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The Jeremiah Apocryphon and Irenaeus's Editing of the Canonical Gospels
I think I have come up with a viable explanation to the age old difficulty of why Justin and Irenaeus think the following words were in the Book of Jeremiah:
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As Jeremiah declares, "The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved." For this reason also were the eyes of the disciples weighed down when Christ's passion was approaching; and when, in the first instance, the Lord found them sleeping, He let it pass,--thus indicating the patience of God in regard to the state of slumber in which men lay; but coming the second time, He aroused them, and made them stand up, in token that His passion is the arousing of His sleeping disciples, on whose account "He also descended into the lower parts of the earth," to behold with His eyes the state of those who were resting from their labours, in reference to whom He did also declare to the disciples: "Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and hear what ye do see and hear." [AH 4:22]
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As I have noted in another thread the quote appears in Justin Dialogue 72 and five places in Irenaeus (AH 3.20.4; 4.22.1; 4.33.1; 4.33.12; and 5.31.1). It is certainly one of the most commonly cited scriptures in Irenaeus - but of course it is no longer found in any book.
Two puzzling additional details to consider. Irenaeus thinks it is a quotation from Isaiah which is odd in itself. Yet Justin's claim that the passage (cited here):
Ἐμνήσθη δὲ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἀπὸ Ἰσραὴλ τῶν νεκρῶν αὐτοῦ, τῶν κεκοιμημένων εἰς γῆν χώματος, καὶ κατέβη πρὸς αὐτοὺς εὐαγγελίσασθαι αὐτοῖς τὸ σωτήριον αὐτοῦ
was 'cut out' of the Book of Jeremiah by Jews who were 'afraid' of the prophesy of Jesus going to save souls in the underworld is dismissed by virtually everyone ( http://www.ccel.org/ccel/swete/greekot.v.iii.html). Yet how can we explain the passage.
I think I found a viable explanation here and it is rooted in the idea that Irenaeus is undoubtedly the one who made the mistake at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark misquoting Mal 3:1 and thinking it came from Isaiah. Not only does Isaiah's Latinized Greek resemble the language of the second gospel, Irenaeus cites both versions of Mark 1:2 ('Isaiah' and 'the prophets'). This is important context for the strange citation of the Jeremiah apocryphon as being both of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Irenaeus it would seem consistently attributes Isaiah as the source to all unfamiliar passages.
All of which brings us to the solution to the dilemma of the origin of the Jeremiah apocryphon. I happened to notice that at least part of the citation appears in the LXX of the end of Jeremiah:
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And Michaeas (Micah) reported to them all the words which he had heard Baruch reading in the ears of the people. And all the princes sent to Baruch son of Nerias Judin the son of Nathanias, the son of Selemias, the son of Hushai{gr.Chusi}, saying, Take in thine hand the roll in which thou readest in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch took the roll, and went down to them (καὶ κατέβη πρὸς αὐτούς) And they said to him, Read [it] again in our ears. And Baruch read [it]. And it came to pass, when they [had] heard all the words, [that] they took counsel each with his neighbour, and said, Let us by all means tell the king all these words. And they asked Baruch, saying, Where didst thou write all these words? And Baruch said, Jeremias told me from his [own] mouth all these words, and I wrote them in a book. And they said to Baruch, Go, and hide, thou and Jeremias; let no man know where ye [are]. And they went in to the king into the court, and gave the roll [to one] to keep in the house of Elisama; and they told the king all these words. And the king sent Judin to fetch the roll: and he took it out of the house of Elisama: and Judin read in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes who stood round the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house: and [there was] a fire on the hearth before him. And it came to pass when Judin had read three or four leaves, he cut them off with a penknife, and cast [them] into the fire that was on the hearth, until the whole roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. And the king and his servants that heard all these words sought not [the Lord], and rent not their garments.[Jeremiah 36 (43) 13 - 24]
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The reason I am so convinced that this is the section of text that served as the source for the Jeremiah apocryphon is not only the exact matching words but the context. When Irenaeus cites the words (see above) he makes clear that 'sleep' is metaphorical - i.e. the nation of Israel is 'sleeping' that is not listening to the Lord's message. This is epitomized by the disciples but extends to all of the current generation.
What's more Jeremiah and the age he lived in seems to be a perfect parallel to that of the gospel narrative. Jeremiah is warning against the imminent destruction of the city by fire in the same way as Jesus is understood to have announced in his day. Notice the Greek verb εὐαγγελίσασθαι appears in the Jeremiah fragment - a frequent term in Christian writings.
Yet in order to solve the riddle we have to go one step further and see what happens to Jeremiah after his message is rejected by the Jewish leadership:
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1 Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin[a] son of Jehoiakim. 2 Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the LORD had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.
3 King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehukal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: “Please pray to the LORD our God for us.”
4 Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. 5 Pharaoh’s army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians[b] who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.
6 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet: 7 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me, ‘Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to support you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt. 8 Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture it and burn it down.’
9 “This is what the LORD says: Do not deceive yourselves, thinking, ‘The Babylonians will surely leave us.’ They will not! 10 Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian[c] army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this city down.”
11 After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army, 12 Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get his share of the property among the people there. 13 But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”
14 “That’s not true!” Jeremiah said. “I am not deserting to the Babylonians.” But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. 15 They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison.
16 Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time. 17 Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked him privately, “Is there any word from the LORD?”
“Yes,” Jeremiah replied, “you will be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.”
18 Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “What crime have I committed against you or your attendants or this people, that you have put me in prison? 19 Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, ‘The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land’? 20 But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you: Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die there.”
21 King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
1 Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehukal[a] son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said, 2 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians[b] will live. They will escape with their lives; they will live.’ 3 And this is what the LORD says: ‘This city will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.’”
4 Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”
5 “He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.”
6 So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
7 But Ebed-Melek, a Cushite,[c] an official[d] in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, 8 Ebed-Melek went out of the palace and said to him, 9 “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.”
10 Then the king commanded Ebed-Melek the Cushite, “Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”
11 So Ebed-Melek took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. 12 Ebed-Melek the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, 13 and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
Zedekiah Questions Jeremiah Again
14 Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the LORD. “I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.”
15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”
16 But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: “As surely as the LORD lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.”
17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. 18 But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from them.’”
19 King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.”
20 “They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the LORD by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared. 21 But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the LORD has revealed to me: 22 All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you:
“‘They misled you and overcame you—
those trusted friends of yours.
Your feet are sunk in the mud;
your friends have deserted you.’
23 “All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will[e] be burned down.”
24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about this conversation, or you may die. 25 If the officials hear that I talked with you, and they come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us or we will kill you,’ 26 then tell them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.’”
27 All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king.
28 And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.
1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. 2 And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. 3 Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. 4 When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah.[a]
5 But the Babylonian[b] army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. 6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. 7 Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.
8 The Babylonians[c] set fire to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. 10 But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.
11 Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: 12 “Take him and look after him; don’t harm him but do for him whatever he asks.” 13 So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon 14 sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.
15 While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him: 16 “Go and tell Ebed-Melek the Cushite, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city—words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. 17 But I will rescue you on that day, declares the LORD; you will not be given into the hands of those you fear. 18 I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the LORD.’” [Jeremiah 37 - 39]
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I have to run but I think the important thing about the apocryphon is that it was likely never a part of Jeremiah at all. It likely came from some lost source that Irenaeus used (probably Polycarp) and MISTOOK for a quotation from Jeremiah (or Isaiah) but was in reality a comparison or recognition of parallels between the Book of Jeremiah and the gospel.
It is worth noting that the editor of the canonical gospel mistakes Jeremiah as the source of the payment of silver to Judas. I think this is important. A similar chapter to the argument that the Jews edited out material of the scriptures in Justin appears in Irenaeus's Against Heresies. I think Irenaeus added the reference to Justin.
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02-10-2012, 02:56 PM
