only came up some 14 years after Paul’s conversion.  Dunn suggests that the first Gentile converts (like Cornelius) were God-fearers and therefore already more or less an “exception” in the synagogue (Beginning at Jerusalem, 445-6).  They were already keeping most of the boundary markers and were likely as ritually pure as any of the Jewish members of the synagogue, with the exception of circumcision.

As long as there were a few, exceptional Gentile converts, the issue was unlikely to come up.  But as the more Gentiles came into the church, Jewish thinkers began to wonder about their status before God – are they really part of the messianic community if they are not circumcised?  Going beyond Dunn, it is possible that the story of Izates and the debate over his own circumcision is a model for the debate within the emerging church.  Some, like Paul, insisted that circumcision was not required for Gentiles, while others (the pharisees in Acts 15:1, possibly James) insisted that it was.

What set Paul apart from the Apostles was that he was commissioned to go directly to the Gentiles.  This means that he was targeted non-God-Fearing Gentiles, real pagans, so to speak.  If Cornelius was not compelled to be circumcised because he was close enough to Judaism, what about someone like Titus?  He was not eating kosher already when he came to Christ, nor was he  keeping Sabbath.  He is not circumcised, and Paul did not think that he should be.

Acts 15 – Who were the Judaizers?

By Acts 15, there appear to have been some Jewish Christians that did not like the implications of Gentile salvation that Paul was preaching.  Individuals from this group went into churches established by Paul and taught that circumcision was required for converts to Christianity.  Who were these opponents of Paul?

The traditional answer to the identity of the opponents of Paul is that they are Jewish Christians that desire to impose the law on Gentile converts – Judaizers.  The term appears in the New Testament only in Gal 2:14 (although a form appears in  but is found in a number of secular sources (Plutarch, Cicero 7:6; Josephus JW 2.17.10; Ignatius, Magn 10.3) with the basic meaning of  “to  live as a Jew in accordance with Jewish customs.”

As early as 1831, F. C. Bauer (from the Tübingen school) suggested that there was a split within early Christianity.  Based on 1 Corinthians, he understood that there were two major parties, a Peterine party (which included the “Christ party”) and a Pauline party (which included the Apollos party).  Those that followed Peter claimed to be “of Christ” since their leadership had been followers of Christ in his earthly ministry, while Paul and Apollos did not know Jesus directly.  The Jerusalem Christians were of the Peter division, a party that was unable to counter Paul’s argument for a gentile mission, but were not particularly pleased with it either.  The opponents at Galatia were the radical elements of the Peterine division.  The serious problem with this view is that it makes Peter the Judizing element in Galatians, despite his rather conciliatory speech in Acts 15.

A real problem with the view of Bauer is that it makes Paul an independent apostle who is the only one that fully understood the teaching of Jesus and the mission to the Gentiles.  While this is quite similar to the view of Paul in some more conservative Dispensationalist circles, it does not reflect the variety of thought in the Jewish element of the church.  The situation was not “either Peter or Paul.”  Peter seems more moderate than James, Barnabas and Silas are a step further towards Paul.

Bauer also seems to have thought that Paul was in continual conflict with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.  This does not seem to be the case, although one might describe the situation as “cool” between the Gentile mission and the Jerusalem church based on Acts 21.

In 1865 J. B. Lightfoot argued against Bauer and the Tübingen school.  The Judaizers were not authorized at all by Peter or the Jerusalem church, although the Jerusalem church were slow in stopping them.  The Jerusalem Church wanted to find a way to compromise between the radical teaching of Paul and the traditional teaching of the Judaizers.  J. F. A. Hort suggested that these Jewish opponents of Paul were lead by James, although mistakenly so.  James himself did not authorize the teaching in direct opposition to Paul, but his followers took James’ example of a Law-keeping Jewish Christian to the logical extreme and forced Gentiles to keep the law.

More recently, Robert Jewett argued that the Jewish opponents of Paul in Galatia were from the growing Zealot movement of Palestine [1].  The Zealot movement was a rather radical anti-Rome movement that sought strict obedience to the Law for all Jews.  Any Jews that were “Gentile-sympathizers” were the enemy.  These teachers sought to supplement Paul’s teaching, according to Jewett, by teaching a form of perfectionism to counter the libertine paganism from which they were converted.

It is perhaps the statement made by Paul in Galatians 6:12-13 that gives us an insight into who the false teachers may have been. They are people that think that by compelling Gentiles to be circumcised they might avoid persecution for the cross of Christ.  Likely Jewett’s theory has some merit; some Jewish Christians thought that by making Gentile Christians conform to the basics of the Law they might avoid persecution by the growing radical elements of Judaism.

Galatians 6:12-13 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh.

Who were the Judaizers, then?  Jewish Christians, likely Pharisees according to Acts 15, who, with good intentions, sought to supplement Paul’s gospel by requiring that the basics of the Law be followed: circumcision and food laws. Perhaps the real issue at stake here is the status of the Gentiles within the people of God.  Could an uncircumcised Gentile be part of God’s people along with Israel?  Could a person be faithful to God and not keep the key elements of the covenant?

Paul reversed this argument in Galatians:  can a Gentile be a member of the people of God and allow himself to be circumcised?  Can a Gentile be “free in Christ” and keep the Jewish laws concerning food, festivals, etc.?  The answer in Galatians is a resounding no.

 

[1] Robert Jewett, “The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation.” NTS 17 (1971) 198–212.  See also Howard, G. Paul: Crisis in Galatia, 1–19.

Issues at the Jerusalem Council: Circumcision

Circumcision was a major factor in Jewish identity. For many in the Greco-Roman world, it was circumcision which set the Jews apart, usually for ridicule.  Marital, for example, seems to find a great deal of humor in the Jewish practice (Epigrams 7.35.3-4; 7,82, 11.94.  Some of Marital’s comments on circumcision are so crude the original Loeb translators did not translate them into English so as not to offend sensitive readers, choosing instead to translate them into Italian.  A new edition of Marital has been produced for the Loeb series by D. R. Shackleton Baily which not only translates these epigrams, but seems to strive to offend!)  All Jewish males were circumcised on the eighth day, a practice noted in the New Testament (Lk. 2:21;   Phil.  3:5).  There was some question as to the need for circumcision when a Gentile converted to Judaism. One of the first major controversies of the early church concerned the practice of Gentile circumcision, indicating the very close alignment of the earliest Christianity and Judaism.

The practice of circumcision itself is not unique to the Jews in the Ancient world, although some of the traditions based on the Old Testament are specifically Jewish.  Circumcision is given as a sign of the Covenant of Abraham in Genesis 17.  All male members of Abraham’s household are to be circumcised, those that wish to be joined to Abraham’s family must be circumcised (see Genesis 34, for example.)  While the practice of circumcision was common in Ancient Israel, the ritual itself did not confer “spiritual blessing” as a sign of the covenant.  For this reason the prophets told the people that they needed a “circumcised heart – clearly a metaphorical use of the idea of circumcision (Deut. 10:16, 30:6; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:7, 9).

Since Greek sports were preformed in the nude and much of cultured society revolved around the gymnasium, it was difficult for a circumcised Jew to participate without being exposing themselves to ridicule.  Many Jews simply refused to participate, others either did not circumcise their children so that they could participate in Greek culture.  Some chose to submit to an extremely painful procedure to reverse their circumcision.

There is strong evidence that during the intertestamental period and into the first century, at least part of the Jews thought that circumcision was required for the convert to Judaism.  See, for example, Schiffman in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition Volume 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 115-156, especially 125-127.  Schiffman discusses a text in the Talmud ( Yebamot 46) and the importance of the Izates story in Josephus.   In Josephus Antiquities 20.2.4 we read the story of  Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, who “changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs.” What is interesting here is that Izates desires zealously to embrace Judaism, and decides to be circumcised.  Helena and the Jewish Ananias tries to dissuade him on the grounds that he is a king, and the people will not accept the rule of a king that practices a foreign religion. Ananias seems to be arguing that if there is a mortal danger, circumcision can be ignored (if the person as a hemophiliac, for example.)  Since allowing himself to be circumcised bight lead to the rebellion of his people and the loss of his and his family’s life, Ananias recommends that he not be circumcised. After Izates decides to forgo circumcision, another Jew Eleazar, described as being “extremely strict” with respect to the Law, tells Izates that he is breaking the Law if he does not submit to circumcision. Izates does immediately receive circumcision, and Josephus tells us that God preserves him in the dangers he faces later in life because he obeyed the Law fully!

In the Loeb Edition of Josephus there is a lengthy footnote on this story. A few scholars have drawn attention to the fact that the debate between Ananias and Eleazar reflects the two schools of rabbinic thought in the first century, that of Hillel and Shammai, with respect to circumcision.  In Talmud Yebamot 46 a there is a description of a Rabbi Joshua who taught that only baptism was necessary for a Gentile convert, and the Rabbi Eleazar who argued that circumcision was necessary for the Gentile convert.  J. Klausner argued that the dichotomy between Joshua and Eleazar is similar to that of Paul/Barnabas and Peter/James (as suggested by J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (1943), 39-40),  but this may be reading the Paul / Peter relationship as a strict dichotomy alá Bauer.
Does the story of Izates indicate that Hellenistic Jews were more liberal on circumcision than Palestinian Jews?  Assuming that Ananias is a Hellenistic Jew and Eleazar is a Palestinian Jew, Schiffman (127) notes that the argument has been made that Hellenistic Jews did not require circumcision. But this is not the case since Ananias never argues that circumcision for a convert is not required, but that in this case there is an acceptable and legal “out” of Izates that will perhaps preserve his life.  Josephus’ comments at the end of the story make it clear that he approves of Izates’ decision to be circumcised. This brief survey indicates that the practice of circumcision was one of the most important issues to Jews of the first century.  Even for a Gentile convert, circumcision was required in order to be part of the “people of God.”

A Brief bibliography: Thomas Schriener, “Circumcision” in Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, 137-139; Robert G. Hall, “Circumcision”, in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:1025-1031; Raymond E. Brown, “Not Jewish and Gentile Christianity But Types of Jewish/Gentile Christianity” CBQ 45 (1983) 74–79; J. M. Sasson, “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East” JBL 85 (1966) 473–76.