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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

OX F O R D T H E O L O G Y A N D RE L I G I ON MO N O G R A P H S

Editorial Committee
D. ACHARYA M. N. A. BOCKMUEHL
M. J. EDWARDS P. S. FIDDES
S. R. I. FOOT D. N. J. MACCULLOCH
H. NAJMAN G. WARD
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

OXFORD THEOLOGY AND RELIGION MONOGRAPHS

Ottoman Puritanism and its Discontents

Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī and the Qāḍīzādelis
Mustapha Sheikh (2016)
A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja
A Comparative Study in Divine Embodiment
Brian Philip Dunn (2017)
Kierkegaard’s Theology of Encounter
An Edifying and Polemical Life
David Lappano (2017)
Qur’an of the Oppressed
Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam
Shadaab Rahemtulla (2017)
Ezra and the Second Wilderness
Philip Y. Yoo (2017)
Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible
Ekaterina E. Kozlova (2017)
The Human Condition in Hilary of Poitiers
The Will and Original Sin between Origen and Augustine
Isabella Image (2017)
Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition
Laura Quick (2017)
Sartre on Sin
Between Being and Nothingness
Kate Kirkpatrick (2017)
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

Making Sense of Old

Testament Genocide
Christian Interpretations of Herem Passages

C H R I S T I A N HO F R E I T E R

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

3
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© Christian Hofreiter 2018
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First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

For Helen, My Love

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the unfaltering encouragement and wise guidance provided

by my supervisor, Professor John Barton. I am also indebted to the United
Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council for providing a generous
three-year doctoral scholarship, as well as to the Warden and Fellows of
Keble College, Oxford, whose Gosden Scholarship allowed me to lay the
groundwork for the present research during my Masters studies. I also owe
a debt of gratitude to my co-supervisor for the Master’s dissertation, Professor
Markus Bockmuehl, for his insightful comments and suggestions. Portions
of my research were previously published as ‘Genocide in Deuteronomy
and Christian Interpretation’, in D. G. Firth and Philip S. Johnston (eds),
Interpreting Deuteronomy: Issues and Approaches (2012). I am grateful to
Inter-Varsity Publishing for granting permission to include material from
that article into this book.
Without the humour, insights, and camaraderie of Wycliffe Hall’s Study
Room 16, I would no doubt have gone mad or despaired: thank you! The
friendships at St Aldates, the Oxford Pastorate, and the Zacharias Trust made
our time in Oxford rich beyond words. Without the generosity and example of
my parents I would be nowhere. Hannah and Sam also deserve special thanks:
at the time, they had no idea what it meant that Papa was writing a book, but
they were joyfully supportive and excited nonetheless. I love you both more
than I can say. And, Helen, without your love, encouragement and support
I simply could not have done it. Thank you. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes
to the One who made us for himself: ‘Our hearts are restless till they find
their rest in you.’
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

Contents

1. Introduction 1
Genocidal Texts in the Old Testament 3
The Theological and Hermeneutical Challenge 9
The Method: Reception History 10
Recent Reception-Historical Treatments of Herem and
Related Texts 17
The Structure of the Present Work 21
2. Pre-Critical Readings 22
Reception within the HB, OT, and Apocrypha 23
Reception within the New Testament 25
Philo 28
The Epistle of Barnabas 37
Justin Martyr 39
3. Dissenting Readings 42
The God of the Jewish Scriptures Is Not Good: Marcion
and the Marcionites 43
The Jewish Scriptures Are Partly True, Partly False 48
The Entire Bible Is Not Holy: Pagan Critics 54
4. Figurative Readings 57
Origen 57
Prudentius 87
John Cassian 89
Gregory the Great 93
Isidore of Seville 94
Glossa ordinaria 97
Berthold of Regensburg 105
5. Divine Command Theory Readings 109
Augustine 110
Other Early Church Examples 136
Thomas Aquinas 139
John Calvin 148
6. Violent Readings 160
Christianity and War: The Beginnings 161
The Crusades of the Middle Ages 167
The Medieval Inquisition 194
The Spanish Conquest of the New World (1492–1600) 197
‘Christian Holy War’ in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 201
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/12/2017, SPi

x Contents

7. Reading Herem from the Dawn of the Enlightenment

until Today 214
Uncritical Readings 215
Dissenting Readings 219
Divine Command Theory Readings 225
Accommodation and Progressive Revelation 226
Figurative Readings 232
Reading Herem in Light of Historical Criticism 240
Violent Readings 244
8. Summary and Conclusion 247

Bibliography 253
Sources predating AD 500 253
Sources AD 500–AD 1500 256
Sources AD 1500–AD 1800 258
Sources and Secondary Literature, AD 1800–present 259
General Index 273
Index of Biblical References 279
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

Introduction

Genocide in the name of God is not merely an academic problem or a

phenomenon of the distant past. When fighters of the so-called Islamic State
(IS) advanced across northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, members of
religious minorities were often faced with a stark choice: convert or die. The
Yezidi inhabitants of the hamlet Kocho, like many others, refused to abandon
their ancestral religion. And so, on 15 August 2014, at least one hundred
unarmed men and boys were killed in cold blood.1 The village’s women and
girls were abducted, many of them to be sold into slavery, raped, or forced to
marry IS fighters.2
Attentive readers of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian ‘Old Testament’) are
faced with the troubling question: Could it be that similar acts once took place
at the behest of the God of the Bible?3 A number of biblical passages certainly
seem to suggest so. These once obscure verses now feature regularly even in
newspaper columns, to the shock and surprise of believers, agnostics, and
unbelievers alike.4 At their most extreme, the texts enjoin and praise the
practice of herem, which the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
defines as ‘in war, consecrate a city and its inhabitants to destruction; carry

1
Amnesty International, ‘Ethnic Cleansing on a Historic Scale: Islamic State’s Systematic
Targeting of Minorities in Northern Iraq’, 2014, accessed online at https://www.es.amnesty.org/
uploads/media/Iraq_ethnic_cleansing_final_formatted.pdf
2
Amnesty International, ‘Escape from Hell: Torture and Slavery in Islamic State Captivity in
Iraq’, 2014, accessed online at https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/escape_from_hell_-_torture_
and_sexual_slavery_in_islamic_state_captivity_in_iraq_-_english_2.pdf
3
In what follows I will refer to the collection of scriptures that Christians call the Old
Testament in four different ways, which are each designed to reflect the sense in which a
particular group or groups of readers approached them: as the Hebrew Bible (HB), the Old
Testament (OT), the HB/OT, and the Jewish Scriptures (JS). By HB I intend to designate the
scriptures written in Hebrew; OT designates the scriptures as part of an emerging or established
bipartite Christian canon; HB/OT covers both previous senses; finally, JS is used in contexts
where none of the other senses would be appropriate, e.g. Marcion’s, who neither read the
scriptures in Hebrew nor considered them as a Christian OT.
4
E.g. Economist, ‘To Have and to Hold: Slavery in Islam: Jihadists boast of selling captive
women as concubines’, 18 Oct. 2014, accessed online at http://www.economist.com/news/middle-
east-and-africa/21625870-jihadists-boast-selling-captive-women-concubines-have-and-hold.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

2 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

out this destruction; totally annihilate a population in war’.5 This certainly
sounds rather similar to the United Nations’ definition of genocide—‘acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,
racial or religious group’, including ‘killing members of the group’.6 While the
specific and highly emotive term ‘genocide’ is certainly anachronistic and open
to substantive challenge, the parallels are chilling.7
Atrocities such as those committed by the IS, which claims religious motiv-
ation and legitimacy for its deeds, illustrate that violent religious texts are of
pressing interest not only to members of faith communities that revere the
scriptures on which they are founded, but to everyone. Such texts and their
interpretation have been, and continue to be, a matter of life and death. A chapter
in this book dedicated to violent readings focuses on this challenge in particular.
In addition, for many believers, these texts call into question the coherence,
plausibility, and trustworthiness of the religious tradition of which they are
part. Many pious Jews and Christians, with moral sensibilities shaped by the
horrors of the Shoah and other twentieth-century genocides, will ask how a
good God could ever have countenanced such behaviour, let alone commanded
and commended it. For many Christians, there is the added tension that
these texts seem to fly in the face of what they take to be central features of
the teaching of Jesus Christ, namely love of enemy, non-retaliation, and the
command to forgive.
There are of course many violent biblical verses deserving of investigation.
The present work focuses on passages related to herem because the devotion to
destruction of entire peoples is arguably the most extreme form of religiously
motivated violence.
The approach taken in the present work combines historical and analytical
elements. It is historical in that it asks how specific authors and groups of
people have in fact interpreted herem passages over time. As such, it is an
exercise in reception history (effective history, Wirkungsgeschichte). For
reasons explained below, the focus of the present work is on reception by
(broadly) Christian readers and by their critics.
The investigation is also analytical in that it seeks to clarify the philosoph-
ical premises underlying the various interpretations. This helps to illuminate
the hermeneutical challenge faced by various interpretive communities and
the ways in which they sought to address them. It also helps present-day
readers to clarify what is at stake in the various approaches and to evaluate
their respective strengths and weakness.

5
Lohfink, 1974: 181; this definition pertains to the verb in the hiphil; the definition of the
corresponding noun includes ‘the act of consecration or of extermination and killing’, ibid.; some 70
of the 80 or so occurrences of ‫ חרם‬in the OT are found in the context of war; see Welten 1980: 160.
6
United Nations, 1951: Article 2.
7
For cogent arguments that genocide is the wrong term, see Copan and Flannagan, 2014.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

Introduction 3
Consequently, the present work is directly relevant to the vital contempor-
ary debate concerning religion and violence. Accurate knowledge of the way
certain violent religious texts have been read in practice, rather than ahistorical
speculation as to how they might have been read, brings empirical grounding
and detail to the contemporary debate.
In addition, the ways in which Christians of previous generations attempted
to read these texts while being faithful to the non-violent teaching and
example of Christ might prove fruitful for Christian readers today, who wish
to do the same. Some of these reading strategies might even be, mutatis
mutandis, fruitful for other religious communities. At the same time, the
dynamics and dangers of violent readings can be better understood if they
are studied in concrete historical settings.
This work seeks, then, to address the following questions: What moral
objections, if any, were raised to herem texts in the course of the past two
thousand years? What, therefore, are the theological and hermeneutical chal-
lenges posed by these texts? What answers did Christian authors give to the
various criticisms raised against these texts, what points of criticism did they
themselves raise? And, finally, what evidence is there that the biblical herem
texts were used to inspire or justify genocidal violence?
The following chapters will demonstrate that neither the tensions felt by
pious readers nor the concerns of those who do not regard the JS as holy are
recent phenomena. In addition, a chapter on violent readings will illustrate
that worries about the texts’ violent potential are not entirely unjustified.
However, it will also become clear that certain oft repeated claims, such as
those about the important role that certain OT texts allegedly played during
the crusades, are not borne out by careful historical investigation.
Before describing in greater depth the method of investigation, the pertin-
ent biblical texts will be briefly set out, together with the shape of the
theological and hermeneutical challenge they pose.

G E N O C I D A L TE X T S I N THE OLD TE S TAM E NT

This section sets out with minimal comment the most important herem texts,
in the order in which they appear in the Christian OT canon.8 The vast

8
Texts were selected as being important on the basis of a combination of internal and
external criteria, especially the use of ‫ חרם‬in the HB and their prima facie correspondence to
the UN’s definition of genocide. Consequently, uses of herem other than in the context of war,
such as in the semantic domains of consecration (Lev 27:21.28f; Num 18:14) and of the judicial
punishment for violating the first commandment (Exod 22:19) are not investigated in this book.
In what follows, herem will thus be used exclusively to refer to ‘war herem’, unless otherwise
specified. In terms of canonical order, it should be noted, too, that, since all pertinent texts are
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

4 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

majority of herem texts are found in the context of the exodus, the Mosaic
proclamation of the law, and the conquest of Canaan. As we will see in what
follows, the Israelites are repeatedly commanded to annihilate the inhabitants
of Canaan. In a number of texts that precede the herem accounts in the
canonical order, however, it is sometimes Yahweh himself who is presented
as the agent of the Canaanites’ future destruction; at other times, the latter are
said to be destined to be driven out rather than annihilated.9 The command to
the Israelites in those canonically earlier texts is limited to destroying the
Canaanite altars and to refraining from entering into treaties or marriages
with the Canaanites, lest they be seduced to worship the latter’s gods.10 It
should also be noted that Leviticus widens the moral discourse concerning the
taking of the land, accusing the Canaanites of a number of sins for which the
land is said to have vomited them out.11 A similar moral condemnation is
found in a number of texts in Deuteronomy, where the concept of Yahweh’s
granting land to a people and assisting them in the destruction of its previous
inhabitants is also applied to other, non-Israelite peoples in the region.12
In addition to this more immediate context, the wider canonical back-
ground includes the divine promise of land to the patriarchs, the divine
pronouncement that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete in
Abraham’s day, and, arguably, Noah’s curse on his grandson Canaan.13
Having briefly outlined the contours of the surrounding canonical land-
scape, I now turn to the herem texts themselves.
The first pertinent herem narrative in the canonical order presents herem
not as something that God commands, but as something the distressed
Israelites promise Yahweh in exchange for his aid in battle:
When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel
was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of
them captive. Then Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, ‘If you will indeed
give this people into our hands, then we will utterly destroy their towns.’ The
LORD listened to the voice of Israel, and handed over the Canaanites; and they
utterly destroyed them and their towns; so the place was called Hormah.14

taken from the Law and the Former Prophets, their ordering in the HB is essentially the same as in
the OT. Biblical quotations in English are, unless otherwise noted, taken from the 1989 OUP edition
of the Bible (New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha); in this section, the English terms
translating herem have been italicized. Biblical abbreviations are based on those recognized by the
Logos Bible software (see https://www.logos.com/support/windows/L3/book_abbreviations).
9 10 11
E.g. Exod 23:23.28; 34:11. E.g. Exod 23:32f, 34:12–16. Lev 18:1–30.
12
For moral criticism, see Deut 9:4f; 12:31; 18:10–12; for the extension to other peoples, see
Deut 2:20–2.
13
See e.g. the promises to Abraham (Gen 12:6f, 13:14–17, 15:18–21, 17:5–8), Isaac (Gen
26:3f) and Jacob (Gen 28:13–15, 35:12); for the iniquity of the Amorites, see Gen 15:16; for the
curse placed on Canaan, see Gen 9:18–27.
14
Num 21:1–3.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

Introduction 5
The following two herem texts are found in the first Mosaic discourse of
Deuteronomy. The first account reports the herem of the Amorite king
Sihon and his people but does not explicitly relate their annihilation to a
command given by Yahweh:
The LORD said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you.
Begin now to take possession of his land.’ So when Sihon came out against us, he
and all his people for battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God gave him over to us; and
we struck him down, along with his offspring and all his people. At that time we
captured all his towns, and in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and
children. We left not a single survivor. Only the livestock we kept as spoil for
ourselves, as well as the plunder of the towns that we had captured.15
The narrative that immediately follows, however, reports both Yahweh’s
commendation of Israel’s destruction of Sihon and his people and his com-
mand to do the same to another people:
When we headed up the road to Bashan, King Og of Bashan came out against us,
he and all his people, for battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, ‘Do not fear him,
for I have handed him over to you, along with his people and his land. Do to him
as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.’ So the LORD
our God also handed over to us King Og of Bashan and all his people. We struck
him down until not a single survivor was left. At that time we captured all his
towns; there was no citadel that we did not take from them– sixty towns, the
whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were fortress
towns with high walls, double gates, and bars, besides a great many villages. And
we utterly destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon, in each city
utterly destroying men, women, and children. But all the livestock and the plunder
of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves.16
The following three herem texts, also found in Deuteronomy, all take the form
of direct divine commandments, or laws. In all three cases the reason given for
the command to annihilate is that Israel might otherwise be seduced to follow
other gods.17
The first text looks ahead to Israel’s conquest of Canaan and commands the
annihilation of its inhabitants, the ‘seven nations’:
When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to
enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites,
the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you—and when the

15
Deut 2:31–5; see the parallel account in Num 21:19–31, which does not contain the term
herem but simply states that ‘Israel put him to the sword, and took possession of his land’.
16
Deut 3:1–7; cf. the parallel account in Num 21:33–5, which does not contain the term
herem but does report the killing of ‘all his people, until there was no survivor left’. This total
destruction is sometimes also described as the direct action of Yahweh (Deut 3:21; 31:4).
17
Deut 7:4–16; 13:13; 20:18.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

6 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must
utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.18
The next text envisages Israel as living in the land and decrees the annihilation
of an apostate, idolatrous Israelite town:
If you hear it said about one of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you to
live in, that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of
the town astray, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’, whom you have not
known, then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is
established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, you shall put
the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in
it—even putting its livestock to the sword. All of its spoil you shall gather into its
public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt
offering to the LORD your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be
rebuilt.19
The third text is found in a chapter dealing with rules of warfare and
distinguishes the treatment of towns outside the promised land from those
within it. To the former, terms of peace are to be offered, and if they are
rejected all male inhabitants are to be slain, but women, children, and livestock
may be taken as booty.20
The same rule, however, does not apply to the towns of Canaan:
But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as
an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You
shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the
Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has
commanded.21
The next important block of herem texts are narratives found in Joshua that
report the conquest of Canaan. The first and probably most famous is the sack
of Jericho, whose herem is commanded by Joshua:
‘The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only
Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live because she
hid the messengers we sent. As for you, keep away from the things devoted to
destruction, so as not to covet and take any of the devoted things and make the
camp of Israel an object for destruction, bringing trouble upon it. But all silver and
gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into
the treasury of the LORD.’ So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown.
As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout,
and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and
captured it. Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the
city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.22

18 19 20
Deut 7:1.2. Deut 13:12–16. Deut 20:10–15.
21 22
Deut 20:16–17. Josh 6:17–21.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/1/2018, SPi

Introduction 7
The next city to be taken is Ai; at first Israel suffers a defeat because Achan had
unlawfully taken from the devoted goods, i.e. from the herem, of Jericho. Once
he and his family have been punished,23 however, Yahweh commands the
destruction of Ai, this time permitting booty to be taken:
‘You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; only its spoil and
its livestock you may take as booty for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city,
behind it.’…When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city
and that the smoke of the city was rising, then they turned back and struck down
the men of Ai. And the others came out from the city against them; so they were
surrounded by Israelites, some on one side, and some on the other; and Israel
struck them down until no one was left who survived or escaped. But the king of
Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua. When Israel had finished slaughtering
all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and
when all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel
returned to Ai, and attacked it with the edge of the sword. The total of those who
fell that day, both men and women, was twelve thousand—all the people of Ai.
For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the sword,
until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the livestock and the
spoil of that city Israel took as their booty, according to the word of the LORD
that he had issued to Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai, and made it forever a heap of
ruins, as it is to this day.24
The book of Joshua also contains summaries of the Israelites’ campaign
against five Amorite kings to the south (ch. 10) and against further kings in
northern parts (ch. 11); in both cases several towns are said to have been laid
waste, no survivors being left; the term herem is used repeatedly, for example
in these two summary statements: ‘So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill
country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he
left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God
of Israel commanded.’25 ‘And all the towns of those kings, and all their kings,
Joshua took, and struck them with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying
them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded.’26 The later parts of
Joshua, however, indicate that the annihilation of the Canaanites was not total,
a circumstance that is also apparent from the beginning of Judges.27
The final important herem text is king Saul’s failure to carry out Yahweh’s
command, relayed by the prophet Samuel, to utterly destroy the Amalekites.
The canonical background to this story is the account of Israel’s battle against
Amalek at Rephidim, which includes Yahweh’s statement to Moses: ‘Write
this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly
blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.’28 In Deuteron-
omy this promise of divine retribution is rephrased as a command to Israel:

23 24 25 26
Josh 7. Josh 8:2.21–8. Josh 10:40. Josh 11:12.
27 28
See e.g. Josh 16:10, 17:12–13; Judg 1:28–33, 2:1–3, 3:1–6. Exod 17:14.
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8 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

‘Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how he
attacked you on the way, when you were faint and weary, and struck down all
who lagged behind you; he did not fear God. Therefore when the LORD your
God has given you rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the land that
the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out
the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget.’29 While the two
preceding statements speak of annihilation, neither contains the term herem.
In 1 Samuel, however, the term is used several times. The scene is set when
Samuel gives Saul the following command
Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in
opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and attack
Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both
man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’30
A few verses later, the narrative continues with the partial implementation of
Samuel’s orders:
Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.
He took King Agag of the Amalekites alive, but utterly destroyed all the people
with the edge of the sword. Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the
sheep and of the cattle and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was valuable,
and would not utterly destroy them; all that was despised and worthless they
utterly destroyed. The word of the LORD came to Samuel: ‘I regret that I made
Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my
commands.’…Samuel said, ‘Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not
the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. And the
LORD sent you on a mission, and said, “Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the
Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.” Why then did you
not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do
what was evil in the sight of the LORD?’ Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have obeyed the
voice of the LORD, I have gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me,
I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the
Amalekites. But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the
things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.’31
The story ends with Samuel pronouncing the judgement that the kingdom
would be taken from Saul, and with the report that ‘Samuel hewed Agag in
pieces before the LORD in Gilgal’.32
Finally, a similar motif is found in a narrative in which the Israelite king Ahab
spares the life of king Ben-hadad of Aram only to be told by a prophet: ‘Thus says
the LORD, “Because you have let the man go whom I had devoted to destruction,
therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.”’33

29 30 31
Deut 25:17–19. 1 Sam 15:2–3. 1 Sam 15:1–3; 7–11a; 17–21.
32 33
1 Sam 15:33. 1 Kgs 20:42.
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Introduction 9
After this concise presentation of the pertinent texts, I will now briefly set
out the theological and hermeneutical challenge they pose.

THE THEOLOGICAL AND HERMENEUTICAL

CHALLENGE

The moral and hermeneutical difficulty that herem texts cause for pious
readers of the HB/OT can be described in terms of the following incon-
sistent set of propositions—that is, propositions that cannot all be true at
the same time:
(1) God is good.
(2) The Bible is true.
(3) Genocide is atrocious.
(4) According to the Bible, God commanded and commended genocide.
This set becomes inconsistent when combined with the following proposition:
(5) A good being, let alone the supremely good Being, would never com-
mand or commend an atrocity.34
This analytical presentation of the challenge is, of course, rough and
preliminary. It contains a number of ambiguities that are in need of further
clarification. For example, what is the relationship between the ‘God’ of the
first premise and Yahweh of the OT? What does it mean for the Bible to be
true? What, if anything, does premise (2) claim in terms of the historicity
of prima facie historical narratives? Throughout the book I will address these
and similar questions insofar as they are relevant to actualized instances of
reception; in my conclusion I will return to the hermeneutical challenge and
discuss the various options and nuances that emerge from the present study
of reception history.
It should also be noted, however, that even the preliminary fashion in which
the challenge is stated above has not primarily been derived from contempor-
ary philosophical considerations but has been shaped through my interaction
with centuries of actualized reception, thus somewhat mitigating the risk of
imposing alien criteria and concepts on texts from very different ages. Within the
present work, the above presentation of the hermeneutical challenge essentially

34
I owe the idea of framing the challenge in this way to Randal Rauser’s similar presentation
in Rauser, 2009: 28f. In the main part of the book I will be referring to this inconsistent set of
propositions variously as the hermeneutical challenge or the framing dilemma; it is a dilemma in
the sense that it presents the choice of either giving up at least one of the propositions or denying,
against logic, that the set is inconsistent.
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10 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

functions as a heuristic device designed to clarify the issues involved and to
inform the questions that one might ask with respect to the texts’ reception.
However, the analysis will not be limited to issues that can be framed in the
terms of the dilemma.
The hermeneutical challenge as set out above is structurally the same for
Jewish and for Christian readers of the HB/OT. However, as already men-
tioned, there is a further complication for Christians, who from the very
beginning have read the JS in light of their faith in Jesus Christ, and soon
began to read them through the lens of the writings that were eventually to
comprise the NT. This emerging bipartite canon brought with it additional
tensions, for example the question of the internal coherence between divine
annihilation commands on the one hand and, on the other, Jesus Christ’s
command to turn the other cheek and to love one’s enemy.35
The inherent tensions outlined above do not only pose a challenge to pious
Jews and Christians but also represent an opportunity for those who wish to
call into question or criticize their respective faiths and scriptures; as will be
seen below, critics have indeed at times seized on these texts and tensions,
though possibly not as much as someone with twenty-first-century sensibil-
ities might have expected.
Finally, beyond the matter of hermeneutical tensions for ‘insiders’ and
criticisms by ‘outsiders’, there is the question of imitating what one reads, in
other words the question of whether these texts have been read in ways that
inspired, condoned, or justified violence in the respective readers’ present.

THE METHOD: RECEPTION HISTORY

The present work seeks to illuminate the issues presented above by primarily
asking one question: What have pious readers, more specifically pious Chris-
tian readers, made of herem texts?36
In consequence, this is an exercise in reception history, drawing its data from
the inexhaustible well of ‘[t]he reception of the Bible [which] comprises every
single act or word of interpretation of that book (or books) over the course of
three millennia’.37 In contradistinction to reception tout court, reception history,
according to Roberts, consists ‘of selecting and collating shards of that infinite
wealth of reception material in accordance with the particular interests of the
historian concerned, and giving them a narrative frame’.38

35
Matt 5:39.44.
36
The adjective ‘pious’ is here used simply to denote those readers who read the herem texts as
part of their holy scriptures rather than as, say, objects of non-confessional historical enquiry.
37 38
Roberts, 2011: 1. Ibid., 1–2.
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Introduction 11
Before giving an account of why certain instances of reception were
included while others were not, a brief summary of the historical practice of
reception history will serve to place the present work in its historical context.

Biblical Reception History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment

It is commonly acknowledged today that the recorded reception of the Bible

begins within the HB/OT itself;39 another very important early form of
reception is the translation of the HB into Greek;40 in terms of the Christian
Bible, the reception of the OT in the NT marks a crucial next step;41 it continues
in the works of those whom later generations termed fathers of the Church, but
is of course by no means limited to them; it also includes, e.g., the readings of
those termed heretics or pagans by their contemporaries or later generations.
The beginnings of biblical reception history are also found in antiquity; in
terms of Judaism, the formation of the Mishnah arguably marks the start, in
the sense that the reception of the HB by prior generations of rabbis are
collected in it, and are, by virtue of juxtaposition, compared and contrasted.42
In terms of Christianity, Procopius of Gaza (c.465–529), writing in Greek, is
of particular importance, since he adapted to the field of biblical interpretation
the existing cultural practice ‘of collecting scholia on Homer and other
classical texts, and making excerpts from earlier commentaries’.43 While
Procopius may not have been the first Christian to do so, a number of catenae
and commentaries ascribed to him have come down to us and are important
early examples of a Christian collecting and arranging prior exegetical works.44
Among Latin authors, Isidore of Seville (c.560–636) and his Quaestiones in
Vetus Testamentum are an early landmark. They are a florilegium drawn from
a variety of earlier Christian exegetical works to which Isidore had access in
Latin; for the Christian interpretation of the Bible, they represent

39
See e.g. Fishbane, 1988; Reventlow, 1990: 11–23.
40
Most of the Christians whose reception of herem is analysed below did not read ‫ חרם‬texts
sensu stricto at all, since they read the Greek Septuagint (LXX), the Vetus Latina, or the Vulgate.
Where relevant, I will comment on specific Greek and Latin equivalents used by translators and
commmentators in the analysis below. For the LXX, Park provides the following list of equiva-
lents: ἀνάθεμα (19/19), ἀναθεματίζω (11/11), ἀνάθημα (2/2), ἐξολέθρευμα (1/1), ὀλέθριος (1/1),
ἀνατίθημι (3/6), ἄρδην (1/2), ἐξολεθρεύω (23/204), ἀφόρισμα (1/11), (θανάτῳ) ὀλεθρεύω (1/14),
ἐξερημόω (1/18), ἀφανίζω (3/77), φονεύω (1/45), ἀφανισμός (1/48), ἐρημόω (1/53), ἀπώλεια
(1/74), ἀποκτείνω (1/169), ἀφορίζω (1/85), ἀπόλλυμι (3/271). The numbers in brackets indicate
the degree of correlation with the Masoretic Text (MT)’s use of herem, i.e. uses corresponding to
herem/total uses in the LXX: see Park, 2007: 54–5 and Table 3.1 there (56).
41
See e.g. Reventlow, 1990: 52–103; Hübner, 1996.
42
See Kraemer, 1996; Reventlow, 1990: 104–16.
43
Haar Romeny, 2007: 190; see also Emrich, 1994.
44
Haar Romeny, 2007 argues that Procopius’ was not in fact the first Christian catena.
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12 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

the transition to a new epoch. Instead of the originality and creativity we
encountered in the most important biblical interpreters of the era of the church
fathers, here a conscious traditionalism emerges in which the chief concern is to
preserve the exegetical heritage from the first centuries of church history as fully
as possible.45
As far as western Christianity is concerned, this interest in being guided by
the exegetical insights of earlier generations continued unabated into the
Middle Ages.46 In Carolingian times, the method of arranging important
interpretative insights in the form of catenae was complemented by the new
one of presenting them as interlinear and marginal glosses to the biblical text,
which reached its apex in what has become known as the Glossa ordinaria.47
The Renaissance and Reformation emphasis on returning ad fontes, in turn,
often brought with it a clear distinction between the authoritative biblical text
and potentially fallible interpretations;48 however, it should also be noted that
Luther often happily followed Augustine and that Calvin drew on a number
of patristic exegetes while also, importantly, feeling at liberty to disagree with
them.49 As far as I can see, among sixteenth-century reformers a wholesale
rejection of patristic precedents was found only among those whom modern
historical scholarship tends to group together as representatives of the Radical
Reformation;50 some Lutherans, by contrast, went so far as to argue that
preachers should always be ready to support their points by citing opinions
from the church fathers.51 Unsurprisingly, Roman Catholic exegetes were
even more closely bound to the exegetical tradition.52 In fact, some medieval
catenae were reprinted into the eighteenth century in the service of Catholic
polemical purposes.53
While scepticism about tradition was thus an important but not unqualified
component of the Protestant Reformation, Enlightenment thinkers took the
suspicion of tradition to new extremes. According to Gadamer, the modern
European Enlightenment was uniquely radical precisely insofar as ‘it must assert
itself against the Bible and its dogmatic interpretation’.54 The Enlightenment’s

45
Reventlow, 2009: 117.
46
This is of course even more so for eastern Orthodox Christianity, and it also continued to
be the case in Judaism; however, since the present book is located in the academic culture shaped
by the history of Catholic and Protestant Western Europe, I will focus on this aspect of the
history.
47
Ibid., 146–9; Smith, 2009.
48
See e.g. the Church of England’s Articles of Religion XX and XXI.
49
Steinmetz, 1990).
50
E.g. Thomas Müntzer, who boldly claimed “it has never been expressed in a single thought
or demonstrated in any of the books of the teachers of the church from the beginning of their
writings, what is true baptism”; Protestation und Ehrerbietung (1524), in Müntzer, 1973: 53.
51
See e.g. Hendrix, 1990).
52
For examples taken from the rule of Ignatius, see Reventlow, 1997: 209–10.
53
See Reventlow, 1994: 147.
54
Gadamer, 1990 [1960]): 276, English translation 241.
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Introduction 13
calling into question of authority went hand in hand with the development of
a critical, historical method: ‘What is written, need not be true. We can know
better. That is the general maxim by which the modern Enlightenment con-
fronts tradition, and by which it finally turns into historical research.’55
This is not the place to provide an account and analysis of the impact that
the Enlightenment and its historical–critical method had on the study of the
Bible; the pertinent point for present purposes is that, in terms of academic
biblical commentary, an Enlightenment approach often meant that ‘[t]he goal
of a commentary was primarily if not exclusively to get behind centuries of
accumulated Christian and Jewish tradition to one single meaning, normally
identified with the author’s original intention’.56

The Recent Resurgence of Reception History

While the scholarly practice of reception history thus waned as a result of the
Enlightenment, it has undergone something of a revival in recent years;
witness, for instance, the launch of four commentary series and of a monu-
mental new theological encyclopaedia, all of which share an emphasis on the
reception of the Bible.57
The resurgence of academic reception history can be traced to various
nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources, but the more recent theoretical
and philosophical underpinnings developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer are of
undisputed and unparalleled importance.58 In the field of biblical studies,
Brevard Childs’ 1974 volume on Exodus broke fallow ground by including a
section entitled ‘History of Exegesis’.59 Ulrich Luz’s monumental commentary
on Matthew expanded on this approach and applied it to the New Testa-
ment.60 While fitting within Gadamer’s overarching account of historical
consciousness, my own approach is not heavily theory-driven and most
similar to Luz’s; I will therefore, in the following paragraphs, briefly situate
the present thesis by comparing and contrasting its methodology with Luz’s
account of his own work and by commenting on a recent criticism of it.

55 56
Ibid., 277 (my translation). Sawyer, Rowland, and Kovacs, 2004.
57
See Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (1998–2010; at http://www.ivpress.com/
accs); Blackwell Bible Commentaries (2003–present; at http://bbibcomm.net); The Church’s Bible
(2003–present; at http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/CategoryCenter.aspx?CategoryId=SE!
CB); Reformation Commentary on Scripture (2011–present; at http://www.ivpress.com/rcs/);
and Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (2009–present; at http://www.degruyter.com/
view/db/ebr).
58
Gadamer, 1990 [1960]; see e.g. Parris, 2009: 32–115, and Thiselton, 1992: 313–43; for an
account of the way in which Hans Robert Jauss developed Gadamer’s approach, see Parris, 2009:
116–69. For other modern predecessors, see e.g. Allison Jr et al., 2009 and Parris, 2009: xii–xiv.
59 60
Childs, 1974. Luz, 1985–2002.
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14 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

Luz differentiates between Auslegungsgeschichte (‘history of interpretation’
in the English translation of his commentary) and Wirkungsgeschichte (‘his-
tory of the influence of the text’); in Luz’s usage the former, narrower term
refers to ‘interpretations of a text particularly in commentaries’, whereas the
latter designates ‘how the text is received and actualized in media other than
commentaries—in verbal media such as sermons, canonical documents, and
“literature,” as well as in nonverbal media such as art and music, and in the
church’s activity and suffering, that is, in church history’.61
In a recent criticism of Luz’s approach, Mary Callaway points out that,
despite the breadth of genres included in his definition and practice of Wir-
kungsgeschichte, the latter is ‘limited to the Christian history of influence’.62
Therefore, she concludes, his history of influence ‘is not really Gadamer’s
Wirkungsgeschichte at all, because it is limited to readers in the Church’.63
In Luz’s terms, the present work is an exercise in Wirkungsgeschichte
because it is not restricted to the analysis of commentaries but also includes
such verbal sources as polemical treatises, sermons, canonical documents,
poems, songs and inscriptions, and cases of non-verbal reception such as the
massacre of women and children (albeit mediated through verbal records).
The inclusion of discordant voices such as those of Marcion, Ptolemy, Celsus,
Faustus, and Mathew Tindal also seeks to address Callaway’s criticism of
limitation to exclusively ecclesial readings.

Whose Interpretations Were Included, and Why?

Callaway’s critique of Luz highlights the importance of deciding which

instances of reception are included in one’s treatment and which ones are
not. Roberts similarly sees these ‘selection criteria’ as being of paramount
importance for reception history; according to him, any reception historian
must chiefly answer three questions, namely ‘whose responses do they deem to
be of importance?’, then ‘how is the choice of material to be justified, and to
what end is it being marshalled?’64
In the following paragraphs I will seek to answer these questions with
respect to the present work.
My initial interest in conducting this research was to elucidate, by means of
historical and analytical inquiry, the shape of the theological and hermeneut-
ical problem posed by herem texts as briefly outlined above. As a consequence,

61 62
Luz, 2007: 61. Callaway, 2004: 7.
63
Ibid., 9. Luz himself highlights the indebtedness of his approach to Gadamer’s work while
acknowledging that he is ‘doing what Gadamer himself did not want, namely “enquiry into the
effective-history [sic] of a particular work[;] as it were, the trace a work leaves behind” ’ (Lutz,
2007: 62).
64
Roberts, 2011: 2.
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Introduction 15
I was primarily interested in the response of those readers who read the herem
texts as part of their holy scriptures—that is, in readers who are ‘pious’ in the
sense that they share the assumption that (1) God is good and (2) the Bible
is true.
I have further narrowed down my focus to pious Christian readers. The
primary reason for this choice is that the bipartite Christian canon contains
specific hermeneutical challenges and resources that substantially differ from
the context in which pious Jews interpret their scriptures. As a consequence,
the present work also makes a specific contribution to the question of how the
two testaments in the Christian Bible are related.
I have, however, by no means restricted my research to reception by pious
readers, but have also included readings of those who denied, say, the premise
that God is good, or that the Bible is true; in fact the readings of Christian
authors were often developed precisely in response to such alternative
approaches and can scarcely be understood properly in isolation from them.
It should also be noted that I did not at the outset operate with a particular
definition of the term ‘Christian’ in mind, beyond an acceptance of the centrality
of Jesus Christ.
Even with these qualifications in place, however, the roughly two thousand
years of Christian reception of the HB/OT offer a wealth of instances of
reception that are impossible to catalogue and analyse exhaustively. The
most important criterion for further narrowing down which instances of
reception to include was the decision to give priority to early or particularly
influential readings.65 I have attempted to review all potentially relevant
patristic sources and have aspired to a similar level of comprehensiveness
only for the medieval crusades; in other respects I have focused on particularly
influential or illuminating readings.66

65
This is essentially the same as Luz’s criterion no. 3 (cf. Luz, 2007: 62).
66
For patristic sources, I consulted all pertinent comments listed under the potentially
relevant verses in the various electronic volumes of the Biblia patristica (available online at
www.biblindex.info). The BiblIndex searchable database and website give access to the inventory
of 270,000 entries published in the volumes of Biblia patristica, 1975–82. They also contain
around 100,000 references prepared by the Centre for Patristics Analysis and Documentation for
its planned eighth volume; these references are in the database inherited by Sources Chrétiennes,
unchecked but in electronic form. Works of Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyr,
Procopius of Gaza, and Jerome have been entered, together with Spuria and Dubia related to the
authors of the published volumes. In addition to this material, there are about 500,000 unverified
hard-copy references in boxes (pale listings, handwritten notebooks, or sheets that are difficult to
decipher and handle). Over the course of 2011, the BiblIndex team prepared the bibliographical
references for the 3,000 works represented in these files (see http://www.biblindex.info/presenta
tion). For Augustine, whose work is not indexed in the Biblia patristica, I searched for a variety of
relevant lemmata in the online Giessen edition of his corpus (Augustine, 1995); for the medieval
crusades I carried out similar lemmatized searches in online collections and also consulted various
indices (for details, see Chapter 5).
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16 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

While there are substantial patristic contributions by Greek authors (notably
Origen), the postpatristic reception focuses on the Latin West and western
Christendom. Nonetheless, contributions by John Chrysostom and Theodoret
of Cyr are included as points of comparison with the western tradition.
Another criterion for selection was furnished by the recognition that the
way in which pious readers deal with violent texts in their holy scriptures not
only is a hermeneutical puzzle for the faithful but has considerably wider
implications. It is relevant to note in this context that a substantial body of
recent literature links monotheism, and biblical monotheism especially, to
violence.67 In this literature, the command to commit ‘the other’ to herem is
sometimes cited as a particularly pertinent example of such violence.68 Against
this background, the biggest contemporary concern with herem texts is,
arguably, the danger that they might be reactualized, that is, read in terms
that justify genocidal violence not only in the distant Israelite past but also in
the respective readers’ contemporary situation. In light of this important and
pressing concern, I have also sought to include instances of reception that
promoted or justified violence.
Finally, in this section it remains for me to answer Roberts’ final question:
‘[T]o what end is [the material] being marshalled?’
At the most basic level, the present collection and analysis of material serves
the goal of reception history as defined by Callaway:
to make readers aware of something they took for granted; to make strange what
was assumed to be natural, to make local what was unconsciously taken to be
universal, and to make historical what seemed timeless. The point is not to
devalue tradition but to make it visible, so that we can better understand our
hermeneutical situation and that of others.69
In light of this thesis, readers of the Bible—especially (but, of course, not
exclusively) pious readers—should be able to better understand their hermen-
eutical situation with respect to herem texts.
Second, both the non-violent figurative readings presented in the third
chapter and the violent quasi-genocidal readings in the fifth are a testimony
to the ‘abundance of the meaning potential in biblical texts’;70 by the same
token, they, along with the divine command theory approaches presented in
Chapter 4, also afford contemporary readers an opportunity to ‘learn from
successful and unsuccessful realizations of the biblical texts’.71 Hence it is
hoped that the present work will help readers of the Bible and of other
religious texts read them with greater care, competence, and nuance.

67
Among the many recent contributions, see e.g. Schwartz, 1997, Assmann, 2003, and
Assmann, 2008.
68
E.g. Assmann, 2008, 113–14 (Deut 13:7–10), 117–18 (Deut 20:16f).
69 70 71
Callaway, 2004, 12f–13. Luz, 2007: 64. Ibid., 65; see Luz’s point 2:5.
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Introduction 17
Finally, the present work is an historical–analytical contribution to the
global discourse regarding the relationship between violence and religion,
which has been steadily gaining in momentum since the question rose to the
fore of global consciousness on 11 September 2001.72

RECENT RECEPTION-HISTORICAL TREATMENTS

OF HEREM AND RELATED TEXTS

The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception

Several entries in the recently launched Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its
Reception (EBR) touch on the topic of herem. The article ‘Ban, Banishment
(‫ ’)חרם‬summarizes its occurrence in the HB/OT before tracing its reception
from Second Temple to modern Judaism (but not in Christianity or other
traditions); with respect to the postbiblical reception in Judaism, the article
does not discuss the moral challenge of the extermination command. How-
ever, the use of herem, from rabbinic Judaism onward, to denote banishment
and the emerging differentiation between the more lenient punishment of
niddui (ejection) and the harsher terms of herem are of interest, especially as
they parallel the developing use of anathema (one of the terms frequently used
to translate herem in Greek and Latin versions of the HB) in the Christian
tradition and the emerging ecclesial differentiation between the more limited
excommunication and the harsher, all-encompassing anathema.73
The EBR also contains an article on Amalek and the Amalekites covering
their treatment in the Bible, in Judaism, in literature, and in the visual arts; the
section on Jewish reception refers to rabbinic justifications for the extermin-
ation command, which provide an interesting point of comparison to the
Christian approaches that are the subject of the present thesis. In addition,
some of the literature and visual arts discussed in the article are by Christian
authors; however, these latter sections do not address the morality of the
annihilation commands and are thus not directly pertinent to the question
in hand.74
The EBR’s article on the Canaanites is also of interest; it contains sections
on archaeology, ANE and HB/OT, Judaism, and film. The section on Judaism,
again, summarizes attempts by certain rabbis to address the moral challenge of
the extermination command; it also notes that in films, some of which are
arguably instances of Christian reception, the Canaanites are frequently

72
Among the many publications, see e.g. Hess and Martens, 2008.
73
‘Ban, Banishment (Ḥ erem)’, 2011; ‘Anathema, Anathematism’, 2009.
74
‘Amalek, Amalekites’, 2009.
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18 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

portrayed as the ‘quintessential “others”’, providing a ‘visual and moral
contrast to the Israelites. They are depicted as more ornamented, more
sensual, more primitive and more corrupt than the Bible’s ancestral heroes.’75

Thomas Elßner

Thomas Elßner’s Habilitationsschrift, published as Josua und seine Kriege

in jüdischer und christlicher Rezeptionsgeschichte, retraces and analyses the
reception of Joshua and his wars from antiquity to the seventeenth century.76
In addition to discussing the reception within the OT and NT, Elßner offers an
analysis of both Jewish and Christian reception, covering Philo, Josephus, the
rabbinical tradition, and Maimonides on the one hand and, on the other,
Clemens, Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Augustine, as well as high and
late scholasticism.
The prominence of the book of Joshua with respect to herem means that
there is a substantial amount of overlapping interest between the present
volume and Elßner’s work, which has proved to be a useful guide and point
of comparison. However, Elßner’s exclusive focus on the person and book of
Joshua also means that a number of key herem texts fall entirely outside the
scope of his study, such as those found in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and 1
Samuel; in addition, in contradistinction to Elßner, I have chosen to include
dissenting voices such as those of Marcion and Ptolemy and have considered
numerous instances of reception not included in his work, both in the case of
authors he treats, such as Origen and Augustine, and, naturally, in areas he
does not consider, such as the crusades or the Spanish conquest of the
Americas. Rather than attempting to summarize Elßner’s presentation and
analysis of the pertinent reception history, I will note throughout the book
where my work is indebted to his and where my own views and analysis differ.

Rüdiger Schmitt

Rüdiger Schmitt’s Der ‘Heilige Krieg’ im Pentateuch und im deuteronomis-

tischen Geschichtswerk focuses on the sacralization of war within the various
traditions of the Hebrew Bible.77 However, it also includes a chapter on the
reception of biblical warfare traditions from the Middle Ages to modern times.
Schmitt does not attempt to provide ‘a wide-ranging reception history or the
reconstruction of entire interpretive traditions, but rather the analysis of
typical patterns of reception’.78 His review of selected instances of reception,

75
‘Canaanites’, 2012. 76
Elßner, 2008.
77 78
Schmitt, 2011. Ibid., 204.
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Introduction 19
which range from Bernard of Clairvaux to German pro-Nazi OT professor
Johannes Hempel, yields seven patterns, especially biblical warfare texts as (1)
typological prefiguration, (2) allegory for spiritual war, (3) immediate practical
instruction in the literal sense, and (4) delegitimizing human wars. He also
highlights (5) immediate identification with the biblical Israel, (6) identifica-
tion with the biblical Israel on the basis of historical analogy, and (7) emphasis
on non-identity with the biblical Israel. Where appropriate, Schmitt’s import-
ant findings will be compared and contrasted with my own throughout
this work.

Louis Feldman

Louis Feldman’s Remember Amalek! attempts to do for Hellenistic Jewish

exegesis something comparable to what this book seeks to accomplish for
Christian reception: he ‘seeks to understand how three ancient Jewish system-
atic commentators on the Bible…wrestled with the issues involved in [the
divine command to annihilate Amalek]’.79 To this end he examines the works
of Philo, pseudo-Philo, and Josephus with respect to their comments not only
on Amalek, but also on other biblical passages that give rise to similar moral
concerns; these include a number of additional herem texts: the command to
annihilate the seven nations of Canaan, the utter destruction of Og and Sihon
and their people, and that of Jericho. Beyond these, Feldman also considers the
Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plague on the first-born Egyptians,
the annihilation of the Hivites in revenge for the rape of Dinah, the extermin-
ation of the priests of Nob, and the zealous deeds of Phinehas.
With respect to the reception of herem, Feldman’s most pertinent results are
the following: none of the three authors specifically discusses the morality of
the divine command to annihilate Amalek; Josephus alone reports the com-
mand to annihilate the seven nations, justifying it as necessary for the very
survival of the Jewish people; none of the three finds it necessary to defend the
cruel treatment of Og and Sihon; with respect to Jericho, Josephus presents the
actions as justified in the context of war, while Philo does not comment on it
(his biblical exegesis being largely confined to the Pentateuch), and pseudo-
Philo does not specifically mention the killing of men, women, and children.80
Feldman’s work thus provided a very instructive background and point of
comparison for the present volume.81

79 80
Feldman, 2004: ix. See the summary in ibid., 217–25.
81
See the brief section on Philo in Chapter 2, which engages with some of the same material
as Feldman.
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20 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

Other Pertinent Recent Works

Todd Lake’s unpublished PhD thesis ‘Did God Command Genocide?

Christian Theology and the ‫ ’חרם‬contains a lengthy section that intends to
demonstrate the different ways in which herem texts were read before and
after what he terms ‘the Augustinian revolution’.82 Lake’s main conclusion is
that, for interpreters prior to Ambrose and Augustine, ‘it was important to
insist that such events had not occurred, [while] Ambrose was willing to
accept their historicity’.83 This, he argues, was because the ‘Alexandrines’
had assumed the immorality of herem.84 As the analysis below will show,
however, this conclusion lacks proper warrant and is in fact mistaken, even
with respect to Origen, who was perhaps the ancient Christian interpreter
most ready to accept the possibility of non-historical elements in the Bible.85
John Thompson’s Reading the Bible with the Dead sets out to investigate
‘how the church has read important but difficult parts of the Bible;’86 Thompson’s
interest, however, is not merely antiquarian but is aimed at an unapologetically
contemporary benefit, which is based on the conviction that ‘the Bible is better
read and used when traditional commentators—the teachers and preachers of the
early church, the Middle ages, and the Reformation era—are invited to join us in
a conversation about the meaning of Scripture for our own day’.87 The texts he
discusses are grouped around three broad themes, namely violence and abuse,
domestic relations, and women in church leadership. In the first category
Thompson includes chapters on Jephtah’s daughter and the imprecatory psalms;
herem texts, however, do not feature.88
In addition, several commentaries in the reception-focused series men-
tioned above, unsurprisingly, also include excerpts or summaries of pertinent
readings.89 A number of additional recent works include pertinent sections on
historical reception but are primarily attempts to set out constructive Chris-
tian readings of herem; they will accordingly be discussed in Chapter 6, as
instances of Christian reception, rather than at this point. Brevard Childs’ The
Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, as its title suggests, does
not address the questions of herem narratives; his analysis of the Christian
reception of the OT book does, however, contain a number of relevant
methodological observations.90 Finally, a summary with my analysis of some
of the materials included in the present book was published in a chapter on
Deuteronomy.91

82 83 84
Lake, 1997: 19–111. Ibid., 62. Ibid., 74.
85
Lake’s argument is not helped by a number of obvious mistakes, e.g. the attribution of the
same quotation, wrongly, to Irenaeus (quoted in English) and a few pages later, correctly, to
Origen (quoted in French): Ibid., 31, 42. It would be tedious to engage with an unpublished work
to the extent of regularly footnoting such discrepancies; I have therefore not done so.
86 87
Thompson, 2007: ix. Ibid., 216.
88
Ibid., 33–48 (Jephtah’s daughter), 49–70 (imprecatory psalms).
89
E.g., in the Ancient Christian Commentary Series, Lienhard, 2001 and Franke, 2005.
90 91
Childs, 2004. Hofreiter, 2012.
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Introduction 21

THE S TRUCTURE OF THE PRESENT W ORK

The second chapter briefly summarizes the reception of the principal herem
texts within the HB/OT and the Apocrypha, in Hellenistic Judaism, in the NT,
and in the Christian era before the JS came under sustained criticism by
Marcion.
The third chapter presents dissenting readings, that is, criticisms of herem
and similar texts by Marcion, Ptolemy, Celsus, and others.
The fourth chapter traces the development of figurative readings from
Origen, who deploys them in his response to the kind of criticisms presented
in Chapter 2, to their predominance in the Glossa ordinaria, and to their uses
in a medieval sermon.
The fifth chapter is dedicated to an approach of moral criticisms of herem
texts that focuses on the divine command to carry out the annihilation, paired
with the conviction that God is just and that therefore whatever he commands
is also just. This view is an expression of what is commonly called divine
command theory ethics; the chapter traces its application to herem texts from
Augustine via Thomas Aquinas to John Calvin.
The sixth chapter focuses not on the hermeneutical challenge posed by
herem texts, but on instances in which they have been read so as to inspire or
justify violence; it begins with adumbrations of these themes in the works
of Ambrose and Augustine and then focuses on the medieval crusades, the
inquisition, the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and English holy war
theory and practice.
The seventh chapter presents ways in which herem texts have been read
since the dawn of the Enlightenment. It includes dissenting readings such as
those by the English Deist Matthew Tindal, presents restatements and modi-
fications of approaches that were first developed in antiquity and the middle
ages, and ends with approaches that apply historical critical scholarship to a
Christian reading of herem texts.
Finally, there is a brief summary and conclusion.
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Pre-Critical Readings

In this chapter I will very briefly consider the reception of the major
herem texts, as defined and set out in the introduction, in a number of
corpora that fall outside the main focus of the present work, namely in the
HB/OT itself (including the Apocrypha), in Second Temple and Jewish
Hellenistic literature, as well as in the NT and in Christian authors before
Marcion. These readings are ‘pre-critical’ in the sense that they predate
Marcion’s seminal criticism and do not address herem in terms of a moral
challenge.
The following presentation does not attempt to be exhaustive, nor does it,
in general, contain original engagement with primary sources;1 rather this
section only provides a sketch of the texts’ reception prior to the kind
of Christian reception in which I am particularly interested. It is included
in recognition of the fact that ‘[n]o one comes to the text de novo, but
consciously or unconsciously shares a tradition with his predecessors’;2
gaining a sense of the kind of reception that preceded is therefore an
important aspect of attempting to understand specific instances of reception
by later, Christian authors.
In addition to the very brief overviews, the sections on Philo, Barnabas and
Justin Martyr are somewhat more detailed and include an analysis of primary
sources. The type of readings found in them is in fact the primary way in
which Origen responds to criticisms of OT warfare texts; it is of particular
historical and hermeneutical interest, therefore, that, as far as we can tell, such
readings were not developed in response to criticism but were already com-
mon among certain interpreters of the Bible at the time when Origen took up
the gauntlet thrown down by Marcion and Celsus.

1
I am indebted to the treatments of (1) the inner biblical and early Jewish reception of Joshua
and his wars in Elßner, 2008: 22–81; (2) the reception of herem in the same sources in Park, 2007:
30–114; and (3) the reception of herem in Hellenistic Judaism in Feldman, 2004.
2
Childs, 1974: xv.
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Pre-Critical Readings 23

RECEPTION W ITHIN THE H B, OT, AND APOCRYPHA

From a historical–critical perspective, the question of what in the Bible is

earlier and what is later (and therefore, at least potentially, an instance of
reception) requires the dating of the various sources and editorial stages, or, at
minimum, the determination of their ages in relation to one another. This
approach to biblical interpretation, however, is relatively recent and has not, to
date, played a major role in interpreting herem texts as Christian scripture. In
what follows, texts that are found ‘further down’ in the ordering of the canon,
for example texts in the Psalms or in the Apocrypha, are therefore considered
instances of the reception of herem texts that occur ‘further up’.
In terms of the ordering of the canon, the Latter Prophets and the Writings
are to be considered first. Herem does not constitute a distinct theme in them;
however, the term is sometimes used in judgement oracles in what appears to
be the general sense of complete destruction.3
In the Psalms, the conquest of Canaan and the defeat of its kings is
remembered at various places: Yahweh is celebrated as having struck down
many nations, killed mighty kings, Sihon, Og, and all the kingdoms of Canaan,
and given their land as an inheritance to Israel;4 as having driven out the
nations and planted Israel in the land, or as having given them the land in
possession;5 or simply as having given them the lands, or the heritage, of the
nations (without reference to what happened to the land’s previous inhabit-
ants).6 The Israelites, for their part, are said to have taken possession of the
wealth of the peoples.7 However, they are also criticized for not having
destroyed them: ‘They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded
them, but they mingled with the nations and learned to do as they did.’8 The
term herem, however, is used in none of these verses in the Psalms.9
A similar motif is found in the prayers of repentance in Ezra and in
Nehemiah. Ezra addresses the situation of contemporary mixed marriages
by referring back to Yahweh’s prohibition of intermarriage with the Canaan-
ites because of their depravity. If those in mixed marriages do not separate
from their pagan spouses, their goods are to become herem and they are to
be banned from the congregation of the exiles.10 Nehemiah recounts that
Yahweh gave the Israelites kingdoms and people, and they took possession of

3
See e.g. Isa 34:2.5 (object: all nations and their armies; Edom), 43:28 (object: Jacob); Jer 25:9
(object: all the nations, except Babylon), Jer 50:21.26, 51:26 (object: the land of Merathaim; the land
of the Chaldeans; Babylon’s entire army); Mal 4:6 (object: the land); Dan 11:44 (object: many).
4 5
Ps 135:10–12, 136:17–21. Ps 44:2–3, 78:55, 80:8.
6 7 8
Ps 105:44, 111:6. Ps 105:44. Ps 106:34–5.
9
The verb in the final quotation, translated destroyed, is ‫שמד‬ׁ (LLX: ἐξολεθρεύω; Vul: disperdere).
10
At Ezra 9:1–2.11f and 10:8 different words are used for the goods (‫ )חרם‬and for the
person (‫)בדל‬.
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24 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

the land; he placed the Canaanites into their hands to do with them as they
pleased, and they captured the land.11
Within the Apocrypha the conquest of the land is referred to in Judith,
where Achior, the ‘leader of all the Ammonites’, tells king Holofernes the
history of the Jews:
They drove out all the people of the desert, and took up residence in the land of
the Amorites, and by their might destroyed all the inhabitants of Heshbon; and
crossing over the Jordan they took possession of all the hill country. They drove
out before them the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Shechemites, and
all the Gergesites, and lived there a long time.12
In Ecclesiasticus, the sun’s standing still and the destruction of the enemies
are recounted. The Hebrew version uses the term herem.13 Some of the reli-
giously motivated slayings recounted in Maccabees can also be plausibly
construed as reception of herem.14
Finally, the reception of herem found in the Wisdom of Solomon empha-
sizes Canaanite depravity and God’s judgement to a degree that is not found in
any single text of the HB:
Those who lived long ago in your holy land you hated for their detestable
practices, their works of sorcery and unholy rites, their merciless slaughter of
children, and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood. These initiates
from the midst of a heathen cult, these parents who murder helpless lives, you
willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors, so that the land most precious of
all to you might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God. But even these
you spared, since they were but mortals, and sent wasps as forerunners of your
army to destroy them little by little, though you were not unable to give the
ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle, or to destroy them at one blow
by dread wild animals or your stern word. But judging them little by little you
gave them an opportunity to repent, though you were not unaware that their
origin was evil and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would
never change. For they were an accursed race from the beginning, and it was not
through fear of anyone that you left them unpunished for their sins.15
The above instances of reception within the HB, OT, and Apocrypha are,
unsurprisingly, of particular importance for later Christian readings; after all,
the books in which they are found were considered by most Christians to have

11
Neh 9:22–5; NB, these verses do not contain verbs explicitly denoting killing or
extermination.
12
Jdth 5:14–16; the emphasis is on driving out (ἐκβάλλω), but destroying (ἐξολεθρεύω) is also
mentioned in relation to Heshbon.
13
Sir 46:46; see the analysis in Elßner, 2008: 38–48.
14
See ibid., 61–3. However, Elßner also suggests that a certain moral distancing is implicit in
the language used to describe a massacre carried out by Judas Maccabeus and his men in
imitation of Joshua’s sack of Jericho (2 Macc 2:13–16); see also ibid., 69–70.
15
Wis 12:3–11.
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Pre-Critical Readings 25
canonical authority. In addition to these readings, Park discusses instances of
reception of herem in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Pseudepigrapha, but
these appear to have been of only marginal (if any) importance for Christian
reception.16
With respect to the present work’s framing dilemma, it is important to note
that none of the texts presented above betrays scruples of the nature expressed
in the dilemma. The narrative of conquest and annihilation is reported
straightforwardly, with religious exultation. While some texts highlight the
‘driving out’ traditions more than the extermination language, this is at most a
subtle toning down and is not found across the sources.17

RECEPTION WITHIN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The earliest record of a specifically Christian reception of herem texts is found

within the pages of the NT. Since there is no obvious dependence of any of
these texts on another, they will conveniently be presented here in their
canonical order.

Luke–Acts

Park, to whose work on inner biblical and early Jewish reception I have
referred above, recently suggested that herem is a major hermeneutical key
to the Lukan oeuvre: ‘Luke seems to present the concept of herem as a
foundation of Jesus’ teaching and of Jesus’ life as voluntary and mandatory
herem to redeem his people who are supposed to be mandatory herem.’18 The
main point of Park’s analysis of pre-Lukan readings of herem is in fact to
establish this very thesis; since his argument is mostly about pre-Lukan
reception and Luke–Acts, it lies outside the focus of the present study,
which is why I do not engage with it in substantial detail.
However, it should be noted that the categories of mandatory and voluntary
herem, and of being (a) herem, are foundational to Park’s argument and that
he bases them on his canonical and reception-historical reading of herem. For
Park’s analysis to be sound, therefore, at least two conditions have to be met:
(1) the categories of mandatory and voluntary herem, and the concept of being
(a) herem, must be demonstrably present in earlier sources; (2) their actual
presence in, and importance for, Luke–Acts also needs to be demonstrated. At

16 17
See Park, 2007: 66–98. For a similar assessment, see Elßner, 2008: 81.
18
Park, 2007: 167.
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26 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

this point I simply note that I remain unpersuaded that either of these
conditions is in fact met in Park’s work.
There are, however, two passages in Acts that directly address the conquest
of Canaan. Both occur in the context of a retelling of God’s deeds in the history
of Israel.19
First, in his speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen retraces Israel’s story and
speaks of the conquest in these terms: ‘Our ancestors in turn brought it [sc. the
tent of testimony] in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God
drove out before our ancestors.’20
Largely following the detailed analysis in Elßner, I note three pertinent
points: (1) the text’s focus on the tent of testimony results in Joshua’s being
cast in the role of a tradent of the true faith rather than in that of a conquering
military leader; (2) there is no mention of the annihilation of the Canaanites—
rather they are said to have been driven out (ἐξωθεῖν); and (3) the Israelites do
the dispossessing, God does the driving out.21
Stephen’s speech thus highlights certain elements of the biblical tradition
and not others.22 While it is possible to speculate that the selection of the
expulsion traditions over the annihilation traditions is indicative of a (slight)
discomfort with the practice of herem, we certainly find no explicit distancing,
let alone criticism.
The second instance of reception of the conquest in Acts renders it unlikely
that Luke toned down the language of Stephen’s speech because of moral
scruples; Paul begins his speech to Israelites and God fearers in the synagogue
in Pisidian Antioch by recounting the deeds of ‘the God of this people Israel’.
Having rehearsed Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and the forty years in the
desert, Paul continues: ‘After he had destroyed [καθελών] seven nations in the
land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.’23
The annihilation of the seven Canaanite nations is rather more clearly in
view in this verse than in Stephen’s speech. There is no hint, in this passing
reference, of any perceived moral problem.24

Hebrews

There are two references to Joshua and the conquest in the letter to the Hebrews.
The first is located in the context of a warning against unbelief. Following a
prominent pattern found throughout Hebrews, the author contrasts negatively

19
See the paragraph on reception in the Psalms quoted here (p. 23).
20 21
Acts 7:45. Elßner, 2008: 83–7.
22
E.g. ‘driving out’ rather than ‘annihilation’ is predicted in Lev 20:23 and in Deut 4:38 and
18:12.
23 24
Acts 13:9. See the analysis in Elßner, 2008: 87–9.
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Pre-Critical Readings 27
the achievements of an OT figure with the surpassing work of Jesus: ‘if Joshua
had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day’.25 Joshua’s
work is thus presented as inferior to what is offered in Jesus; there is, however,
no hint of a disapproval of the conquest per se. It should also be noted that
readers and hearers of the letter in the original Greek would probably have
noticed the homonymy between Joshua and Jesus, whose names are identical
in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin;26 while this fact was to become a very important
element in later Christian reception (as we will see further on), it is not yet
developed in Hebrews.
The second reference is found in the eleventh chapter, which is ‘a version of
the exemplary list that can be described as a list of attested examples’.27
Following a presentation of the actions taken ‘by faith’ by the patriarchs,
Moses, and the exodus generation, the author moves on to the conquest: ‘by
faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days’.28
The placement of this episode in the list of exempla implies that the actions
of Joshua and the Israelites at Jericho are seen not only as morally unprob-
lematic but as exemplary. However, the focus is on the Israelites’ faith and on
the crumbling of the walls rather than on the annihilation of Jericho’s
inhabitants.
In the next verse the author contrasts the prostitute Rahab with the other
inhabitants of Jericho, to whom he refers as ‘the disobedient people’ (τοῖς
ἀπειθήσασιν). The verb ἀπειθεῖν generally designates an ‘unwillingness or
refusal to comply with the demands of some authority’29 and, in the NT
specifically, disobedience with respect to God.30 It thus implies moral guilt
on the part of the townspeople of Jericho. It is not clear, however, what divine
command they may have refused to obey. The perspective of Deut 7:1–2 and
20:16–18 certainly does not envisage an option of Canaanite ‘compliance’; nor
does the Jericho narrative in Joshua. It is possible, however, that the author of
Hebrews inferred the possibility of salvation from the example of Rahab, who,
through faith, received the Israelite spies in peace, with the result that she did
not perish together (συναπόλλυμαι) with her compatriots.31
While Hebrews does not specify the way in which the other inhabitants of
Jericho perished, the entire passage presupposes a high degree of familiarity
with the biblical narratives. The focus, however, certainly is not on the fate of
the people of Jericho; it is on the praiseworthy faith of the Israelites and of
Rahab. There is, finally, no indication of any moral qualms about the herem
of Jericho.

25
Heb 4:8. 26
‫שע‬
ׁ ‫יהו‬/Ἰησοῦς/Iesus. 27
Lane, 1991: 317.
28 29 30
Heb 11:30. Louw and Nida, 1988. Elßner, 2008: 94.
31
Heb 11:31.
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28 Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

James

In the Epistle of James, Rahab is again put forward as an example, here in the
context of the author’s argument that ‘faith without works is dead’. He asks:
‘[L]ikewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she
welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road?’32 The focus
here is solely on Rahab’s works, or on faith in action. While the term ‘spies’
and the act of sending them out by another route alludes to the potential or
impending violent conflict surrounding the episode, it never really enters into
view.33 There is no indication, however, that the author felt any moral
reticence concerning the wars of conquest or the herem of Jericho.

Other NT Developments of the Herem Theme

Apart from these direct references to persons and events featured in the book
of Joshua, a number of additional NT concepts and narratives can plausibly be
seen as developments of OT herem motifs, for example the deaths of Ananias
and Sapphira, Paul’s use of anathema, and the themes of eschatological
judgement and spiritual warfare. These themes would certainly be relevant
to a comprehensive Wirkungsgeschichte (reception history) of herem in the
broadest, Gadamerian sense; however, constraints of space and focus preclude
their discussion in the present work.34

P H I LO

Philo’s reception of the Bible generally, or of herem specifically, does not of

course fall directly within the purview of a study of Christian reception.
However, a brief consideration of relevant aspects of his interpretative
approach is pertinent for at least three reasons. First, his style of exegesis
exerted a very considerable influence on the Christian interpretative tradition,
especially via Clement and Origen, as well as via Ambrose and Augustine; in
fact Christians at times embraced Philo so wholeheartedly that the Byzantine
catenae attributed excerpts from his works to ‘bishop Philo’.35 Second, his

32 33
Jas 2:25. See Elßner, 2008: 94–100.
34
On Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11), see e.g. Park, 2007: 136–41; on the relationship
between herem, excommunication, and anathema, see e.g. the articles ‘Ban, Banishment
(Ḥ erem)’, 2011 and ‘Anathema, Anathematism’, 2009; for the divine warrior motive in the
NT, including in terms of spiritual warfare and eschatological judgement, see e.g. Longman and
Reid, 1995: 91–192. See also the use of herem in the context of eschatological judgement in
Qumran (analysis in Park, 2007: 74–6).
35
Runia, 1993: 3.
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Pre-Critical Readings 29
work sheds considerable light on the interpretative and apologetic strategies
that a pious reader with a Hellenistic education might employ when com-
mending certain problematic biblical texts to a wider audience. Third, Philo’s
work reflects contemporary criticisms of the Bible by outsiders. A comparison
of Philo’s interpretative strategies with those of later Christian writers can
therefore contribute to an understanding of what is distinctively Christian in
the various readings and of how far their treatments reflect concerns that they
shared with some of their non-Christian forbears or contemporaries.

‘Defensive’ versus ‘Positive’ Allegoresis

Any consideration of Philo’s hermeneutics must include a discussion of allegor-

esis; however, rather than entering the theoretical debate, which stretches back
millennia, of what exactly allegoresis is and of when, if ever, it is an appropriate
way to read texts, I will at this point simply provide a very short summary of its
historical emergence. Instead of front-loading theoretical debate, I will then,
throughout the book, offer analysis and comment on the use of figurative
readings in the context of actual, specific instances of reception.
Allegorical interpretation or allegoresis is one of the oldest ways of reading
texts non-literally, which at its most basic level simply means understanding a
text as saying something other than what it seems to say.36 The historical
emergence of this hermeneutical practice is related to the interpretation of the
classical texts of Greek culture, especially the mythological poems of Homer
and Hesiod, whose religious, philosophical, and moral content had become
problematic for new generations of Greek thinkers. While some, like Plato,
held that the classics ought to be discarded, others were instead advocating
that these texts be read allegorically.37
In the context of interpreting difficult, potentially offensive texts, such as
herem narratives, however, it is vital not to lose sight of the important
distinction between ‘defensive’ and ‘positive’ uses of allegory—that is, between
‘“defensive” allegoresis (rescuing the poets and their myths from charges of
intellectual naïvety and impiety) and “positive” allegoresis (claiming the poets’
authority for the interpreter’s own doctrines)’.38 In this context one should
also be aware that, for the early period of allegoresis, it is in fact quite difficult
to know which of the two forms was more prevalent. These two modes of
allegoresis were not entirely dissimilar, however; for ‘[i]n either case, the
underlying motive force was (and would continue to be) the cultural need to

36
Dawson, 1992: 3.
37
Plato’s rejection of the mythical poets included a critique of allegory; see e.g. book ii of the
Republic (Plato, 1974: 376–92).
38
Trapp, 2012: 62–3, 62.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
that dear delicious monosyllable LOVE, that word is a true and perfect
rhyme to the name of our Doctor.

Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied;

... pronounce but Love and Dove.3

2 EURIPIDES.

3 ROMEO AND JULIET.

CHAPTER CCXXIV.

CHARLEMAGNE, CASIMIR THE POET, MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE,

NOCTURNAL REMEMBRANCER.—THE DOCTOR NOT AMBITIOUS OF FAME.—
THE AUTHOR IS INDUCED BY MR. FOSBROOKE AND NORRIS OF BEMERTON
TO EJACULATE A HEATHEN PRAYER IN BEHALF OF HIS BRETHREN.

Tutte le cose son rose et viole

Ch' io dico ò ch' io dirò de la virtute.
FR. SANSOVINO.

It is recorded of Charlemagne by his secretary Eginhart, that he had

always pen, ink and parchment beside his pillow, for the purpose of
noting down any thoughts which might occur to him during the night:
and lest upon waking he should find himself in darkness, a part of
the wall, within reach from the bed was prepared, like the leaf of a
tablet, with wax, on which he might indent his memoranda with a
style.
The Jesuit poet Casimir had a black tablet always by his bedside,
and a piece of chalk, with which to secure a thought, or a poetical
expression that might occur to him, si quid insomnis noctu non
infeliciter cogitabat ne id sibi periret. In like manner it is related of
Margaret Duchess of Newcastle that some of her young ladies
always slept within call, ready to rise at any hour in the night, and
take down her thoughts, lest she should forget them before morning.

Some threescore years ago a little instrument was sold by the name
of the Nocturnal Remembrancer; it consisted merely of some leaves
of what is called asses-skin, in a leathern case wherein there was
one aperture from side to side, by aid of which a straight line could
be pencilled in the dark: the leaf might be drawn up, and fixed at
measured distances, till it was written on from top to bottom.

Our Doctor, (—now that thou art so well acquainted with him and
likest him so cordially, Reader, it would be ungenerous in me to call
him mine)—our Doctor needed no such contrivances. He used to
say that he laid aside all his cares when he put off his wig, and that
never any were to be found under his night cap. Happy man, from
whom this might be believed! but so even had been the smooth and
noiseless tenour of his life that he could say it truly. Anxiety and
bereavements had brought to him no sleepless nights, no dreams
more distressful than even the realities that produce and blend with
them. Neither had worldly cares or ambitious hopes and projects
ever disquieted him, and made him misuse in midnight musings the
hours which belong to sleep. He had laid up in his mind an
inexhaustible store of facts and fancies, and delighted in nothing
more than in adding to these intellectual treasures; but as he
gathered knowledge only for its own sake, and for the pleasure of
the pursuit, not with any emulous feelings, or aspiring intent

—to be for ever known,

And make the years to come his own,

he never said with the studious Elder Brother in Fletcher's comedy,

 the children
Which I will leave to all posterity,
Begot and brought up by my painful studies
Shall be my living issue.

And therefore—voilà un homme qui était fort savant et fort eloquent,

et neanmoins—(altering a little the words of Bayle),—il n'est pas
connu dans la république des lettres, et il y a eu une infinité de gens
beaucoup moins habile que lui, qui sont cent fois plus connus; c'est
qu'ils ont publié des livres, et que la presse n'a point roulé sur ses
productions. Il importe extrêmement aux hommes doctes, qui ne
veulent pas tomber dans l'oubli après leur mort, de s'ériger en
auteurs; sans cela leur nom ne passe guère la première génération;
res erat unius ætatis. Le commun des lecteurs ne prend point garde
au nom des savans qu'ils ne connaissent que par le témoignage
d'autrui; on oublie bientôt un homme, lorsque l'eloge qu'en font les
autres finit par—le public n'a rien ou de lui.

Bayle makes an exception of men who like Peiresc distinguish

themselves d'un façon singulière.

“I am not sure,” says Sir Egerton Brydges, “that the life of an author
is an happy life; but yet if the seeds of authorship be in him, he will
not be happy except in the indulgence of this occupation. Without the
culture and free air which these seeds require, they will wither and
turn to poison.” It is no desirable thing, according to this
representation, to be born with such a predisposition to the most
dangerous of all callings. But still more pitiable is the condition of
such a person if Mr. Fosbrooke has described it truly: “the mind of a
man of genius,” says he, (who beyond all question is a man of
genius himself) “is always in a state of pregnancy, or parturition; and
its power of bearing offspring is bounded only by supervening
disease, or by death.” Those who are a degree lower in genius are in
a yet worse predicament; such a sort of man, as Norris of Bemerton
describes, who “although he conceives often, yet by some chance or
other, he always miscarries, and the issue proves abortive.”

JUNO LUCINA fer opem!

This invocation the Doctor never made metaphorically for himself,
whatever serious and secret prayers he may have preferred for
others, when exercising one branch of his tripartite profession.

Bernardin de Saint Pierre says in one of his letters, when his Etudes
de la Nature were in the press, Je suis a present dans les douleurs
de l'enfantement, car il n'y a point de mère qui souffre autant en
mettant un enfant au monde, et qui craigne plus qu'on ne l'ecorche
ou qu'on ne les crève un œil, qu'un auteur qui revoit les épreuves de
son ouvrage.

CHAPTER CCXXV.

TWO QUESTIONS GROWING OUT OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.

A Taylor who has no objection to wear motley, may make himself a great coat with
half a yard of his own stuff, by eking it out with cabbage from every piece that comes
in his way.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

But here two questions arise:

Ought Dr. Dove, or ought he not, to have been an author?

Was he, or was he not, the happier, for not being one?
“Not to leave the reader,” as Lightfoot says, “in a bivium of
irresolutions,” I will examine each of these questions, escriviendo
algunos breves reglones, sobre lo mucho que dezir y escrivir se
podria en esto;—moviendo me principalmente a ello la grande
ignorancia que sobre esta matheria veo manifiestamente entre las
gentes de nuestro siglo.1
1 GARIBAY.

“I am and have been,” says Robert Wilmot, “(if there be in me any

soundness of judgment) of this opinion, that whatsoever is
committed to the press is commended to eternity; and it shall stand a
lively witness with our conscience, to our comfort or confusion, in the
reckoning of that great day. Advisedly therefore was that proverb
used of our elder Philosopher, Manum a Tabulâ; withhold thy hand
from the paper, and thy papers from the print, or light of the world.”

Robert Wilmot says, I say, using the present tense in setting his
words before the reader, because of an author it may truly be said
that “being dead he yet speaketh.” Obscure as this old author now is,
for his name and his existing works are known only to those who
love to pore among the tombs and the ruins of literature, yet by those
who will always be enough “to make a few,” his name will continue to
be known, long after many of those bubbles which now glitter as they
float upon the stream of popularity are “gone for ever;” and his
remains are safe for the next half millennium, if the globe should last
so long without some cataclasm which shall involve its creatures and
its works in one common destruction.

Wilmot is right in saying that whatever is written for the public, is as

regards the individual responsibility of the writer, written for eternity,
however brief may be its earthly duration;—an aweful consideration
for the authors of wicked books, and for those who by becoming
instrumental in circulating such books, involve themselves in the
author's guilt as accessaries after the fact, and thereby bring
themselves deservedly under the same condemnation.
Looking at the first question in this point of view, it may be answered
without hesitation, the Doctor was so pure in heart, and
consequently so innocent in mind that there was no moral reason
why he ought not to have been an author. He would have written
nothing but what,—religiously speaking might have been accounted
among his good works,—so far as, so speaking, any works may
deserve to be called good.

But the question has two handles, and we must now take it by the
other.

An author more obscure in the literature of his own country than

Wilmot, (unless indeed some Spanish or Italian Haslewood may
have disinterred his name) has expressed an opinion, directly the
reverse of Wilmot's concerning authorship. Ye who understand that
noble language which the Emperor Charles V. ranked above all other
living tongues may have the satisfaction of here reading it in the
original.

“Muchos son los que del loable y fructuoso trabajo de escrevir, rehuir
suelen; unos por no saber, a los quales su ignorancia en alguna
manera escusa; otros por negligencia, que teniendo habilidad y
disposicion par ello no lo hazen; y a estos es menester que Dios los
perdone en lo passado, y emiende en lo por venir; otros dexan de
hazello por temor de los detractores y que mal acostumbran dezir;
los quales a mi parecer de toda reprehension son dignos, pues
siendo el acto en si virtuoso, dexan de usarlo por temor.
Mayormente que todos, o los mas que este exercicio usan, o con
buen ingenio escriven, o con buen desseo querrian escrevir. Si con
buen ingenio hazen buena obra, cierto es que dese ser alabada. Y
së el defecto de mas no alcanzar algo, la haze diminuta de lo que
mejor pudiera ser, deve se loar lo que el tal quisiera hazer, si mas
supiera, o la invencion y fantasia de la obra, por que fue, o porque
desseo ser bueno. De manere que es mucho mejor escrevir como
quiera que se pueda hazer, que no por algun temor dexar de
hazerlo.”2
2 QUESTION DE AMOR. PROLOGO.
“Many,” says this author, “are they who are wont to eschew the
meritorious and fruitful labour of writing, some for want of knowledge,
whom their ignorance in some manner excuses; others for
negligence, who having ability and fitness for this, nevertheless do it
not, and need there is for them, that God should forgive them for the
past, and amend them for the time to come, others forbear writing,
for fear of detractors and of those who accustom themselves to
speak ill, and these in my opinion are worthy of all reprehension,
because the act being in itself so virtuous, they are withheld by fear
from performing it. Moreover it is to be considered that all, or most of
those who practise this art, either write with a good genius, or a good
desire of writing well. If having a good genius they produce a good
work, certes that work deserves to be commended. And if for want of
genius it falls short of this, and of what it might better have been, still
he ought to be praised, who would have made his work praiseworthy
if he had been able, and the invention and fancy of the work, either
because it is or because he wished it to be so. So that it is much
better for a man to write whatever his ability may be, than to be
withheld from the attempt by fear.”

A very different opinion was expressed by one of the most learned of

men, Ego multos studiosos quotidie video, paucos doctos; in doctis
paucos ingeniosos; in semidoctis nullos bonos; atque adeo literæ
generis humani unicum solamen, jam pestis et perniciei maximæ
loco sunt.3
3 SCALIGER.

M. Cornet used to say, que pour faire des livres, il faloit être ou bien
fou ou bien sage, que pour lui, comme il ne se croïoit pas assez
sage pour faire un bon livre, ni assez fou pour en faire un méchant, il
avoit pris le parti de ne point ecrire.

Pour lui, the Docteur of the Sorbonne: pour moi,—every reader will,
in the exercise of that sovereign judgement whereof every reader is
possessed, determine for himself whether in composing the present
work I am to be deemed bien sage, or bien fou. I know what Mr.
Dulman thinks upon this point, and that Mr. Slapdash agrees with
him. To the former I shall say nothing; but to the latter, and to
Slenderwit, Midge, Wasp, Dandeprat, Brisk and Blueman, I shall let
Cordara the Jesuit speak for me.

O quanti, o quanti sono, a cui dispiace

Vedere un uom contento; sol per questo
Lo pungono con stile acre e mordace,
Per questi versi miei chi sa che presto
Qualche zanzara contro me non s'armi,
E non prenda di qui qualche pretesto.
Io certo me l'aspetto, che oltraggiarmi
Talun pretenderà sol perchè pare,
Che di lieti pensier' sappia occuparmi.
Ma canti pur, lo lascerò cantare
E per mostrargli quanto me ne prendo,
Tornerò, se bisogna, a verseggiare.

Leaving the aforesaid litterateurs to construe and apply this, I shall

proceed in due course to examine and decide whether Dr. Daniel
Dove ought, or ought not to have been an author,—being the first of
two questions, propounded in the present chapter, as arising out of
the last.

CHAPTER CCXXVI.

THE AUTHOR DIGRESSES A LITTLE, AND TAKES UP A STITCH WHICH WAS

DROPPED IN THE EARLIER PART OF THIS OPUS.—NOTICES CONCERNING
LITERARY AND DRAMATIC HISTORY, BUT PERTINENT TO THIS PART OF OUR
SUBJECT.
 Jam paululum digressus a spectantibus,
Doctis loquar, qui non adeo spectare quam
Audire gestiunt, logosque ponderant,
Examinant, dijudicantque pro suo
Candore vel livore; non latum tamen
Culmum (quod aiunt) dum loquar sapientibus
Loco movebor.
MACROPEDIUS.

The boy and his schoolmaster were not mistaken in thinking that
some of Textor's Moralities would have delighted the people of
Ingleton as much as any of Rowland Dixon's stock pieces. Such
dramas have been popular wherever they have been presented in
the vernacular tongue. The progress from them to the regular drama
was slow, perhaps not so much on account of the then rude state of
most modern languages, as because of the yet ruder taste of the
people. I know not whether it has been observed in literary history
how much more rapid it was in schools, where the Latin language
was used, and consequently fit audience was found, though few.

George von Langeveldt, or Macropedius as he called himself,

according to the fashion of learned men in that age, was
contemporary with Textor, and like him one of the pioneers of
literature, but he was a person of more learning and greater
intellectual powers. He was born about the year 1475, of a good
family in the little town or village of Gemert, at no great distance from
Bois-le-Duc. As soon as his juvenile studies were compleated he
entered among the Fratres Vitæ Communis; they employed him in
education, first as Rector in their college at Bois-le-duc, then at
Liege, and afterwards at Utrecht from whence in 1552, being infirm
and grievously afflicted with gout, he returned to Bois-le-duc there to
pass the remainder of his days, as one whose work was done. Old
and enfeebled however as he was, he lived till the year 1558, and
then died not of old age, but of a pestilential fever.
There is an engraved portrait of him in the hideous hood and habit of
his order; the countenance is that of a good-natured, intelligent,
merry old man: underneath are these verses by Sanderus the
topographer.
 Tu Seneca, et nostri potes esse Terentius ævi,
Seu struis ad faciles viva theatra pedes,
Sen ploras tragicas, Macropedi, carmine clades,
Materiam sanctis adsimilante modis.
Desine jam Latios mirari Roma cothurnos;
Nescio quid majus Belgica scena dabit.

Macropedius published Rudiments both of the Greek and Latin

languages; he had studied the Hebrew and Chaldee; had some skill
in mathematics, and amused his leisure in making mathematical
instruments, a branch of art in which he is said to have been an
excellent workman. Most of the men who distinguished themselves
as scholars in that part of the Low Countries, toward the latter part of
the 16th century had been his pupils: for he was not more
remarkable for his own acquirements than for the earnest delight
which he took in instructing others. There is some reason for thinking
that he was a severe disciplinarian, perhaps a cruel one. Herein he
differed widely from Textor, who took every opportunity for
expressing his abhorrence of magisterial cruelty. In one of these
Dialogues with which Guy and young Daniel were so well
acquainted, two schoolmasters after death are brought before
Rhadamanthus for judgement; one for his inhumanity is sent to be
tormented in Tartarus, part of his punishment in addition to those
more peculiarly belonging to the region, being that

Verbera quæ pueris intulit, ipse ferat:

the other who indulged his boys and never maltreated them is
ordered to Elysium, the Judge saying to him

—tua te in pueros clementia salvum

Reddit, et æternis persimilem superis.

That Textor's description of the cruelty exercised by the pedagogues

of his age was not overcharged, Macropedius himself might be
quoted to prove, even when he is vindicating and recommending
such discipline as Dr. Parr would have done. I wish Parr had heard
an expression which fell from the honest lips of Isaac Reid, when a
school, noted at that time for its consumption of birch, was the
subject of conversation; the words would have burnt themselves in. I
must not commit them to the press; but this I may say, that the
Recording Angel entered them on the creditor side of that kind-
hearted old man's account.

Macropedius, like Textor, composed dramatic pieces for his pupils to

represent. The latter, as has been shown in a former chapter, though
he did not exactly take the Moralities for his model, produced pieces
of the same kind, and adapted his conceptions to the popular facts,
while he clothed them in the language of the classics. His aim at
improvement proceeded no farther, and he never attempted to
construct a dramatic fable. That advance was made by Macropedius,
who in one of his dedicatory epistles laments that among the many
learned men who were then flourishing, no Menander, no Terence
was to be found, their species of writing, he says, had been almost
extinct since the time of Terence himself, or at least of Lucilius. He
regretted this because comedy might be rendered useful to persons
of all ages, quid enim plus pueris ad eruditionem, plus
adolescentibus ad honesta studia, plus provectioribus, immò
omnibus in commune ad virtutem conducat?

Reuchlin, or Capnio (as he who was one of the lights of his

generation was misnamed and misnamed himself,) who had with his
other great and eminent merits that of restoring or rather introducing
into Germany the study of Hebrew, revived the lost art of comedy. If
any one had preceded him in this revival, Macropedius was ignorant
of it, and by the example and advice of this great man he was
induced to follow him, not only as a student of Hebrew, but as a
comic writer. Hrosvitha indeed, a nun of Gandersheim in Saxony,
who lived in the tenth century and in the reign of Otho II. composed
six Latin comedies in emulation of Terence, but in praise of virginity;
and these with other of her poems were printed at Nuremberg in the
year 1501. The book I have never seen, nor had De Bure, nor had
he been able (such is its rarity) to procure any account of it farther
than enabled him to give its title. The name of Conrad Celtes, the
first German upon whom the degree of Poet Laureate was conferred,
appears in the title, as if he had discovered the manuscript; Conrado
Celte inventore. De Bure says the volume was attribué au même
Conradus Celtes. It is rash for any one to form an opinion of a book
which he has never examined, unless he is well acquainted with the
character and capacity of its author; nevertheless I may venture to
observe that nothing can be less in unison with the life and
conversation of this Latin poet, as far as these may be judged of by
his acknowledged poems, than the subjects of the pieces published
under Hrosvitha's name; and no reason can be imagined why if he
had written them himself, he should have palmed them upon the
public as her composition.

It is remarkable that Macropedius when he spoke of Reuchlin's

comedies should not have alluded to these, for that he must have
seen them there can be little or no doubt. One of Reuchlin's is said
to have been imitated from la Farce de Pathelin, which under the title
of the Village Lawyer has succeeded on our own stage, and which
was so deservedly popular that the French have drawn from it more
than one proverbial saying. The French Editor who affirms this says
that Pathelin was printed in 1474, four years before the
representation of Reuchlin's comedy, but the story is one of those
good travellers which are found in all countries, and Reuchlin may
have dramatised it without any reference to the French drama, the
existence of which may very probably have been unknown to him, as
well as to Macropedius. Both his pieces are satirical. His disciple
began with a scriptural drama upon the Prodigal Son, Asotus is its
title. It must have been written early in the century, for about 1520 he
laid it aside as a juvenile performance, and faulty as much because
of the then comparatively rude state of learning, as of his own
inexperience.

Scripsi olim adolescens, trimetris versibus,

Et tetrametris, eâ phrasi et facundiâ
Quæ tum per adolescentiam et mala tempora
Licebat, evangelicum Asotum aut Prodigum
Omnis quidem mei laboris initium.
After it had lain among his papers for thirty years, he brought it to
light, and published it. In the prologue he intreats the spectators not
to be offended that he had put his sickle into the field of the Gospel,
and exhorts them while they are amused with the comic parts of the
dialogue, still to bear in mind the meaning of the parable.

Sed orat author carminis vos res duas:

Ne ægre feratis, quod levem falcem tulit
Sementem in evangelicam, eamque quod audeat
Tractare majestatem Iambo et Tribracho;
Neve insuper nimis hæreatis ludicris
Ludisque comicis, sed animum advortite
Hic abdito mysterio, quod eruam.

After these lines he proceeds succinctly to expound the parable.

Although the grossest representations were not merely tolerated at

that time in the Miracle Plays, and Mysteries, but performed with the
sanction and with the assistance of the clergy, it appears that
objections were raised against the sacred dramas of this author.
They were composed for a learned audience,—which is indeed the
reason why the Latin or as it may more properly be called the
Collegiate drama, appeared at first in a regular and respectable
form, and received little or no subsequent improvement. The only
excuse which could be offered for the popular exhibitions of this kind,
was that they were if not necessary, yet greatly useful, by exciting
and keeping up the lively faith of an ignorant, but all-believing
people. That apology failed, where no such use was needed. But
Macropedius easily vindicated himself from charges which in truth
were not relevant to his case; for he perceived what scriptural
subjects might without impropriety be represented as he treated
them, and he carefully distinguished them from those upon which no
fiction could be engrafted without apparent profanation. In the
prologue to his Lazarus he makes this distinction between the
Lazarus of the parable, and the Lazarus of the Gospel History: the
former might be thus treated for edification, the latter was too sacred
a theme,
 —quod is sine
Filii Dei persona agi non possiet.

Upon this distinction he defends himself, and carefully declares what

were the bounds which ought not to be overpassed.

Fortassis objectabit illi quispiam

Quod audeat sacerrimam rem, et serio
Nostræ saluti a Christo Jesu proditam
Tractare comicè, et facere rem ludicram.
Fatetur ingenuè, quod eadem ratio se
Sæpenumero deterruit, ne quid suum,
Vel ab aliis quantumlibet scriptum, piè
Doctève, quod personam haberet Christi Jesu
Agentis, histrionibus seu ludiis
Populo exhibendum ex pulpito committeret.

From this passage I am induced to suspect that the Jesus

Scholasticus, and the tragedy De Passione Christi, which are named
in the list of his works, have been erroneously ascribed to him. No
date of time or place is affixed to either, by the biographers. After his
judicious declaration concerning such subjects it cannot be thought
he would have written these tragedies; nor that if he had written
them before he seriously considered the question of their propriety,
he would afterwards have allowed them to appear. It is more
probable that they were published without an author's name, and
ascribed to him, because of his reputation. No inference can be
drawn from their not appearing in the two volumes of his plays;
because that collection is entitled Omnes Georgii Macropedii Fabulæ
COMICÆ, and though it contains pieces which are deeply serious, that
title would certainly preclude the insertion of a tragedy. But a piece
upon the story of Susanna which the biographers have also ascribed
to him is not in the collection;1 the book was printed after his
retirement to Bois-le-duc, when from his age and infirmities he was
most unlikely to have composed it, and therefore I conclude, that like
the tragedies, it is not his work.
1 This must be a comic drama.—R. S.
Macropedius was careful to guard against anything which might give
offence and therefore he apologizes for speaking of the fable of his
Nama:

Mirabitur fortasse vestrûm quispiam,

Quod fabulam rem sacrosanctam dixerim.
Verum sibi is persuasum habebit, omne quod
Tragico artificio comicovè scribitur,
Dici poetis fabulam; quod utique non
Tam historia veri texitur, quod proprium est,
Quam imago veri fingitur, quod artis est.
Nam comicus non propria personis solet,
Sed apta tribuere atque verisimilia, ut
Quæ pro loco vel tempore potuere agi
Vel dicier.

For a very different reason he withdrew from one of these dramas

certain passages, by the advice of his friends, he says, qui rem
seriam fabulosius tractandum dissuaserunt. These it seems related
to the first chapter of St. Luke, but contained circumstances derived
not from that Gospel, but from the legends engrafted upon it, and
therefore he rejects them as citra scripturæ authoritatem.

From the scrupulousness with which Macropedius in this instance

distinguishes between the facts of the Gospel history, and the fables
of man's invention, it may be suspected that he was not averse at
heart to those hopes of a reformation in the church which were at
that time entertained. This is still further indicated in the drama called
Hecastus (ἕκαστος,—Every one,) in which he represents a sinner as
saved by faith in Christ and repentance. He found it necessary to
protest against the suspicion which he had thus incurred, and to
declare that he held works of repentance, and the sacraments
appointed by the Church necessary for salvation.2
2 Hecastus was represented by the schoolboys in 1538 non sine magno spectantium
plausu. It was printed in the ensuing year; and upon reprinting it, in 1550, the author
offers his apology. He says, “fuere multi quibus (fabulæ scopo recte considerato) per
omnia placuit; fuere quibus in ea nonnulla offenderunt; fuere quoque, quibus omnino
 displicuit, ob hoc præcipue, quod erroribus quibusdam nostri temporis connivere et
suffragari videretur. Inprimis illi, quod citra pænitentiæ opera (satisfactionem dicimus)
et ecclesiæ sacramenta, per solam in Christum fidem et cordis contritionem,
condonationem criminum docere, vel asserere videretur: et quod quisque certo se
fore servandum credere teneretur: Id quod nequaquam nec mente concepi, nec
unquam docere volui, licet quibusdam fortassis fabulæ scopum non exactè
considerantibus, primâ (quod aiunt) fronte sic videri potuerit. Si enim rei scopum,
quem in argumento indicabam, penitus observassent, secus fortassis judicaturi
fuissent.”—R. S.

Hecastus is a rich man, given over to the pomps and vanities of the
world, and Epicuria his wife is of the same disposition. They have
prepared a great feast, when Nomodidascalus arrives with a
summons for him to appear before the Great King for Judgment.
Hecastus calls upon his son Philomathes who is learned in the law
for counsel; the son is horror-stricken, and confesses his ignorance
of the language in which the summons is written:

Horror, pater, me invadit, anxietas quoque

Non mediocris; nam elementa quanquam barbara
Miram Dei potentiam præ se ferunt,
Humaniores literas scio; barbaras
Neque legere, neque intelligere, pater, queo.

The father is incensed that a son who had been bred to the law for
the purpose of pleading his cause at any time should fail him thus;
but Nomodidascalus vindicates the young man, and reads a severe
lecture to Hecastus, in which Hebrew words of aweful admonishment
are introduced and interpreted. The guests arrive, he tells them what
has happened, and entreats them to accompany him, and assist him
when he appears before the Judge; they plead other engagements,
and excuse themselves. He has no better success with his kinsmen;
though they promise to look after his affairs, and say that they will
make a point of attending him with due honour as far as the gate. He
then calls upon his two sons to go with him unto the unknown
country whereto he has been summoned. The elder is willing to fight
for his father, but not to enter upon such a journey; the lawyer does
not understand the practice of those courts, and can be of no use to
him there; but he advises his father to take his servants with him,
and plenty of money.

Madam Epicuria, who is not the most affectionate of wives, refuses

to accompany him upon this unpleasant expedient, and moreover
requests that her maids may be left with her; let him take his man
servants with him, and gold and silver in abundance. The servants
bring out his wealth. Plutus, ex arcâ loquens is one of the Dramatis
Personæ, and the said Plutus when brought upon the stage in a
chest, or strong box, complains that he is shaken to pieces by being
thus moved. Hecastus tells him he must go with him to the other
world and help him there, which Plutus flatly refuses. If he will not go
of his own accord he shall be carried whether he will or no, Hecastus
says. Plutus stands stiffly to his refusal.

Non transferent; prius quidem

Artus et ilia ruperint, quam transferant.
In morte nemini opitulor usquam gentium,
Quin magis ad alienum dominum transeo.

Hecastus on his part is equally firm, and orders his men to fetch
some strong poles, and carry off the chest, Plutus and all. Having
sent them forward, he takes leave of his family, and Epicuria protests
that she remains like a widowed dove, and his neighbours promise
to accompany him as far as the gate.

Death comes behind him now:

Horrenda imago, larva abominabilis,

Figura tam execranda, ut atrum dæmona
Putetis obvium.3

3 The reader should by all means consult Mr. Sharpe's “Dissertation on the Pageants
or Dramatic Mysteries anciently performed in Coventry.” “The Devil,” he observes,
“was a very favorite and prominent character in our Religious Mysteries, wherein he
was introduced as often as was practicable, and considerable pains taken to furnish
him with appropriate habiliments, &c.” p. 31. also pp. 57-60. There are several plates
 of “Hell-Mought and Sir Sathanas” which will not escape the examination of the
curious. The bloody Herod was a character almost as famous as “Sir Sathanas”—
hence the expression “to out-herod Herod” e.g. in Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. ii. With reference
to the same personage Charmian says to the Soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra,
“Let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage.” Act i. Sc. ii.,
and Mrs. Page asks in the Merry Wives of Windsor, “What Herod of Jewry is this?”
Act ii. Sc. i.

This dreadful personage is with much difficulty intreated to allow him

the respite of one short hour, after which Death declares he will
return, and take him, will he or nill he before the Judge, and then to
the infernal regions. During this interval who should come up but an
old and long-neglected friend of Hecastus, Virtue by name; a poor
emaciated person, in mean attire, in no condition to appear with him
before the Judge, and altogether unfit to plead his desperate cause.
She promises however to send him a Priest to his assistance and
says moreover that she will speak to her sister Faith, and endeavour
to persuade her to visit him.

Meantime the learned son predicts from certain appearances the

approaching end of his father.

Actum Philocrate, de patris salute, uti

Plane recenti ex lotio prejudico,
Nam cerulea si tendit ad nigredinem
Urina mortem proximam denunciat.

He has been called on, he says, too late,

Sero meam medentis admisit manum.

The brothers begin to dispute about their inheritance, and declare

law against each other; but they suspend the dispute when
Hieronymus the Priest arrives, that they may look after him lest he
should prevail upon the dying to dispose of too large a part of his
property in charitable purposes.
 Id cautum oportet maximè. Novimus enim
Quàm tum sibi, tum cæteris quibus favent,
Legata larga extorqueat id hominum genus,
Cum morte ditem terminandum viderint.

Virtue arrives at this time with his sister Faith; they follow
Hieronymus into the chamber into which Hecastus has been borne;
and as they go in up comes Satan to the door, and takes his seat
there to draw up a bill of indictment against the dying man, he must
do it carefully, he says, that there may be no flaw in it.

Causam meam scripturus absolutius

Adversum Hecastum, hic paululum desedero;
Ne si quid insit falsitatis maximis
Facinoribus, res tota veniat in gravem
Fœdamque controversiam. Abstinete vos,
Quotquot theatro adestis, à petulantiâ,
Nisi si velitis et hos cachinnos scribier.

Then he begins to draw up the indictment, speaking as he writes,

Primum omnium superbus est et arrogans,—

Superbus est et arrogans,—et arrogans;—
Tum in ædibus,—tum in ædibus; tum in vestibus,—
Tum in vestibus. Jam reliqua tacitus scripsero,
Loquaculi ne exaudiant et deferant.

While Satan is thus employed at the door, the priest Hieronymus

within is questioning the patient concerning his religion. Hecastus
possesses a very sound and firm historical belief. But this the Priest
tells him is not enough, for the Devils themselves believe and
tremble, and he will not admit Faith into the chamber till Hecastus be
better instructed in the true nature of a saving belief.