Dennis R. MacDonald - Luke and Vergil: Imitations of Classical Greek Literature

Luke and Vergil

Luke and Vergil

Imitations of Classical Greek Literature

The New Testament and Classical Greek Literature, Volume II

Dennis R. MacDonald

Rowman & Littlefield

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, 1946

Luke and Vergil : imitations of classical Greek literature / Dennis R. MacDonald.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4422-3054-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-3055-2 (electronic) 1. Bible. LukeExtra-canonical parallels. 2. Bible. ActsExtra-canonical parallels. 3. Bible. LukeCriticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Bible. ActsCriticism, interpretation, etc. 5. Virgil. Aeneis. 6. VirgilInfluence. 7. Greek literatureRelation to the New Testament. I. Title.

BS2595.52.M26 2015

226.4'066dc23

2014027472

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Abbreviations

Introduction

Vergil and the Gospels

Let me be transparent from the outset: the authors of the Gospels did not imitate Vergils Latin epic, at least not as profoundly as Mark and Luke imitated Homers Iliad and Odyssey , as I argue at length in other publications but most expansively in The Gospels and Homer: Imitations of Greek Epic in Mark and Luke-Acts (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). The present study focuses on Lukes two-volume workthe Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostlesand proposes, among other things, that the Evangelist was aware of the Aeneid and shaped his book to rival it. The affinities between Luke and Vergil thus pertain to genre or, better, to narrative structure and development, not to imitations of particular episodes or characterizations.

Marianne Palmer Bonz noted that both Luke-Acts and the Aeneid trace the adventures of a people from the East in their efforts to establish themselves in Europe. These adventures include shipwrecks, portents, prophecies, and appearances of divine messengers. Both works end with the successful merging of two cultures in Italy.

Just as Virgil had created his foundational epic for the Roman people by appropriating and transforming Homer, so also did Luke create his foundational epic for the early Christian community primarily by appropriating and transforming the sacred traditions of Israels past as narrated in the Bible of the diasporan Jewish communities, the Septuagint.

It is by no means impossible that a relatively literate Pauline Christian... decided to recast his communitys sacred traditions in a style and manner that would make the Christian claim a powerful and appealing rival to the ubiquitous and potentially seductive salvation claims of imperial Rome.

Bonz locates Lukes literary project in the context of contemporary efforts to engage Vergils masterpiece so as to make sense of the failure of its prophecies of an Augustan dynasty that came to a shameful end in 68 C.E. with the death of Nero.

Lucans De bello civili sought to overturn the Aeneid s hold on the national imagination by calling into question its fundamental assumptions of Julio-Claudian legitimacy and national mission. Statiuss Thebaid , in its effort to establish the new legitimacy of Flavian rule, inadvertently accomplished the same results. In differing ways, however, both Valerius Flaccus [in his Argonautica ] and Silius Italicus [in his Punica ] endeavored to build upon the political and religious claims first introduced by the Aeneid , each continuing to view Romans as Fates chosen people.