1. Introduction
Hymns, says William Furley in his article ‘Praise and Persuasion in Greek Hymns’, were ‘thought to give the gods pleasure and therefore have the best chance of securing benefits for humans’.Footnote 1 An essential aspect of the Greek hymn was its supplication for benefits.Footnote 2 Thus the chorus sings in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, ‘This is the song (ὕμνος) of the gods beneath the earth. Now hear this prayer, blessed underworld powers, and send aid willingly to the children, for victory!’Footnote 3
However, 1 Timothy 3.16b, which most scholars call a ‘hymn’, does not implore God for any benefits.Footnote 4 Yet 1 Timothy 3.16b owes a lot to poetics with its repetition of unaspirated words and prepositional phrases, and this may give some clue as to its function. Pastoral Paul writes to Timothy about how he is to conduct himself in the ‘household of God, which is the church (ἐκκλησία) of the living God’ (1 Tim 3.15).Footnote 5 1 Timothy 3.16b is introduced with the adverbial phrase, ὁμολογουμένως μέγα, ‘confessedly great’.Footnote 6 The adverb, ὁμολογουμένως, can be rendered ‘by common consent, confessedly, admittedly’ (LSJ).Footnote 7 Thus someone must be agreeing (ὁμόλογος) ‘by common consent’, and this ‘someone’ must be ‘the church (ἐκκλησία) of the living God’ (1 Tim 3.15).Footnote 8 The implication is that there is an oral acknowledgement of ‘the mystery of piety’ contained in the words of 1 Timothy 3.16b.Footnote 9 This paper will consider how the performance of this ὁμολογουμένως ‘great mystery of piety’ contributes to the writer's aim to persuade ‘certain people’ (1 Tim 1. 3–6; 4.1) to return to the truth (1 Tim 3.15) and not ‘to teach the other instruction’ (ἑτɛροδιδασκαλɛῖν) (1 Tim 1.3) nor ‘pay attention to myths and endless genealogies’ (1 Tim 1.4).Footnote 10 However, this does not identify the genre of this verse. This article will outline the case that 1 Timothy 3.16b does not conform to the expected features of a Greek hymn. However, given the poetic nature of 1 Timothy 3.16b, two possibilities are proposed: either it is a series of maxims or it is a literary epigram.Footnote 11
2. Assessment of 1 Timothy 3.16b as a ‘Hymn’ from another Context
2.1. Naming a ‘Hymn’
When I name an entity, I am doing something significant. David Timmerman and Edward Schiappa observe in their Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse, ‘naming a phenomenon “X” as opposed to “Y” encourages a potentially different set of attitudes and actions toward the phenomenon’.Footnote 12 When scholars call 1 Timothy 3.16b a ‘hymn’, they are bringing to this verse a set of attitudes and interpretive actions dictated by the name ‘hymn’. Should we be calling 1 Timothy 3.16b a hymn? Certainly, there are poetic characteristics in this verse one can hear when read in Greek:
Ὅς ἐφανɛρώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνɛύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνɛσιν, ἐπιστɛύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνɛλήμφθη ἐν δόξῃ.
The relative ὅς is introductory, so each phrase begins with a repetition of a passive verb ending in θη, which creates a repetitious sound, and almost each passive verb is followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with ἐν with some close repetitive ‘i’ sounds at the end.Footnote 13 These repetitions create a semblance of rhythm.Footnote 14 The lack of the prepositional phrase in the line beginning ὤφθη possibly adds emphasis to this verb; it is certainly not, as we shall see, for the rhythmic design.
2.2 James Strange and the Ill-fitting Category ‘Confessional Hymn’
Interestingly, Jerome Quinn and William Wacker were not so sure that this piece is a hymn. They based their reticence on the doctoral work of James Strange. Strange used six features he identified from Greek hymns to test the hypothesis that 1 Timothy 3.16b was a hymn.Footnote 15 The first feature he identified was that the opening ὅς of 1 Timothy 3.16b intersects partially with the ‘relative participial style’ that has characterised some ancient texts that have been called hymns. Second, the parallelism of the members is a characteristic of the hymns in the Hellenistic world. Third, there is something of a rhythm based on two stresses per line, although he acknowledges that there is no particular pattern ‘in the distribution of the unstressed syllables’. Fourth, there are rhetorical devices such as assonance,Footnote 16 homoioteleutonFootnote 17 and chiasm. Fifth, there is the third person singular style; and sixth, reportorial narrative form is ‘perhaps also characteristic of hymnic composition’.Footnote 18 Overall, Strange found that 1 Timothy 3.16b only bore a marginal similarity to known Greek hymns. However, he opted for a blended genre, a ‘confessional hymn’.Footnote 19 However, there is no evidence that there was such a genre for early Christians: it is Strange's attempt to create a category to cover the various literary elements that he sees in this verse. A significant problem is the lack of metre.
2.3 Mark Yarbrough and 1 Timothy 3.16b as a Preformed Tradition
In a later study, Mark Yarbrough, in his Paul's Utilization of Preformed Traditions in 1 Timothy, argues that 1 Timothy 3.16b is a preformed tradition based on his critical evaluation.Footnote 20 Yarbrough's object is to identify preformed traditions in order to ascertain their function in the letter, which he proposes strengthens the literary cohesion of the letter, provides rhetorical leverage, and presents theological directives that ‘combat counter-mission doctrine’ of the opponents.Footnote 21 His work is not focused on the underlying traditions themselves nor their function and performance in the community before their insertion into 1 Timothy. He identifies 1 Timothy 3.16 as a preformed tradition based on three of his criteria: structure, content, and style.Footnote 22 In regard to ‘structure’, his first finding is that there is a formulaic introduction, ‘and by great confession’, and secondly, that verse 16 is a self-contained unit. In regard to ‘content’, his primary finding is that there is ‘a high theological presence with a detailed Christological expression’; and, under ‘style’, his main finding is that verse 16 ‘develops a unique, assonant rhythmical pattern that serves an elaborate poetic function’.Footnote 23 There can be no doubt that 1 Timothy 3.16b with its highly structured short phrases and rhythmic qualities stands apart from the surrounding text.Footnote 24 However, Yarbrough assumes, along with the scholars he is relying on, that 1 Timothy 3.16b is a hymn.Footnote 25 Little is done to argue that 1 Timothy 3.16b is a ‘hymn’ according to his own ‘hymnic criteria’.Footnote 26 Further, the opening formula ‘a confession’ does not spark an analysis as to whether 1 Timothy 3.16b fulfils the confessional criteria or the hymnic criteria as it did for Strange.Footnote 27 Yarbrough's careful analysis of the structure and style of 1 Timothy 3.16b provides insights into use of poetical devices which are clearly described. However, his analysis is limited, as is the whole study, since Yarbrough has not considered the possibility that the identified preformed traditions may be composed by the writer for use as a tradition within the corporate life of the body of believers (Eph 5.19; Col 3.16). After all, a poetical piece composed for the purpose of insertion into the prose of 1 Timothy will meet Yarbrough's criteria of preformed tradition, but it is an assumption that this piece belongs to another time and setting.Footnote 28 There is plenty of evidence that one trained in letter writing and oratory would be able to compose a rhythmic piece to enhance his argument.Footnote 29
3. The Case that 1 Timothy 3.16b was Composed for the Letter
The writer of 1 Timothy was trained both in rhetoric and the art of letter composition.Footnote 30 A young man in the Roman empire could go on from learning to read and write with a teacher to learning to compose and give speeches with a rhetor or sophist.Footnote 31 Dionysius of Halicarnassus said that ‘young people need, at the beginning, much prudent supervision and guidance … to select words which are both pure and refined and to arrange them in a combination which unites grace and dignity’.Footnote 32 Quintilian saw that understanding the nature of rhythm and metre used in poetry could aid a written composition.Footnote 33 Even school boys were aware of rhythm.Footnote 34 However, Quintilian argued against the use of verse in compositions, while Julius Victor, in giving advice about letter writing, thought that to use ‘a familiar proverb, a line of poetry, or a snatch of verse’ would add pleasantness to a ‘friendly letter’.Footnote 35 The insertion of 1 Timothy 3.16b does break ‘the rules’ of Quintilian's good composition, and it is doing far more than adorning 1 Timothy with a note of pleasantness as was allowed by Victor.Footnote 36 The context of 1 Timothy 3.16b is ‘the church (ἐκκλησία) of the living God’ (1 Tim 3.15); it is the meeting of the believers to which this piece belongs, as Yarbrough's work suggests. A similar context is described by Philo in his description of the practices of the Therapeutae.Footnote 37 After prayers and the speech by the President:
[he] rises and sings a hymn (ὕμνον ᾄδɛι) composed as an address to God, either a new one of his own composition or an old one by poets of an earlier day who have left behind them hymns in many measures and melodies, hexameters and iambics, lyrics suitable for processions or in libations and at the altars, or for the chorus whilst standing or dancing, with careful metrical arrangements to fit the various evolutions. After him all the others take their turn as they are arranged and in the proper order while all the rest listen in complete silence except when they have to chant (ᾄδɛιν) the closing lines or refrains, for then they all lift up their voices, men and women alike.Footnote 38
The president of this association composes both a discourse discussing ‘some question arising in the Holy Scriptures or solves one that has been propounded by someone else’ and possibly a new hymn.Footnote 39 This hymn is ‘addressed to God’, suggesting a character similar to the Greek hymn that Furley describes. The congregation does not sing the hymn, but stays silent only to ‘chant (ᾄδɛιν) the closing lines or refrains’. The word translated as ‘chant’ could be translated as ‘sing’, as it is in the earlier line (cf. ἀɛίδω, LSJ).Footnote 40
This could suggest that 1 Timothy 3.16b is a closing line or refrain composed for a Christian hymn sung by the believers (Eph 5.19; Col 3.16) in a meeting similarly described by Philo. Moreover, Philo's president demonstrates that an educated man could compose a hymn to be sung on behalf of a congregation. But the question still remains: is 1 Timothy 3.16b a hymn?
4. 1 Timothy and the Category of ‘Hymn’
4.1 What is a Hymn? Preliminary Considerations of 1 Timothy 3.16b
The question that needs to be answered in order to make a decision is: what is a hymn? But this question might be harder to answer than one might think. As Furley noted, Greek hymns sung ‘during worship of a god on a public or private occasion have received less than their due attention from modern scholars’.Footnote 41 His object was to examine some common features of the available hymnic texts, but before he does this he notes that ‘There is, and was in antiquity, some confusion as to what, precisely, a “hymn” (ὕμνος) was’.Footnote 42 This means that we need to be cautious in what we label as a ‘hymn’ when even the ancients found it difficult to distinguish between ‘threnoi, paeans, dithyrambs and nomes’.Footnote 43 Furley, in his article, examines a number of works he believes can be securely identified as hymns and sums up his findings: ‘The entire strategy behind hymn-composition and performance was to attract the attention of the divinity addressed in a favourable way; ritual and choral worship combined to flatter, woo, charm and persuade a single god or a group of gods that the worshipper(s) was deserving of sympathy and aid.’Footnote 44 Thus it is hard to see how the lines of 1 Timothy 3.16b, which gives affirmations about the nature of God, could function as a hymn. There is little here that acts to persuade God; it neither praises him nor implores him for benefits, rather it is intended to persuade the hearer.Footnote 45 Some scholars argue that it is a ‘fragment’ of a hymn so we do not have the complete form, but given that we have few examples of complete Christian hymns to go on this is a precarious position to take.Footnote 46
That 1 Timothy 3.16b is directed at the audience lends credence to Strange's idea that this is some type of a creed or confession. However, while it is almost universally agreed that this verse, whether hymn or creed, belongs to another context altogether, I want to argue that the writer has composed this piece.Footnote 47 The content is ‘confessedly great’ (ὁμολογουμένως μέγα). Judging by this content, the piece is being used in order to correct the distortions in Christology that have grown up in the church because of the emphasis on asceticism in the ‘other instruction’ (1 Tim 1.3; 4.1; 6.1).Footnote 48 Verse 15 suggests that the context of this confessing is conducted by the congregation (ἐκκλησία θɛοῦ ζῶντος) in the ‘house of God’ (ἐν οἴκῳ θɛοῦ).Footnote 49 When spoken out loud it does something; or as John Austin described, it is an illocutionary act.Footnote 50 Something is being achieved in this speech act.Footnote 51 While this informs us of the utility of this piece, it does not identify its genre.
4.2 The Poetic Characteristics of 1 Timothy 3.16b and Early Christian Hymning
In order to make a decision as to whether 1 Timothy 3.16b is a hymn, the poetic metre of the piece needs to be considered. To begin, it is best to look at a line of poetry introduced with a relative pronoun from Hephaestion's Handbook on Meters:
‘The converse of that (i.e. the Platonic metron) is this one called the “Pindaric”’:
This, says Hephaestion, is an example of two iambic penthemimers on either side and a dactylic penthemimer in the middle.Footnote 54 A hymn would usually have a pattern of metre within a line and through the piece.Footnote 55 In contrast, 1 Timothy 3.16b has no rhythmic pattern at all:
This is a completely arhythmical piece of writing; but the case is not closed yet: a fragment of an early Christian hymn, P.Oxy.15.1786, which is dated roughly to third century CE, has musical notation.Footnote 57 The relationship of this notation system to Greek music has been hotly debated. A. Holleman argued it does not correspond to Greek musical notation, saying, ‘P.Oxy.15.1786, far from being an eminent piece of evidence for the continuity between music, must be considered as an obvious demonstration of the necessity of creating and organizing an entirely new notation-system for the new Christian music.’Footnote 58 Holleman argues that, while P.Oxy.15.1786 does have musical notation, the rhythm is not relying on Greek musical theory.Footnote 59 On the other hand, W. J. Porter points to M. L. West, who argued that this argument is mistaken and that P.Oxy.15.1786 is ‘expertly recorded in the Greek notation itself [and] suggests a composer with a Greek musical education’. Footnote 60 West goes on to say that Greek hymns in the second and third centuries were becoming more florid, and this hymn displays these features. Porter describes how some biblical scholars feel compelled to argue for an exclusive Jewish influence in the music of the primitive church.Footnote 61 However, he concludes from the data that there is no clear picture, ‘instead there is an intermingling of cultural and religious influences on the music of the early Christian church’.Footnote 62 So might 1 Timothy 3.16b be a Christian hymn after all? A closer look at the hymn of P.Oxy.15.1786 is needed:
We should note that this is a hymn in terms of the genre, in that it praises God, and the triune one at that. As we noted earlier, 1 Timothy 3.16b does not praise God but is directed to the audience.Footnote 64 I suggest that the introduction of 1 Timothy 3.16b provides the key to grasping the genre and so the purpose.
4.3 Confessing 1 Timothy 3.16b and the Audience
As noted earlier, the writer introduces the piece with ‘ὁμολογουμένως great is the mystery of piety’ (1 Tim 3.16a). The adverb ὁμολογουμένως can be glossed as ‘by common consent’, ‘confessedly’, or ‘admittedly’ (LSJ). The mystery is ‘confessedly great’ and is contained in the content that follows. This adverb was often used in courts of law and in civic assemblies when setting out agreed upon facts. A particularly helpful example is Demosthenes, in arguing for a certain course:
If you cannot preserve your maritime possessions by your might that once saved Hellas, but rely on any jury to whom you refer it, and whose verdict is final, to preserve them for you, provided always that Philip does not buy their votes, is it not an open confession (ὁμολογουμένως), when you adopt this policy, that you have abandoned everything on the mainland, and are you not advertising to the world that there is not a single thing for the sake of which you will appeal to arms.Footnote 65
Demosthenes is putting before his audience the uncomfortable but inescapable facts, which their behaviour openly shows. It is a confession of the truth. In other forensic speeches, it indicates facts that are so obvious they are agreed upon by all. A participial phrase is instructive in Aeschines’ ‘On the Embassy’, when he says in appealing to the king:
And if, in my peril, you allow me to speak as I wish, you will be able to save me, if I am innocent, and that on good and sufficient grounds; and you will also have before you the facts that are acknowledged (ἐκ τῶν ὁμολογουμένων) as you proceed to examine the points that are in dispute.Footnote 66
The things that are acknowledged are the facts, which are agreed upon by all. In 1 Timothy 3.16b, the writer is setting out the facts that are or should be agreed upon by all in the house of God.Footnote 67 He has appealed to commonly agreed upon terms a number of times throughout the letter before he gets to this point. At 1 Timothy 1.5, he begins the ethical digression by appealing to love which is from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.Footnote 68 Love should be agreed by all Christians as the ethical touchstone and therefore can be appealed to as the goal of the command issued in 1 Timothy 1.3-4.Footnote 69 Therefore, 1 Timothy 3.16b is in concise form an acknowledgement about what should be the agreed upon facts.
5. The Structure of 1 Timothy 3.16b: Parallelism and Opposing Spheres
As noted earlier, Strange pointed to the parallel nature of 1 Timothy 3.16b, which was a feature of both Jewish and Greek poetry. So, the agreed upon facts can be arranged in the following three pairs, each belonging to an opposing sphere,
The sphere of the present age (1 Tim 6.17), God in the flesh (ἐν σαρκί), nations, and the world, is balanced by another sphere without flesh: spirit, angels, and glory.Footnote 71 The relative masculine pronoun ὃς is taken to reach back to θɛοῦ ζῶντος (1 Tim 3.15), which is the antecedent in masculine belonging to a person in the introductory material before 1 Timothy 3.16.Footnote 72 As Towner describes, ὅς is unlikely to be referring to the neuter antecedent μυστήριον (‘mystery’), rather it is introducing the truth about God.Footnote 73 Thus God, who rightly belongs in the sphere of the spirit, is present in the flesh. A parallel schema of spheres can be found in Philo, On Virtue (72–75). Moses hymns ‘God in song’:
He convoked a divine assemblage of the elements of all existence and the chiefest parts of the universe, earth and heaven, one the home of mortals, the other the house of immortals.Footnote 74
The angels, says Philo, marvel at Moses’ music skill that ‘any man imprisoned in a corruptible body could like the sun and moon and the most sacred choir of the other stars attune his soul to harmony with God's instrument, the heaven and the whole universe’.Footnote 75 This strongly suggests that angels in 1 Timothy 3.16 see ‘[God] revealed in the flesh’ from heaven, ‘the house of immortals’, which is paired, as it is in On Virtue, with earth, ‘the home of mortals’. Yet, in these lines, God from the realm of the immortal (1 Tim 1.17; 6.15–16) enters into the realm of the mortal.
6. The Theology of 1 Timothy 3.16b
These poetic lines of 1 Timothy 3.16b attest to an in-breaking of God, ‘the King eternal, immortal, invisible’ (1 Tim 1.17, 6.15) into the present sphere of the mortal.Footnote 76 This, however, brings dangers from the spiritual realm. In the eyes of the writer of 1 Timothy, the ‘other instruction’ (1 Tim 1.3; 6.3) derives from the spirits and is the instruction of demons (1 Timothy 4.1). From the description of the ‘other instruction’, it can be supposed that the other teachers are in contact with spiritual beings that the writer calls spirits and demons (1 Tim 4.1), they are rejecting the flesh (1 Tim 4.2–4), and they are seeking their own glory (1 Tim 1.13; 4.2; 6.4).Footnote 77 These are words targeted at healing the damage done by Hymenaeus and Alexander and their other instruction (1 Timothy 1.3, 20).Footnote 78 Hymenaeus and Alexander have been removed from the community because of the damage that was being done in the corporate life of the church,
Whoever teaches [the other instruction of Hymenaeus and Alexander] and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Timothy 6.3–5)Footnote 79
The confessional piece of 1 Timothy 3.16b must be seen in the context of this other instruction which is an ascetic programme.Footnote 80
7. 1 Timothy 3.16b in Comparison to Ignatius’ Poetic Rebuttal of his Opponents
A similar poetic piece is found in Ignatius’ Letter to the Trallians. Ignatius’ object in using the quasi-creedal form, as William Schoedel describes it, is so that the believers in the church can ‘be deaf when someone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ’.Footnote 81 Ignatius too uses the relative ὅς, as well as a series of aorist passives. It shares striking similarities with 1 Timothy 3.16:
[Jesus Christ] was from the race of David and from Mary, who (ὅς) was truly born (ἐγɛννήθη), both ate and drank, was truly persecuted (ἐδιώχθη) at the time of Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified (ἐσταυρώθη) and died, while those in heaven and on earth and under the earth looked on.
He was also truly raised (ἠγέρθη) from the dead, his Father having raised him. In the same way his Father will also raise us in Christ Jesus, we who believe in him, apart from whom we do not have true life.Footnote 82
Ignatius goes on to say:
But if, as some who are atheists—that is, unbelievers—say, he only appeared to suffer (it is they who are the appearance), why am I in bondage, and why also do I pray to fight the wild beasts?Footnote 83
It is immediately obvious that he is reacting to those who are denying the corporeality of Christ and that he only seemed to suffer in the flesh.Footnote 84 Ignatius has built his creed from commonly acknowledged material, but reworked to counter those who deny the truth of Christ's humanness.Footnote 85 John Marshall persuasively argues that Ignatius’ opponents believe Jesus to be an angel.Footnote 86 Likewise, in 1 Timothy 3.16 the writer has drawn upon commonly confessed Christian ‘truth’ (1 Tim 3.15b; John 1.1–18; 1 John 1.1–3) and worked it into a punchy poetic piece to counter the ascetic teaching of the other teachers.
As has been discussed, the relative ὅς of 1 Timothy 3.16 refers back to ‘the living God’ (1 Tim 3.15). In Ignatius’ Letter to the Trallians, the ὅς refers back to Jesus Christ since it cannot possibly be referring to Mary or David. In 1 Timothy 3.16b, God was revealed in the flesh (ἐν σαρκί). In Pauline theology σάρξ is normally aligned with the passions, which are unruly (ἐν τῇ σαρκί; Rom 7.5).Footnote 87 The ascetic programme of the other teachers, on the other hand, was designed to control and even strip away the flesh and the passions.Footnote 88 They ‘forbid marriage’ (1 Tim 4.3), indicating that they believed as Tatian did that sexual relations were sinful.Footnote 89 I would argue that the writer of 1 Timothy believed that he was repudiating a view held by the other teachers that they were emulating Christ, who they believed was a spiritual being, an angel.Footnote 90 The opening of this poetic piece is confrontational – God was in the flesh (ἐν σαρκί) and thus had passions (Rom 7.5). He repudiates the lengths to which the other teachers were going because it did not reflect the true state of affairs in regard to Christ's body.
I propose that we can paraphrase 1 Timothy 3.16b as,
[God] was revealed in flesh and was vindicated in spirit (even though he had flesh)
He was seen by angels (but was not an angel), he was proclaimed among Gentiles (because Paul was appointed a herald, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles (1 Tim 2.7)),
He was believed in throughout the world (in Ephesus and Macedonia), he was taken up in glory (Jesus Christ in the flesh will return as the manifestation of the only sovereign, the king and lord (1 Tim 6.14–5)).
So, we come to the question: what has the writer composed here? The writer of 1 Timothy was an educated man, and as such would have been trained to compose his own rhetorical devices.Footnote 91 Chreiai come in a number of species, which include gnomic sayings (maxims), prayers, and tropes (metaphors).Footnote 92 The lines of 1 Timothy 3.16b could be a series of maxims, like the maxim at 1 Timothy 1.15.Footnote 93 The other option is that it is a literary epigram.
8. The Genre of 1 Timothy 3.16b: Options
8.1 1 Timothy 3.16b as a Series of Maxims
Since 1 Timothy 3.16b is introduced with a formula, ὁμολογουμένως, without reference to a ‘speaker’, it could be described a series of maxims.Footnote 94 Maxims are pithy universal statements that urge the reader towards a particular action or attitude.Footnote 95 An example is from Homer's The Iliad, ‘A man who is a counsellor should not sleep all the night’ (2.24).Footnote 96 They tend to have no context nor a speaker, but are extremely valuable, says Plutarch, against the influences of poetry, so ‘let us equip the young from the very outset to keep ever sounding in their ears the maxim’.Footnote 97 However, 1 Timothy 3.16 is directed at a particular audience and is not urging or dissuading from a particular action.Footnote 98 So while not exactly like maxims, the pithy statements of 1 Timothy 3.16 are performing a similar function as Plutarch's maxims: they are designed so they will keep on resounding in believers’ ears. This type of function suggests that 1 Timothy 3.16b is designed to be at least heard in or even performed by the ἐκκλησία ‘of the living God’.Footnote 99
8.2 1 Timothy 3.16b as an Epigram
Another more likely option is that this piece is an epigram. Epigrams were originally short lines of poetry ‘originally written to be “inscribed” (by chiselling, cutting, hammering, casting, painting or scratching) upon or near objects such as stelai, pinakes, metal plaques, dedications to gods, works of visual art, and structures.’Footnote 100 However, during the Hellenistic period they became gathered into anthologies, as Verity Platt describes ‘like the literary hymn, epigrams were one of the most overtly decontextualised genres of the period’.Footnote 101
By the third century bce, the term epigram came to mean ‘a short poem on almost any subject written in elegiac couplets or some form of stichic metre’.Footnote 102 The stichic metre are verse lines of the same length and metre, which are not divided into stanzas.Footnote 103 As observed by Quinn and Wacker, 1 Timothy 3.16b is loosely composed in stiches.Footnote 104 If we set aside the metre of 1 Timothy 3.16b, for the reasons discussed above, then 1 Timothy 3.16b emerges as a short poem, with lines arranged in couplets on the nature of God.Footnote 105 As Platt discusses, epigrams were used in temples to enhance the viewing of the idol in order to facilitate an epiphany of the god or goddess.Footnote 106 In the Roman era, these epiphanies could be expected in the domestic sphere.Footnote 107 1 Timothy 3.16b enshrines the epiphany of God (ἐφανɛρώθη) who becomes flesh (ἐν σαρκί). Unlike the carved idol in a Greek temple or in a home, this fleshy God was proclaimed among the nations (ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνɛσιν), and yet was seen by those who inhabit the spiritual sphere (ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις). This kind of parallel phrasing and antithesis became a feature of these kinds of poems from the Hellenistic period on.Footnote 108 In an epigram ascribed to Philip, the sculptor Phidias is said to have had an epiphany of Zeus,
But as Platt discusses, the image (ɛἰκόνα) of the god involves a degree of ambiguity, ‘implying representation, shadow rather than the “thing itself”’.Footnote 110 The claim, however, in 1 Timothy 3.16b, and also by Ignatius, is that Jesus Christ is not an image, like an idol, but God himself made flesh.Footnote 111 Jesus Christ is not representative of God, but is God in the sphere of the present age and the age to come (1 Tim 6.12–6). As God in flesh, the manifestation of Jesus Christ in this present age makes the ascetic efforts of Hymenaeus and Alexander futile.
The last line of the poem caps off the rebuttal of their Christology, God in the flesh ‘was taken up in glory’, and puts an end to their own striving to renounce the flesh in order to seek that same glory.Footnote 112
9. Conclusion
I would argue that 1 Timothy 3.16b was written to be spoken and heard in the assembled meeting of believers, the ἐκκλησία (1 Tim 3.15). As we noted in the discussion on maxims, it is in the hearing that they have their persuasive effect. In either performing this poem or hearing it performed, the believers are rehearsing the theology that the author believes will act as an antidote to the ‘other instruction’ (1 Tim 1.3; 4.1; 6.3). It is an illocutionary act which the writer believes will heal the rift between the believers in the house of God (1 Tim 3.15).Footnote 113 It is composed in order to be remembered, in pithy stiches, with repetitive sounds and contrasting spheres of action. Each member of the congregation is to return to their own home with an ‘ever sounding’ synopsis of faith firmly lodged in their ears so they can ‘be deaf’, as Ignatius puts it, ‘when someone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ’. In this way they will be deaf to the ‘other instruction’ of Hymenaeus and Alexander. But it is more than a piece of persuasive writing, 1 Timothy 3.16b is, at the very least, reminiscent of an epigram, and this suggests that in its performance the ἐκκλησία (1 Tim 3.15) are to have an epiphany of the God, who came in the flesh.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Dr Seumas Macdonald for his help with scansion, his expert advice, and providing the explanation about the above criteria in footnote 56.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
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