Panthera legend

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The Panthera legend is an ancient tradition that a Roman soldier named Panthera was the birth father of Jesus Christ . Presumably, Panthera is a fictional person. The legend, first attested in the late 2nd century, originated in an anti-Christian Jewish milieu. She claims that Jesus was the child of Panthera's adulterous relationship with Mary (Hebrew Mirjam ). The original version can only be reconstructed in outline, the circumstances of its creation are unknown. The material has been handed down in different versions. The oldest surviving version is in a Roman source. A more recent, heavily alienated version can be found in rabbinical literature .

Content of the legend

The Roman tradition

The oldest evidence for the legend is provided by fragments of the lost battle script against Christianity with the title Ἀληθὴς λόγος Alēthḗs lógos (True Doctrine) , which the philosopher Kelsos (Celsus) wrote in ancient Greek in the late 2nd century - probably between 176 and 180 Language authored, probably in Alexandria . Kelsos took on the account of an unknown source who claimed that the alleged birth of Jesus from a virgin could be explained by the fact that his mother had been convicted of adultery and rejected by her husband and then secretly gave birth to a child out of wedlock whose father was a Roman soldier called Panthera. Jesus himself invented the story of the virgin birth to cover up his dishonorable ancestry.

The relevant fragments from the lost work of the Celsus have been handed down as quotations in a counter-writ by the church writer Origen . Origen's work, also written in Greek, bears the title Against the text of Kelsos entitled 'True Doctrine' (for short against Kelsos , Latin Contra Celsum ). Origen wrote his extensive apologetic reply to the polemic of Celsus in the period from 244 to 249. Quoting the legend, he says:

“Then he [Kelsos] lets the [fictional] person of a Jew appear who is arguing with Jesus himself and who, as he thinks, holds him accountable for many things. At first he invented 'the birth of a virgin'. He also blames him for 'coming from a Jewish village and being born of a country woman, a poor spinning worker'. He claims that 'this was rejected by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, convicted as an adulteress'. He further claims that 'driven from her husband and wandering dishonorously, she secretly gave birth to Jesus'. And: 'Out of poverty he went to Egypt as a day laborer and there tried some [magical] powers, of which the Egyptians boast. He returned proud of these powers and publicly presented himself as God because of them. '"

“But let us return to the words that were put into the mouth of the Jew. Here it is written that the mother of Jesus was 'cast out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her because she was convicted of adultery and became pregnant by a soldier named Panthera'. Let us see whether the narrators of the fable of the virgin's adultery with Panthera and of the carpenter who cast her out have not blindly invented all of this in order to eliminate the wonderful conception of the Holy Spirit. "

"He [Kelsos] scornfully adds: 'When she was hated and rejected by the carpenter, she was saved neither by divine power nor by persuasion.'"

The fact that Kelsos describes the carpenter as husband in one of the fragments and as betrothed to the mother of Jesus in another can be traced back to the different information in the Gospels, where he is partly betrothed (Mt 1.18; Lk 1.27; 2.5) is sometimes called husband (Mt 1:19).

The ancient rabbinical tradition

In ancient rabbinical literature, the material is processed in a different form than in Kelsos. Only small and unclear traces of this thread of the legend have survived, although there is no reference to Jesus and the process is shifted to the second century. Nevertheless, content-related correspondences with the version of the Kelsos show that the two ancient branches of tradition have a common origin and that the original version was about the descent of Jesus. The main source in the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) is the passage b Shabbat 104b; an almost identical parallel is found in b Sanhedrin 67a. In b Shabbat 104b there is talk of a “fool” named ben Stada (son of Stada), and it is asked: “Didn't ben Stada bring magic out of Egypt through incisions / tattoos in / on his flesh?” On the family background this fool is then communicated: “(Was he) the son of Stada (and not quite the opposite) the son of Pandera? Rav Chisda said, 'The husband was Stada, (and) the lover was Pandera.' '(But wasn't) the husband Pappos ben Jehuda and rather his mother Stada? His mother was Mirjam, (the woman who made her) women grow [hair] long. This is what they say about her [Mirjam] in Pumbeditha : She deviated from (was unfaithful) her husband. '"

In this dialogue the question is discussed how a contradiction between two traditions can be cleared up. One tradition calls the magician "son of Stada", the other "son of Pandera". It is evidently assumed to be common knowledge who the wizard was. The scholar Rav Chisda explains that, as the husband of the child's mother, Stada was the legal father and Pandera was the biological father. An unnamed interlocutor suggests an alternative solution: the husband was Pappos ben Jehuda, a scholar from the first half of the 2nd century, and Stada was a nickname for Miriam who referred to her infidelity. Apparently there was agreement between the two declarers that the adulterer's name was Pandera.

The church writer Tertullian , who wrote in the 2nd century, and the Pilate files from the 4th century , offer further references to an old Jewish tradition, but without mentioning the name Panthera . Tertullian mentions the Jewish claim that the mother of Jesus is a whore. In the Pilate files it is said that the “elders of the Jews” testified to Pilate that Jesus was born out of wedlock, but that some Jews contradicted this. In addition, in some places in rabbinic writings whose source value for the reception of Jesus is highly controversial, there is talk of "Jesus, son of Pandera (or Pantiri)".

Post-antique reception

Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

The Toledot Jeschu tract was written in the early Middle Ages , the oldest coherent account of Jesus' life from a Jewish perspective. This script was widespread in a number of very different versions in the Middle Ages and early modern times and was the main source for the image of Jesus on the Jewish side. In part of the handwritten tradition a Josef Pandera or Josef ben Pandera (also Pundira, Pantera or Panderi) is mentioned, who according to most manuscripts broke with Mirjam, the mother of Jesus, whose marriage or engagement to a Jochanan; According to a different version, he was her husband and Jochanan's lover. In Aramaic fragments, Jesus is referred to as Jeschu, son of Pandera (or Pandira). In some versions, Mirjam appears as an innocent victim who was deceived by Pandera. The oldest Hebrew manuscript, which was probably written in the 15th century at the latest, does not contain a narrative of the birth, but allows Jesus to confess during interrogation that he was born out of wedlock and that his father was a non-Jewish musician named Pandera. After his father's death, his mother married Mirjam Josef. According to the "Huldreich version" of Toledot Jeschu , the oldest text witness of which is the edition by Johannes Huldreich printed in 1705, the married Mirjam fled with the seducer Josef Pandera and settled with him in Bethlehem . There she bore him Jesus and other children. When her betrayed husband found out, he complained to King Herod , who then looked in vain for the fugitive couple; Pandera and Mirjam had been warned and escaped to Egypt with their children .

There is a mention of the Jewish legend in Christian Latin literature as early as the early Middle Ages. Archbishop Amulo of Lyon (831–852) reports about it with indignation in his Liber contra Judaeos (Book against the Jews) . He writes that the Jewish claim is that Jesus is the son of a gentile named Pandera who committed adultery with Mary. This message came from a version of the Toledot Yeshu that was circulating at the time .

Voltaire expressed himself in a text written in 1736 and published in 1767 on the representation handed down in the Toledot Jeschu . He found this book to be overstrained, but said it contained information that "is far more likely than what our Gospels write". He was referring to the Panthera story, which he summarized. According to Voltaire, the essence of this report, especially the news that "Joseph Panther gave Mirja a child", "is certainly more believable, more natural and more in line with what happens every day in the world" than the assumption of the birth Jesus from a virgin .

Modern

In modern research, the question of how the portrayal of the pagan philosopher Kelsus relates to the reception of the material in the Babylonian Talmud has been intensively discussed. The assumption of a common Jewish source for both strands of tradition is usually considered plausible, but the justification of identifying the Roman panthera with the Talmudic pandera has also been questioned. In any case, it was the concern of the originator of the legend to spread a counter-narrative to the birth story in the Gospel according to Matthew and to counter the Christian claim of the virginity of Mary.

In the older research literature the hypothesis was put forward that Panthera should be understood as a polemical play on words; this supposed name is a deliberate distortion of parthenos , the Greek word for virgin, which is used by Christians to designate Mary. Against this, however, is that hardly anyone would have understood the allusion in such a caricaturing naming and that the hypothesis has no basis in the sources. In addition, Panthera was a Roman man's name that is attested several times in Latin inscriptions. Therefore, the attempt to interpret the name as a play on words has been abandoned by recent research.

The panthera of the legend is sometimes identified with the historically documented Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera , a Syrian from Sidon in Roman military service who lived in the decades around the birth of Christ and whose tombstone was discovered in 1859. However, the inscription only proves that there was actually at least one Roman soldier of this name in the early 1st century. The popular science book The Jesus Dynasty by biblical scholar James D. Tabor , published in 2006, considers the possibility that the soldier Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera was the father of Jesus.

Ernst Haeckel expressed in 1899 in his popular scientific work Die Weltträthsel, which received a great deal of attention, the conviction that Jesus was really the son of a Roman "captain" named Pandera and therefore not a pure Jew. In German nationalist literature, the legend was used in the first half of the 20th century to justify the claim of an Aryan descent of Jesus. The National Socialist theologian Walter Grundmann assumed that Jesus' father was called Panthera. Another National Socialist theologian, Emanuel Hirsch , put forward the hypothesis that Panthera was not the father but the grandfather of Jesus.

The comedy The Life of Brian (1979) has an analogy to the legend . There it turns out that the protagonist Brian, whose life in Palestine shows striking parallels and overlaps with the life of Jesus, is the son of a Roman centurion who raped his mother. In the film Jesus of Montreal (1989) the name of Jesus is given as Yeshu ben Panthera ( Jeschu, son of Panthera ).

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the time, place and purpose of the drafting see Horacio E. Lona: Die "Wahreehre" des Kelsos , Freiburg 2005, pp. 50–57.
  2. ↑ Horacio E. Lona: The "True Teaching" of the Kelsos , Freiburg 2005, pp. 98-105.
  3. ↑ Irmgard Männlein-Robert : Kelsus (from Alexandria?). In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Ed.): Philosophy of the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity (= Outline of the History of Philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 5/1), Basel 2018, pp. 665–672, here: 665.
  4. ↑ Origen, Contra Celsum 1.28; Translation after Claudia Barthold in: Michael Fiedrowicz (commentator), Claudia Barthold (translator): Origen: Contra Celsum. Against Celsus , Teilband 1, Freiburg 2011, p. 249.
  5. ↑ Origen, Contra Celsum 1.32; Translation after Claudia Barthold in: Michael Fiedrowicz (commentator), Claudia Barthold (translator): Origen: Contra Celsum. Against Celsus , Teilband 1, Freiburg 2011, p. 259.
  6. ↑ Origen, Contra Celsum 1.39; Translation after Claudia Barthold in: Michael Fiedrowicz (commentator), Claudia Barthold (translator): Origen: Contra Celsum. Against Celsus , Teilband 1, Freiburg 2011, p. 259.
  7. ↑ Horacio E. Lona: The "True Teaching" of the Kelsos , Freiburg 2005, p. 100.
  8. ^ Translation according to Peter Schäfer: Jesus im Talmud , 3rd, revised edition, Tübingen 2017, pp. 31–33.
  9. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus in the Talmud , 3rd, revised edition, Tübingen 2017, pp. 34–36.
  10. ^ Tertullian, De spectaculis 30.
  11. ^ Gospel of Nicodemi 2: 3–5. Translation by Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Hrsg.): New Testament Apocrypha in German Translation , Volume 1, 6th Edition, Tübingen 1990, p. 402 f.
  12. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus in the Talmud , 3rd, revised edition, Tübingen 2017, pp. 39–41, 85, 109, 123; Johann Maier: Jesus of Nazareth in the Talmudic tradition , 2nd edition, Darmstadt 1992, pp. 264–266.
  13. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus in the Talmud , 3rd, revised edition, Tübingen 2017, p. 5.
  14. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus' Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud. In: Benjamin Isaac, Yuval Shahar (ed.): Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity , Tübingen 2012, pp. 139–161, here: 145.
  15. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus' Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud. In: Benjamin Isaac, Yuval Shahar (ed.): Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity , Tübingen 2012, pp. 139–161, here: 143 f.
  16. ↑ Peter Schäfer: Jesus' Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud. In: Benjamin Isaac, Yuval Shahar (ed.): Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity , Tübingen 2012, pp. 139–161, here: 160 f.
  17. ^ New York, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, JTS 8998. For the dating, see Michael Meerson, Peter Schäfer (ed.): Toledot Yeshu: The Life Story of Jesus , Volume 2, Tübingen 2014, p. 58.
  18. ↑ Michael Meerson, Peter Schäfer (ed.): Toledot Yeshu: The Life Story of Jesus , Volume 1, Tübingen 2014, p. 138.
  19. ↑ Michael Meerson, Peter Schäfer (ed.): Toledot Yeshu: The Life Story of Jesus , Volume 1, Tübingen 2014, p. 306.
  20. ↑ Amulo von Lyon, Liber contra Judaeos 40. See Peter Schäfer: Jesus' Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud. In: Benjamin Isaac, Yuval Shahar (ed.): Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity , Tübingen 2012, pp. 139–161, here: 142 f.
  21. ↑ Voltaire: Examen important de milord Bolingbroke ou Le tombeau du fanatisme , Chapter 10, in: Œuvres complètes de Voltaire , Volume 26, Paris 1879, p. 222 f.
  22. ↑ See also Peter Schäfer: Jesus im Talmud , 3rd, revised edition, Tübingen 2017, pp. 29–46, 115; Horacio E. Lona: The "True Teaching" of the Kelsos , Freiburg 2005, p. 101 f .; Johann Maier: Jesus of Nazareth in the Talmudic tradition , 2nd edition, Darmstadt 1992, p. 243.
  23. ^ Johann Maier: Jesus of Nazareth in the Talmudic tradition , 2nd edition, Darmstadt 1992, p. 267; Horacio E. Lona: The "True Teaching" of Kelsos , Freiburg 2005, p. 101. Cf. the articles on namesake in Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume XVIII, 3, Stuttgart 1949, Sp. 776.
  24. ↑ CIL 13, 7514 .
  25. ↑ James D. Tabor: The Jesus Dynasty , Munich 2006, pp. 85–96.
  26. ^ Ernst Haeckel: Die Weltträthsel , Bonn 1899, p. 379.
  27. ↑ Wolfgang Fenske : How Jesus became an "Aryan" , Darmstadt 2005, pp. 144 f., 218, 226.
  28. ↑ Peter Haupt, Sabine Hornung : A member of the Holy Family? At the reception of a Roman soldier's grave from Bingerbrück, district of Mainz-Bingen. In: Archäologische Informations 27, 2004, pp. 133–140, here: 138.