×××¨× ××ער×× ×××× ×ª××¨× ×ש×× ×§×©×××ª× ××ר
They say in the West: âeat the date and throw away the stoneâ
â Bavli Hagiga 15b (Ms. British Library 400)
One of the most famous narratives in the Babylonian Talmud relates how Moses, before receiving the Torah, ascends onto Mount Sinai, towards God, while God descends from heaven (see esp. Ex 19). Here, he witnesses a peculiar scribal practice: instead of fully spelling out the laws Himself, God âbinds coronets to the lettersâ of the Torah, and thereby leaves the task of Scriptureâs full interpretation to Rabbi Aqiva. Moses is then permitted to visit the future and witness this famous rabbisâ intellectual prowess. Moses is utterly overwhelmed by this experience and musters strength only when he hears Aqiva connect a particular law to Moses himself. Moses then asks God two questions: first, why He chose him rather than the intellectually far more accomplished Rabbi Aqiva, and second, why God eventually let Aqivaâs life end in gruesome martyrdom, a scene which Moses was equally permitted to witness. God both times refuses to answer, twice reprimanding Moses with the words: âBe Silent! For so it has arisen in my mind.â The Neoplatonic theme of silence as a form of dealing with the inadequacy of speech when facing the divine has deep roots in Judaism and Christianity, and was especially prevalent in late antique Syriac Christian discourse. In the following, I will introduce the story of Mosesâ visit to Aqiva along with current scholarship and then briefly sketch the development of Jewish and Christian views of silence in the face of God, arguing that the Talmud both critically engages and incorporates aspects of this Jewish and especially Christian tradition.
The Rabbinic Story in Current Research
The narrative of Mosesâ ascent towards heaven has been discussed from innumerable angles in previous literature, yet very few of these discussions have focused on the historical context of the Babylonian Talmud (henceforth: âthe Bavli,â or simply âthe Talmudâ) beyond the confines of Jewish or even rabbinic culture itself.1 However, few recent articles diverge from this inward-looking path.2 Michal Bar Asher-Siegal has pointed to the marked contrast between, on the one hand, the way in which the rabbinic story portrays Moses as coming to earth in order to learn from Rabbi Aqiva and, on the other hand, the way in which monastic literature portrays Moses as coming to the earth in order to instruct the Christian desert fathers.3 Yakir Paz has further broadened our understanding of the storyâs central image by illustrating the use of âcrownsâ in various scribal traditions, including not only Jewish, but also Greek and Coptic (though not Syriac) Christian manuscripts.4 I myself have argued that the story can best be appreciated as told in deliberate and measured contradistinction to Christian typological models, especially those emphasizing the visual. Of special importance for the story of Mosesâ visit to Aqiva is the narrative of Mosesâ visit to Jesus, the so-called âtransfiguration,â which shaped both the oral as well as the material worldview of many Late Antique Christians from Rome to Ctesiphon and beyond.5 In the following essay, I will briefly present the story in Bavli Menaḥot 29b and summarize the most salient aspects of my previous results, and then consider how the Jewish and Christian tradition, and especially the East and West Syrian patristic record, can help us appreciate further nuances of the Talmudic story when it comes to the role of reverent silence vis-à -vis the Holy One, Blessed be He.6
The Talmudic passage in Bavli Menaḥot 29b (here cited according to Ms. Vatican 118), relating Mosesâ ascent towards the heavens during the giving of the Torah on Sinai, narrates the following:7
I have previously argued that the Bavliâs story uses and transforms aspects of Christian typology in order to tell a rabbinic story that is both open and apprehensive towards aspects of Syriac Christian culture. A number of narrative, paradigmatic, and verbal markers strongly suggest that a typological paradigm was both on the mind of the one(s) telling this story (or its Babylonian redactor) and on the mind of the implied audience.26 The focus in the Bavli lies on Aqivaâs âglory,â according to Ms. Vatican 118, or his âreward,â according to all other witnesses: his martyrdom along with the cannibalistic communion of those who slew him and sold his remains for human consumption. At the same time, the Bavli scales back some of the even richer claims about some rabbisâ role in the giving of the Torah that are found in the Palestinian rabbinic tradition. The Bavliâs story, I argued, must be read in dialogue with other Talmudic statements and narratives that feature visits not of Moses but of Elijah to earth, such as the famous story of the Oven of Akhnai in Bava MetsiÊ¿a 59aâb.27
The central Christian tradition with which the story of Mosesâ ascent towards heaven in Menaḥot 29b enters into dialogue, I sought to illustrate in my previous study, is that of the transfiguration of Christ (see Luke 9:28â36, Matt 17:1â9 and Mark 9:2â8). I emphasized the importance of this Gospel narrative as a living tradition when it comes to considering its rabbinic reception history, yet I equally argued that the account in the Gospels itself provides a clear starting point. In this story, the themes of human incomprehension of divine realities, as well as the theme of silence, both play a noteworthy role that will co-determine the present inquiry as well. I will therefore briefly present the gospel narrative of the transfiguration and expand on my previous study by illustrating how it helps us better to understand the Bavliâs use of the theme of silence.
The Relevance of the Syriac Tradition for the Bavli
I hold that any inquiry into the relevance of Christian narratives for rabbinic culture must at least include, if not be focused on, the Syriac gospel tradition.28 In their translation of the transfiguration scene, the Syriac gospels use the central term describing the emanation of the âdivine glory,â shuÌbhÌ£aÌ, in order to depict Jesus as appearing with a radiant glow, as witnessed by his disciples.29 Here is the story according to Luke 9, in the Peshittaâs translation:
In this scene, Late Antique Christians saw the fulfilment of the Old Testament (symbolized by Moses for âthe lawâ and by Elijah for âthe prophetsâ) in the New Testament more broadly, and in Christ specifically, just as the Bavli sees the fulfillment of Mosesâ Written Torah in Aqivaâs Oral Torah. There are two arguments for the importance of this narrative for the story of Mosesâ ascent towards heaven in the Bavli: first, the thematic and structural similarities between the two stories, and second, the sustained message the Talmud generates by diverting from the story about Jesus in specific and recurrent ways.
In order to calibrate the heuristic value of the similarities between the narrative in the Talmud and that in the Gospel, of course, we should note that just like our Talmudic story, the narrative of Jesusâ transfiguration is equally modelled on Mosesâ own ascension to Mount Sinai. Jesus ascends to the mountain just like Moses once ascended Mount Sinai; later in the Christian narrative, Moses and Elijah later go up in a cloud, evoking the cloud from which God spoke on Sinai (see e.g. Exod 24:16). Jesus shines, just as light once emanated from Moses (see e.g. Exod 34:29â30), and the divine command to listen to Jesus seems to evoke the similar command to listen to Moses (see e.g. Deut 18:15). The key message of the transfiguration of Christ, most simplistically put, is to elevate his importance vis-Ã -vis Moses and Elijah, who seek him out.31
The transfiguration is well received in Greek, Latin and Syriac patristic literature,32 at some point also in the liturgies,33 and of course in Christian art, which features the scene from at least the fourth century.34 A passage in the Syriac fathers, namely in Ephremâs Hymn on the Nativity, may best illustrate the evocative power of the transfiguration scene for later Christians. Ephremâs hymns, written in the fourth century, in turn, formed the core of the Syriac tradition and were received and performed widely throughout Late Antiquity; his thoughts on silence will prove central here as well.35
Ephrem opens his Hymn on the Nativity by claiming that the nativity of Christ âgladdens kings, priests and prophets, for in it [the nativity] were fulfilled and realized all their words,â i.e. the words and actions of many of these biblical characters, including Moses and Elijah, as we will see.36 Ephremâs typology goes as far as claiming that the Hebrew Bible in its entirety foreshadows Christâs coming, and attacks âthe Jewsâ who believe in the Scriptures but not in its Christological reading: âput to shame is the people that holds the prophets to be true; for if our Savior had not come, their words would have become lies. Blessed is the True One who comes from the True Father. He fulfilled the words of the true [prophets], and they are complete in their truth.â37 For Ephrem, the Hebrew Bible must be read as typology not merely when exegesis allows for it, but its anticipation of Christ must be posited at all timesâa reading which he then illustrates by finding Christ in dozens of biblical narratives.38
Throughout this entire Hymn on the Nativity, Ephrem dozens of times follows the same pervasive pattern of a biblical figure âseeingâ (ḥ-z-y) something good or evil, and then âanticipatingâ (s-k-y) or longing for (r-g-y) Christ as the one to come (ʾ-t-y) and fulfil (sh-l-m) the good or conquer the evil. The refrain and answer to each verse is âglory to you (lek shuÌbhÌ£aÌ), son of our Creator.â In a first summary, Ephrem summarizes his typological thinking with a rhetorical question, asking âWho is able to glorify (d-nshabbahÌ£) the true Son who rises for us, Whom just men (zaddiÌqeÌ) yearned (etragrag) to see (nehÌ£zuÌneh) in their lifetimes?â39 Ephrem, in short, reads the actions of all the Israelite prophets entirely as yearning for Christ.
The transfiguration serves as a climax in Ephremâs pattern. Moses and Elijah are among those who do also âlong forâ (r-g-y) or âanticipateâ (s-k-y) Christ as the one âto comeâ (ʾ-t-y), yet in contrast to the other Biblical characters who only see their own reality, these two prophets actually do âseeâ (ḥ-z-y) Christ, the one to whom the refrain states âglory to youâ (laÌk shuÌbhÌ£aÌ). The transfiguration is then understood in the following way:
Ephrem here describes the spatial displacement of Moses and Elijah, from heaven and from below respectively, to meet Christ in the middle. In addition to functioning as symbols of the Old Testament, the two figures have become the representatives of the dead and the living: while Moses died and was buried like any other human being (see Deut. 33:1â34:12), Elijah had been taken up to God without dying (2 Kings 2:11â14). What Ephrem clearly adds to the exegetical tradition of understanding the transfiguration is his sense of longing for Christ, attributed to all of the biblical figures, and his heightened emphasis on the visual (repeatedly using the root ḥ-z-y), in line with the broad Christian tradition of visualizing the transfiguration in material culture.41
In light of his prominence in Syriac culture, Ephremâs hymn allows us to state that in the course of Late Antiquity, Christian culture had normalized typology and the example of the transfiguration, to a degree that it became an essential and ever-present part not only of patristic, but also of later Christian readings of the Bible, as well as of material culture. While individual typological strategies vary among the Greek, Latin and Syriac fathers, it is their common denominator that we can assume is representative of popular Christian discourse in general. They all preserve narratives of their Old Testament, all the while explicitly shifting their symbolic importance away from the Israelite past and towards the coming of Christ.
With this in mind, we can turn to the conceptual and verbal affinities between the Bavli story and the transfiguration scene in the Syriac Gospel, which range from the general to the specific. Some of the words and concepts shared by both stories are rather common, and some aspects may be due to both of the stories having a simultaneous engagement with the Biblical episode of Mosesâ ascent to Sinai. Intriguingly, some of the elements Ephrem highlighted in his reading of the Transfiguration equally seem relevant for the Bavliâs story. The affinities between the stories I have previously indicated are the following, with some elaborations; note that the final two points of overlap will prove especially important for the present study:
-
In both stories, Moses âgoes upâ towards heaven as expressed by the root Ê¿-l-h in both texts (see Luke 9:34, cf. 9:28, where s-l-q is used). Mosesâ ascent itself, of course, is well attested in rabbinic literature, see, e.g., Bavli Sanhedrin 111aâb.42 While both the story of the Bavli and that of the gospels are thus based on Moses ascent to Sinai in the Hebrew Bible, their respective âreenactmentâ of this episode is not dissimilar. Note that in his hymn on the transfiguration, Ephrem displays a heightened focus on vertical motions. Moses âascendsâ from the depth and Elijah descends âfrom the heights in heavenâ in Ephrem. Similarly, the Bavli describes the hour in which Moses âascended to the heights;â both texts use the root r-w-m.
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Both stories, moreover, relate the biblical past of Moses to the action of a typologically conceptualized âmanâ at a future time as expressed by the word Ê¿atid in both texts (see Luke 9:31)âa future time which is already in the past at the moment of telling the story. Based on this chronological parallel I argued for the particular importance of the Syriac typological tradition for our understanding of the Bavli.43
-
Both stories depict this âmanâ as a âsonâ and in messianic terms as expressed by the word ben in the Bavli and bar in the Gospel (see Luke 9:35).44
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Both stories place a strong emphasis on the visual; the âseeingâ of this future man, as expressed, in the Bavli, by the root r-ʾ-h and the repetition of Mosesâ request for a vision of Aqiva, and of his glory (or reward), and in the Gospel by the pervasive prominence of the root ḥ-z-y (see Luke 9:29, 31, 32, 34 and 36).45 An emphasis on the visual itself, of course, is not remarkable, given its importance in rabbinic and Syriac culture, yet Ephrem increased the Gospelâs emphasis on longing and the visual further, as we have seen above (using, like Luke, root ḥ-z-y).46 In the Gospel, it is merely the disciples that âseeâ Jesus in his glory, yet in Ephrem, Moses and Elijah âsawâ him, just as in the Bavli Moses several times asks God to âshow himâ (Aqiva), and his reward.
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If we follow ms Vatican 118 of the Bavli, both texts speak about the âgloryâ of the future man, expressed by the root sh-b-ḥ, as in the gospels (see Luke 9:32 and cf. 9:31). While the Gospel already emphasized that Moses and Elijah appeared âin gloryâ (b-teshbuÌhÌ£taÌ), Ephrem repeatedly emphasizes the âgloryâ (shuÌbhÌ£aÌ) of the âAdam,â just as the Bavli, in manuscript Vatican 118, depicts âhis gloryâ (shevaḥo), both using the root sh-b-ḥ.47
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Both texts make it very clear that the future man awaits martyrdom, as expressed by the events awaiting Jesus in Jerusalem (Luke 9:30â31) and the weighing of Aqivaâs flesh in the market, respectively. The gruesome image of âweighing the fleshâ of humans in the market is an element encountered elsewhere in the Bavli.48 In the present context, however, the Bavliâs depiction of Aqivaâs flesh being offered for sale and presumably consumed after martyrdom is difficult to dissociate from the eucharistic consumption of Jesusâ bodyâespecially since Christians had long seen themselves confronted with accusation that recast the eucharist as cannibalism.49
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In both stories, the scene plays out in front of the âdisciples,â as expressed by the word talmyd in the Bavli and in the Gospel (the root is mentioned in Luke 9:18, the disciples are named in 9:28, 32 and 33). While the presence of disciples is ubiquitous in both New Testament and Talmudic texts, the students play specific roles as observers in both texts.50
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Two final similarities are central for the present inquiry. First, in both stories, one of those in the role of disciple is depicted as not being able to follow the events: in the Bavli, Moses, who joined the ranks of the disciples, âdid not know what they (the rabbis) were saying,â whereas in the Gospel, Kafa âdid not know what he (presumably Jesus) was saying.â The idea is expressed in very similar terms in Aramaic and Hebrew, lo hayah yodeÊ¿a mahen ʾomrim and w-laÌ yaÌdaÊ¿-waÌ maÌnaÌ aÌmar (the main difference being the shift from the third person plural to the singular). The statement about incomprehension, to the best of my knowledge, has only one close parallel in rabbinic literature, Bavli Hullin 137b, to which we will presently turn in our consideration of the incomprehension of divine discourse in the Syriac tradition and in the Bavli.
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In both stories, the one depicted in the role of the disciple is eventually reduced to silence (employing the root sh-t-q): James and Peter âkept silentâ after witnessing the transfiguration, in the Bavli, God twice tells Moses to âremain silentââthe statement to which this article is dedicated.
While none of the similarities between the Talmud and the Gospel would be striking on its own, their collective weight, especially in light of the typological drift of both narratives, seems to surpass the accidental by far.
Accordingly, the Bavli does not âciteâ the Gospel narrative here, rather, the Bavli merely alludes to it, and even so it is more likely an oral rendering rather than the written version that matters for our reconstructions, as I stated above.51 One could use the Bavliâs imprecision as an argument against the relevance of typology and of the transfiguration for reading itâif it was the storyâs Bavliâs main aim to evoke the transfiguration, why not be more concrete? Yet one can also turn this argument on its head and state that the pervasiveness of typological reasoning in Christian and rabbinic culture, and of the transfiguration scene in patristic literature, material culture and likely in Christian popular culture, allows the Bavli to keep its allusions oblique and understated, while relying on its audience to grasp its playful use of Christian typology in a rabbinic story, without the need to contaminate the textual surface with a clumsy or heavy-handed direct appeal to an outside tradition. It may well precisely not be the Bavliâs main goal to âevokeâ the transfiguration; perhaps it merely does so in order to eclipse it, en route to make a different point altogether. In my view, the Bavliâs typological reading of Aqiva comes as close as possible to the Christian model, without, however, overstepping the line: Aqiva is perhaps âthe one,â but not a new Adam; he is a messianic figure, but not the Messiah; and he is martyred and his body consumed, but he is not yet resurrected. The way in which the Bavli constructs Aqiva here, in other words, may be the closest it can get to incorporating Christological claims without abandoning its commitment to rabbinic collectivism.
Incomprehension and Silence
With these general arguments in mind, we can now turn to the themes of Mosesâ incomprehension, and to the silence God orders him to keep, in light of a broader Jewish and Christian context. Kafa, in the transfiguration narrative, âdid not comprehend what he saidâ (wela yadaÊ¿ wa mana ʾamar), a saying closely parallel when Moses, in Rabbi Aqivaâs Bet Midrash, âdid not comprehend what they saidâ (lo hayah yodeÊ¿a mahen ʾomrim). The parallel is a close one, yet Jeffrey Rubenstein has equally noted that this phrase has a close Talmudic parallel in Bavli Hullin 137b, where it equally describes the incomprehension of the highest echelons of legal debate:
(Rabbi Yoḥanan) said to (Isi): âWho is the head of the yeshiva in Babylonia?â
(Isi) said (to Rabbi Yoḥanan: âIt is) Abba the Tall (i.e., the amora Rav).â
(Rabbi Yoḥanan) said to (Isi): âYou call him âAbba the Tallâ? I remember when I sat seventeen rows behind Rav (who sat) before Rabbi (Yehuda HaNasi), and fiery sparks emerged from the mouth of Rav to the mouth of Rabbi (Yehuda HaNasi,
×× ×¤×§× ××ק×ק×× ×× ×ר ×פ×××× ××¨× ×פ×××× ×ר â), and from the mouth of Rabbi (Yehuda HaNasi) to the mouth of Rav (××פ×××× ×ר â×פ×××× ××¨× ), and I did not know what they said (××× ×××¢× â××× ×××ר×ת ). And yet you call him Abba the tall?â52
The Bavliâs depiction of Moses, sitting in Aqivaâs house of study and not being able to comprehend the halakhic debate clearly evokes Isiâs vivid depiction of the intense exchange between Rav and Rabbi Yehuda haNasi, the heads of the Babylonian and Palestinian academies, respectively.53 What Isi has witnessed, sitting like Moses in the last row, and like him ânot knowing what they said,â is the type of quasi-divine discourse symbolized by speechless fire emerging from the rabbisâ mouth, an image likely deriving from Godâs âwordsâ that are âlike fireâ (
Many of the types of silence we encounter in the Hebrew Bible or in Late Antique discourse, marking mourning or defeat, are less relevant for our story.55 The Bavliâs image of communication through fiery sparks in Hullin 137b, as well the context of Godâs command to remain silent in the face of incomprehension of the divine in Menaḥot 29b, both ultimately build on Middle- and Neo-platonic discourse. Already Plato speaks of thought as the âsilent (
Such a train of thought does not generally stand in line with rabbinic inquiry. An exception may be the saying of ShimÊ¿on ben Gamliel in Pirqe Avot: âAll my life I grew up among the Wise, and I found nothing better for a person (or âbodyâ) than silence (
Such a tradition to limit intellectual inquiry is well attested in the Jewish and Christian tradition, and it will help us further to calibrate our understanding of Godâs silencing of a befuddled Moses. Ben Sira (in chapter three) had already enjoined his audience as follows:
In general, Ben Siraâs advice not to investigate into divine secrets thus clearly shares more with the wisdom literature of his time, or perhaps with the Stoic tradition, than with middle-Platonic or even rabbinic thought.63 While the rabbis more than occasionally evoke Ben Sira, they do not in general share his reluctance towards divine inquiry.64 There are, however, clear exceptions, such as the rabbisâ strict sanctioning of mystical inquiries. The Bavli thus cites Ben Siraâs saying in Hagigah 13a, when commenting about the details of the heavenly realm:
Until here, you have permission to speak;
from this point forward you do not have permission to speak,
as it is written in the book of Ben Sira:
Seek not things concealed from you (
×××פ×× ××× ×× ×ª×ר×ש )nor search those hidden from you (
××××××¡× ××× ×× ×ª×ק×ר ).Reflect on that which is permitted to you (
××× ×©××רש×ת ×ת××× × );you have no business with secret matters (
××× ×× ×¢×¡×§ ×× ×¡×ª×¨×ת ).It is taught (in a Baraita):
Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai said: What response did the Divine Voice provide to that wicked man, Nebuchadnezzar, when he said:
âI will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most Highâ (Isaiah 14:14), thereby intending to rise to heaven?
A Divine Voice came and said to him:
âWicked man, son of a wicked man, descendant of Nimrod the wicked, who caused the entire world to rebel against Him during the time of his reign.â65
Godâs stern response to Mosesâ inquiry into His reasons for choosing, and then martyring Aqiva in Menaḥot 29b, can thus be argued to hearken back to a tradition of limiting inquiries into ultimate secrets elsewhere in the Bavli.66 Yet the saying of Ben Sira which the rabbis incorporated, merely demands an end to the inquiry, and the Bavli has God sharply rebuke Nebuchadnezzarâthere is no talk here of silence.
In order fully to comprehend the use of Godâs command to Moses, then, we should take not only the Jewish and Platonic views on silence into account, but also the Syriac Christian view on silence when faced with divine mysteries. Again, a close look at Ephrem allows for a solid foundation in order to approach this tradition. In Hymn 70:7, Ephrem admonishes his audience as follows:
Approach inquiry (la-bsÌ£aÌtaÌ) based on your strength (mesat hÌ£aylaÌk)
And when your heart wanders and gets lost
Remain in silence (b-shetqaÌ)67
While it is difficult to establish whether or not Ephrem here had the passage of Ben Sira quoted by the Bavli in mind specifically, it is clear that he, just like Ecclesiasticus and the Talmud, links the limits of inquiry to mental strength.68 What Ephrem adds to this equation is the theme of silence, which he explores in detail throughout his extant oeuvre. For example, in another one of his Hymns on Faith (39) that opens with a condemnation of pagans and Jews who derided Jesus, Ephrem again equates that which can be interpreted to the mysteries beyond it, which must be treated with silence:
5 That which is spoken and can be interpreted (wa-msÌ£eÌ d-nettargam)
And explained (wa-pshiÌq),
so that it can be discussed (d-netʿaqqab), debated (w-metdarrash), and declared (w-metpashshaq)
Belongs to the mouth, and interpreting (metargem) is related to it.
But what cannot be debated (metdarrash) or declared (w-metpashshaq)
is marked off by silence (shetqaÌ thÌ£uÌmeh-uÌ, lit., silence is its border).
for our mind is not akin to its hiddenness.69
When trying to contextualize Godâs command to Moses, we thus have to consider the rabbinic discourse on the limits of inquiry, limited as the evidence may be. Yet we must equally note that the specific formulation in the Bavli may communicate to its audience that it here employs the fully developed discourse on silence as the only appropriate response to the limits of inquiry, which is a specifically Christian tradition.
The prominence of the Syriac discourse on silence, when compared with the scant rabbinic evidence, helps us gauge the Bavliâs hint. Ephremâs hymns and miÌmreÌ more broadly furnish central evidence for the Syriac understanding of the uses of silence in light of the limits of human understanding. Ephrem, in the words of Russel, held the following:
While useful in and of itself, the range and power of language is increased when it is accompanied by its counterpart: silence. Proper use of these two tools in balance with each other allows humans to respond to any topic that confronts them in an appropriate and reverent manner, while still engaging with it actively as far as their ability allows.70
In light of the centrality of the notion of silence in Ephrem (and in the Syriac tradition more broadly, as we will see), reading Godâs unique command to Moses to remain silent, in Menaḥot 29b, takes on a new significance. The story may well allude to the Gospelâs statement that James and Peter kept silent after witnessing the transfiguration in incomprehension, as I have argued above. More centrally, however, it rather seems that the Bavli, in presenting a typological counter-narrative to the transfiguration, portrays God as implementing specifically Syriac teachings on silence, which can be illustrated with a couple of further examples from Ephrem. It is, again, not one passage, but the entirety of the Syriac tradition against which we should read this aspect of the Talmudic story.
Perhaps most relevant for our reading of the Bavli is the following excerpt from Ephremâs Hymn of Faith 57, which, after ruminations on the mind, sleep, and memory, ends as follows:
(10) âFrom this, your own lowly word,
You should miraculously learn the glorious word:
the Word of God.
If your own word ever does not know to tell itself,
honor with your silence (b-yad shetqaÌk) the Word of your Creator,
Whose silence cannot be inquired into (d-laÌ metbsÌ£eÌ shetqaÌ).â71
The Bavli, in a sense, has God remind Moses to honor the decisions of His Creator with his own silence, quite precisely as Ephrem and many others after him had taught. The importance of the issue of silence in Syriac patristic thought only increased in centuries subsequent to Ephrem, both in the West and in the East Syrian tradition.72 A final illustrative example from the former tradition is the Letter of Exhortation Sent to Someone Who Left Judaism and Came to the Life of Perfection written towards the end of the fifth century by Philoxenus of Mabbug. Here, we read the following about silence:
8. Stillness of place (shelyaÌ d-duÌkktaÌ) leads one into (a state of) stillness of the mind (shelyaÌ d-reÊ¿yaÌnaÌ), and stillness of the mind raises a person up to converse with God (la-mmalllaÌ d-Ê¿am alaÌhaÌ). For even if a person has fallen silent (shteq) from having conversation with one (i.e., humanity), he is not (yet) going to converse with the other (i.e., God). Therefore, as long as the mind does not become silent (shteq) from all agitations of the worldly commotion, it will not begin to stammer (d-nlagleg) in the conversation with God.73
Philoxenus, much like Ephrem, insists on silence as a precondition to engage in a conversation with God. On one level, I would argue that the Bavli agrees with the church father, and does not shy away from attributing such a view of silence to God himself. However, and this is a central caveat, the Bavli is a deeply dialectical text, and must always be thus understood. Attributing a certain view to God, in the Bavli, is not necessarily the same thing as condoning it, as it points out quite clearly in the previously mentioned parallel story of the Oven of Akhnai in Bava MetsiÊ¿a 59aâb.74 The rabbinic story of Mosesâ ascent towards heaven, in clear contrast to the Syriac tradition on silence generally portrays God as engaged in intimate and exoteric conversation with his creatures, be they angels or men. Yet precisely at the point when the rabbis wonder, on the one hand, about the election of Moses over Aqiva, and on the other about the reasons for the latterâs martyrdom, they portray God Himself all of a sudden as commanding silence rather than inquiry into His mysteries. Does the Bavli then portray God, in having Moses be silent, as instructing him to âhonor with your silence (b-yad shetqak) the Word of your Creator, whose silence cannot be inquired into (d-laÌ metbsÌ£eÌ shetqaÌ),â as Ephraim has it? Does it demand Mosesâ mind âto become silent from all agitations of the worldly commotion,â as Philoxenus puts it?
The Bavli, in having Moses remain silent, I would argue, here integrates what it considers to be a valuable lesson from Christian thought. It marks this lesson as such, probing the limits of orthodoxy all the while reinforcing them: yes, silence is a meaningful response to the Divine unknown, yes, Moses does visit the living, yes, there is value in martyrdom, even if neither Aqiva nor anyone else have been transfigured. Yet by portraying Godâs proclivity to silence, the Bavli does by no means endorse Godâs action. The rabbinic storyteller, in my view, shares the stupefaction he projects onto Moses. It uses the Christian hermeneutical tools of typology and silence in the face of incomprehension of the divine. It elevates Aqiva at the same time as debasing Moses, situating its own discourse squarely in the middleâfirmly committed to the memory of both, and firmly committed both to Aqivaâs halakhic genius and to Mosesâ two simplistic, though existential, questions: why me and why this?
There is, to conclude, no reason to posit that any rabbi ever heard any of Ephremâs hymns sung in a neighboring church or expounded in a debate, as likely as this may have been. The rabbis did not likely spend much time reading Philoxenusâ letters to a Jewish convert to Christianity. Our story may or may not reflect any specific aspect of Syriac teaching on silence. Rather, the Syriac literature here cited illustrates the importance of silence as a response to the limits of understanding as one of the broader aspects of Syriac culture permeating the world of the Late Ancient Diocese of the East and of Mesopotamia, against which we can best understand this aspect of the Bavli story.
We can thus conclude that the notion of limiting oneâs inquiry may well occur in the rabbinic tradition, yet when it comes to silence in the face of incomprehension of the divine, we are dealing with a distinctly âChristianâ tradition. The Bavliâs story in Menaḥot 29b heaps paradox upon paradox, just as Aqiva would heap interpretation upon interpretation: God requires Moses to honor him in a rather Christian manner at the very moment that Moses is faced with his incomprehension of his own, rather than Aqivaâs election and with his incomprehension of Aqivaâs gruesome and non-triumphal martyrdom. Two types of hearing Mosesâ silence now emerge as false: hearing it within the confines of the rabbinic tradition alone on the one hand, or hearing it as engaging some reified form of âChristianityâ on the other hand, are two extremes that would both be guilty of the same reductionist fallacy. Such a reading would construct a false dichotomy not so much between âusâ and âthem,â between âJewishâ and âChristian,â which clearly (?) remains in place in the Bavli, but between âaspects of our thoughtâ and âaspects of their thoughtââa distinction the Bavli does not always seem to uphold. As it clearly states, âeat the date and throw away the stoneâ (Ḥagiga 15b according to Ms. British Library 400). There is no reason not to use a good teaching just because it is Christian, just as it is permitted to use a good teaching from a flawed rabbi, provided this rabbi is like an angel (
Selected Bibliography
Andreopoulos, Andreas. Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimirâs Seminary Press, 2005).
Banner, Nicholas. Philosophic Silence and the âOneâ in Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Beck, Edmund, ed. Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide (Louvain: Secretariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1955).
Brock, Sebastian. âSecundus the Silent Philosopher: Some Notes on the Syriac Tradition.â Rheinisches Museum für Philologie N.F.121 (1978): 94â100.
Cacciari, Massimo. âSilence biblique, silence néotestamentaire.â Héritages dâAndré Neher Banon, David, ed. (Paris: Ãclat, 2011).
Goppelt, Leonhard. Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982 [1939]).
Kraemer, David. Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Levine, Nachman. âReading Crowned Letters and Semiotic Silences in Menachot 29b.â JJS 53 (2002): 35â48.
Mortley, Raoul. From Word to Silence: The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986).
Rubenstein, Jeffrey. Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
Russell, Paul S. âEphraem the Syrian on the Utility of Language and the Place of Silence.â Journal of Early Christian Studies 8:1 (2000): 21â37.
Schäfer, Peter. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
Spieckerman, Hermann. Lebenskunst und Gotteslob in Israel; Anregungen aus Psalter und Weisheit für die Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).
Tropper, Amram. Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography: Tractate Avot in the Context of the Graeco-Roman Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Wickes, Jeffrey T. St Ephrem the Syrian: The Hymns of Faith (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2015).
Yadin-Israel, Azzan. Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).
Yadin-Israel, Azzan. âBavli Menaḥot 29b and the Diminution of the Prophets.â JAJ 5 (2014): 88â105.
Yousif, Pierre. âParole et silence chez Saint Ãphrem de Nisibe.â La Maison-Dieu 226 (2001): 95â114.
Zellentin, Holger. âThe Rabbis on (the Christianization of) the Imperial Cult: Mishna and Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 3.1 (42b, 54â42c, 61).â in Jewish Art in its Late Antique Context. Catherine Hezser, ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 319â355.
Zellentin, Holger. âTrialogical Anthropology: The QurʾÄn on Adam and Iblis in View of Rabbinic and Christian Discourse.â The Quest for Humanity â Contemporary Approaches to Human Dignity in the Context of the QurʾÄnic Anthropology. Rüdiger Braun and Hüseyin Ãiçek, ed. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 54â125.
Zellentin, Holger. âRabbi Lazarus and the Rich Man: A Talmudic Parody of the Christian Hell (Yerushalmi Hagiga 2.2, 77d and Sanhedrin 6.9, 23c).â Knowledge of Religion as Profanation. Asaph Ben-Tov and Martin Mulsow, ed. (New York, London: Springer Publishing Company, 2019) 23â94.
Zellentin, Holger. ââOne Letter Yud shall not Pass Away from the Lawâ: Matthew 5:17 to Shabbat 116aâb,â Religious Identities in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Walking Together & Parting Ways, Ilkka Lindstedt, Nina Nikki, and Riikka Tuori, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 204â258.
The most noteworthy studies, in my view, include Azzan Yadin-Israel, Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 103â118; idem, âBavli Menaḥot 29b and the Diminution of the Prophets,â JAJ 5 (2014): 88â105; Jeffrey Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 182â202; Nachman Levine, âReading Crowned Letters and Semiotic Silences in Menachot 29b,â JJS 53 (2002): 35â48; and Yonah Fraenkel, âHermeneutic Problems in the Study of the Aggadic Narrative,â Tarbiz 47 (1977â1978): 139â172 [Hebrew]; see also the following note. For a discussion of the textâs hermeneutics in relationship to contemporary discourse, see, e.g., Laurence I. Edwards, âRabbi Akibaâs Crowns: Postmodern Discourse and the Cost of Rabbinic Reading,â Judaism 49 (2000): 417â434. On the rabbisâ penchant for self-criticism in relationship to this story see also Daniel Boyarin, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), esp. 231â236; Boyarinâs contribution, though valuable, should generally be seen in light of criticism such as that offered by Adam Becker, âReview: Positing a âCultural Relationshipâ between Plato and the Babylonian Talmud,â The Jewish Quarterly Review 101 (2011): 255â269.
Yadin-Israel rightly criticizes the early contextualization of the story in the third century offered by Yair Furstenberg in idem, âThe Agon with Moses and Homer: Rabbinic Midrash and the Second Sophistic,â in Maren Niehoff, ed., Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 299â328; see Yadin-Israel, âBavli Menaḥot 29b,â 95â101. Yet Yadin-Israelâs own contextualization of the story in Second Temple literature is equally not unproblematic, as he freely admits (ibid., 101). In my view, both the Second Sophistic and Second Temple Judaism should be considered as preparing the broader intellectual climate which the Talmud inhabits several centuries later, especially since the rabbis themselves perpetuated some aspects of Hellenistic culture in Mesopotamia as argued with some justification by Daniel Boyarin, âHellenism in Jewish Babylonia,â in Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 336â363 (see also the previous note).
See Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, âMoses in the Apophthegmata Patrum and in Rabbinic Literature,â in Michael Sommer et al, eds., Mosebilder: Gedanken zur Rezeption einer literarischen Figur im Frühjudentum, frühen Christentum und der römisch-hellenistischen Literatur (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017) 403â414.
See Yakir Paz, ââBinding Crowns to the Lettersâ â A Divine Scribal Practice in Its Historical Context,â Tarbiz â A Quarterly for Jewish Studies 86 (January-June 2019): 233â267 [Hebrew]. Paz develops previous suggestions by Shlomo Naeh, âThe Script of Torah in Rabbinic Thought (B): Transcriptions and Thorns,â Leshonenu 71 (2010): 89â123 [Hebrew].
See Holger Zellentin, âTypology and the Transfiguration of Rabbi Aqiva (Pesiqta de Rav Kahana 4:7 and Bavli Menahot 29b),â Jewish Studies Quarterly 25 (2018): 239â268.
The final compilation of the Babylonian Talmud remains disputed, with dates ranging from the fifth to the seventh century; see e.g. Jeffrey Rubinstein, ed., Creation and Composition: the Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). I hold that the Bavliâs deep acculturation within Sasanian Persia, along with its intense cultural affinities to the Late Roman Diocese of the East that stretched from Palestine to Mesopotamia, make both the East and the West Syrian tradition relevant for its contextualization; see also note 28 below.
In addition to Manuscript Vatican 118, which preserves an important reading regarding Aqivaâs âgloryâ (see note 23 below), I have consulted the Vilna and Venice prints, as well as manuscript Vatican 120, Munich 95 and Paris AIU 147A. The texts do not show wide variations; notable variants are given in the footnote. Where Vatican 118 abbreviates the text, I have provided the reading of the Vilna print in the footnotes. All translation of rabbinic texts are my own, often based on the Soncino and Donaldson versions.
The Vilna print spells out
All other witnesses have âYour handâ in the singular, as
The Vilna print spells out
The witnesses vary widely on the precise terminology here; see also Ê¿Eruvin 21b. On the âtips of letters,â which may originally have indicated a âbiblical periscope,â see Paz, âBinding Crowns to the Letters,â Naeh, âScript of the Torahâ, 108â111, as well as the criticism of Yadin-Israel, âBavli Menaḥot 29b;â see also the earlier pertinent views of Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 196â197.
Manuscript Vatican 118, which nonsensically reads âshow him to him,â seems faulty here: all other witnesses indicate âshow him to me,â
The number of rows varies between eight and eighteen in the witnesses, see the discussion in Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 198.
The Vilna print spells out
The Vilna print reads âas he (i.e. Aqiva) came to one issue,â
The printed versions here have the students address Aqiva as âRabbi,â
The Vilna print spells out
All other witnesses here add âhis,â i.e. Mosesâ âmind,â
All other witnesses here read âhe returned and came,â
The Vilna print spells out
The Vilna print spells out
All other witnesses here (in a variation of wordings) specify that the thought came up âbefore me, in my [i.e., Godâs] thoughts,â
All other witnesses read âhis reward,â
The printed versions here omit
Manuscript Vatican 118 reads âfor so it came to His thoughts,â all other witnesses have âmy thoughts,â
For my previous study, see note 5 above. There is no proof that the classical rabbis would have been aware of any given patristic text, or of any given church father; recent studies on this contentious issue include Arkady Kovelman, âRabbi Meir as a Messiah,â Jewish Studies 51 (2016): 1â19; Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Eyal Ben Eliyahu, âThe Rabbinic Polemic against Sanctification of Sites,â JSJ 40 (2009): 260â280. See also the important, yet exaggerated concerns raised, e.g., by Adiel Schremer in his Brothers Estranged: Heresy, Christianity and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Despite our lack of definitive proof, I have previously argued for the relevance of specific aspects of patristic discourse in as far as it permeated popular Christian discourse more broadly, see, e.g., Holger Zellentin, âRabbi Lazarus and the Rich Man: A Talmudic Parody of the Christian Hell (Yerushalmi Hagiga 2.2, 77d and Sanhedrin 6.9, 23c),â in Asaph Ben-Tov and Martin Mulsow, eds., Knowledge of Religion as Profanation (New York, London: Springer Publishing Company, 2019), 23â94; idem, âThe Rabbis on (the Christianization of) the Imperial Cult: Mishna and Yerushalmi Ê¿Avodah Zarah 3.1 (42b, 54â42c, 61),â in Catherine Hezser, ed., Jewish Art in its Late Antique Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 319â355; and idem, âJerusalem Fell After Betar: The Christian Josephus and Rabbinic Memory,â in Raâanan Boustan et al., eds., Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, 2 vols. (Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2013), 1:319â367.
See Zellentin, âTypology and the Transfiguration of Rabbi Aqiva,â esp. 256â268. My arguments are based on a close comparison of the even starker typological language found in the Talmudic storyâs Palestinian precedent in Pesiqta de Rav Kahana 4:7; my study engage two studies of Eyal Ben Eliyahu, âThe Rabbinic Polemic against Sanctification of Sites,â JSJ 40 (2009): 260â280 and idem, âMount of Olives-Between Jews and Christians during the Roman and Byzantine Periods,â New Studies on Jerusalem, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1998), 55â63 [Hebrew]. On the importance of typological thought for the rabbis see also Zellentin, âMosesâ Arms and the Brazen Serpent: A Sense of Typology in Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism,â which has been submitted to a volume edited by Angelika Neuwirth and Islam Dayeh that is currently under review with Routledge.
The gospel version that is most relevant for the Babylonian Talmud, I have previously argued, is the Syriac Peshitta. The witness of the Diatessaron has of course equally permeated Syriac culture, especially through the exegetical works of Aphrahat and Ephrem, yet the Peshitta offers the most relevant witness to the oral gospel traditions with which the rabbis may have been at least rudimentarily, and sometimes intimately familiar; see Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies, esp. 138â143.
The transfiguration appears in Luke 9:28â36, Matt 17:1â9 and Mark 9:2â8, see also 2 Peter 1:16â3:18; on the typological character of the transfiguration, see already Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982 [1939]), esp. 62â63. On the central image of âgloryâ in the Syriac tradition (which builds on Biblical imagery such as Exod 34:29) see e.g. Hannah M. Hunt, ââClothed in the Bodyâ: The Garment of Flesh and the Garment of Glory in Syrian Religious Anthropology,â Studia Patristica 642 (2013): 167â176 and Sebastian P. Brock, Sebastian, âThe Robe of Glory: A Biblical Image in the Syriac Tradition,â The Way 39 (1999): 247â259.
Peshitta translations in this essay are based on that of George Lamsa, The Four Gospels According to the Eastern Version (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman, 1933), with major modifications. Needless to say, this does not imply an endorsement of Lamsaâs more adventurous theses on the importance of the Peshitta as a witness to the historical Jesus. The Syriac text of all Gospel citations, unless otherwise noted, is that of the Peshitta cited according to George Anton Kiraz, Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Aligning the Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshitta and Harklean Version (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004). My gratitutde to Ana Davitashvili for assisting me with the vocalization of Syriac transliterations.
For a recent discussion of the passage within its compositional context in the Greek Gospel of Luke see François Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1â9:50 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 369â379.
To give but a few select examples, see Tertullian, Against Marcion 22; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 12:16; Augustine, Letter 55.15 (28); John Chrysostom, Homily 56 on Matthew (2), and Jacob of Sarug, Homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord. See also Colette Pasquet, âRévélation de la divinité du Christ dans le mystère de la Transfiguration chez Jacques de Saroug,â Connaissance des Pères de lâÃglise 135 (2014): 42â52; Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (Crestwood: St Vladimirâs Seminary Press, 2005), 133â139; Emmanuel Khoury, âMÄ«mrÅ de Jacques de Saroug sur la Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur,â Parole de lâOrient 15 (1988â1989): 65â90; Thomas Kollamparampil, Jacob of Sarugâs Homily on the Transfiguration of our Lord, 1 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2008), 1â4; cf. also P. Yousif, âLa Croix de Jésus et le Paradis dâÃden dans la typologie biblique de Saint Ephrem,â Parole de lâOrient 6â7 (1975â1976): 29â48, and Goppelt, Typos, 62â63, 72 and 89.
On the transfiguration in the Eastern liturgy, which in Byzantium was officially introduced in the eighth century yet celebrated in Palestine much earlier, see, e.g., John Baggley, Festival Icons for the Christian Year (Crestwood: St. Vladimirâs Seminary Press, 2000), 58â71; also Jean Tomajean, âLa fête de la Transfiguration,â LâOrient Syrien 5 (1960): 479â482.
See, e.g., Sabine Schrenk, Typos und Antitypos in der frühchristlichen Kunst (Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum; Münster: Aschendorff, 1995); Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis, and my arguments in Zellentin, âTypology and the Transfiguration of Rabbi Aqiva,â 243â250.
On Saint Ephrem and his impact, see, e.g., Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: the Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992).
Hymn 1.1; see Edmund Beck, ed., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen De Nativitate (Epiphania) (CSCO 186; Louvain: SecreÌtariat du CorpusSCO, 1959), 1; trans. Kathleen McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist, 1989), 63. I follow McVeyâs fine translation (with minor adaptations).
Hymn 1.18â19; see Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, Nativitate, 3; McVey, Ephrem, 64â65. See also Ephrem, Commentary on the Diatessaron, 16:2.15.
On Ephremâs hymn, see David Bertaina, âChristmas with Mar Ephrem: The Nativity Feast in Early Syriac Tradition,â The Harp 22 (2007): 49â92; Phil J. Botha, âThe Poet as Preacher: St. Ephrem the Syrianâs Hymn De Virginitate XXXI as a Coherent, Aesthetic, and Persuasive Poetic Discourse,â Acta Patristica et Byzantina 19 (2008): 44â72; see also see Andrew J. Hayes, âThe Transfiguration of Moses: A Survey and Analysis of St. Ephremâs Interpretation of Exodus 34,29,â Oriens Christianus 97 (2013â2014): 67â99 and Zellentin, âMosesâ Arms.â
Hymn 1.40, see Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, 6; and McVey, Ephrem, 68.
Hymn 1.34â40, see Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem 5, and McVey, Ephrem, 68.
On the role of the visual aspects of revelation in Ephremâs hymns on the nativity, see Bert Daelemans, âLe Caché nous relève en se révélant. La révélation rédemptrice dans les Hymnes sur la Nativité de St. Ãphrem,â Orientalia Christiana Periodica 78 (2012): 29â80, and âDieu sauve en se montrant. La révélation rédemptrice dans la troisième Hymne sur la Nativité de St. Ãphrem,â Orientalia Christiana Periodica 77 (2011): 351â398; on the transfiguration in material cultural see note 34 above, on the visual in Judaism see note 46 below.
See Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 200â201.
On the importance of relating the Biblical past, the âold,â to the more recent rabbinic or messianic past, the ânew old,â see Zellentin, âTypology and the Transfiguration of Rabbi Aqiva,â 240â242. The term ʾadam ʾeḥad in and of itself is inconspicuous; it is already attested (negatively) in Qohelet 7:28 and quite broadly in the Bavli (see, e.g., Sanhedrin 97b)âit is merely its broader typological acumen that makes it relevant for the present consideration. On the importance of comparative approaches to Adam see Zellentin, ibid., 251â253 and idem, âTrialogical Anthropology: The QurʾÄn on Adam and Iblis in View of Rabbinic and Christian Discourse,â in Rüdiger Braun and Hüseyin Ãiçek (eds.), The Quest for Humanity â Contemporary Approaches to Human Dignity in the Context of the QurʾÄnic Anthropology (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), esp. 72â116.
As Rubenstein aptly states, the name âAkibaâ alone appears over 1,300 times in the Bavli, but the full name âAkiba ben Yosefâ only about twelve times, less than 1 percent. So the appearance of the full name seems to be motivated by the desire to alliterate Yosef with sof (end). There is also an intriguing resonance of meâakev [sic] (restrains) and akiva,â see idem, Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 185. The repeated use of the term âtip,â qots, whatever its ultimate meaning in the story, equally evokes the idea of the eschatological âend,â qets.
Menahem Fisch has suggested reading our story in light of Exod 33:12â23, which includes Mosesâ request, to God, âto let me behold Your gloryâ (kebodekha, Exod 33:18), a line of reading which Rubenstein has developed further; see Fisch, Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997) 192â195, and Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 190â192. Yet the biblical parallel only points to the typological contrast between Talmud and Bible, for in the former, as in the New Testament, the gaze is now turned towards the man, and away from the deity, which Moses longed to see in Exodus.
For the visual in Christian culture, see note 41 above, for the rabbis, see Rachel Neis, The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
On the centrality of the term âgloryâ in Syriac Christian culture see note 29 above; on the biblical notion expressed through a different term see note 45 above.
The phrase used here, of weighing Aqivaâs flesh in the market, constitutes an ironic inversion of the statement made by Rav Ulla in Bavli Hullin 91aâb that the Gentiles would not âweigh the flesh of the dead in the markets.â On Aqivaâs martyrdom, see also Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 93â126.
While the accusation of cannibalism in the context of the eucharist started in the second century (see e.g. Minucius Felix, Octavius 9), it was well and alive throughout late antiquity, see e.g. Epiphanius, Panarion 26:5.4â6 and Bart Wagemakers, âIncest, Infanticide, and Cannibalism: Anti-Christian Imputations in The Roman Empireâ Greece & Rome (Second Series) 57 (2010): 337â354; see also Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 92â93, 101â102 and 112â113.
In addition, students address Jesus as âRabbanâ (see Luke 9:33); Aqivaâs disciples address him as âRabbiâ only in the Vilna print.
Bavli Menaḥot 29b does not even allude to the gospels in the approximate way in which it comes close to doing so in Bavli Shabbat 116aâb, on that passage see Zellentin, âââOne Letter Yud shall not Pass Away from the Lawâ: Matthew 5:17 to Shabbat 116aâb,â in Religious Identities in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Walking Together & Parting Ways, ed. Ilkka Lindstedt, Nina Nikki, and Riikka Tuori (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 204â58 and Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies, 137â166, and the literature cited there; on this passage see now also Yakir Paz, âThe Torah of the Gospel: A Rabbinic Polemic against The Syro-Roman Lawbook,â Harvard Theological Review 112 (2019): 517â540.
Cited according to Manuscript Munich; other witnesses offer slight variants to the main phrase: Ms. Vatican 120â121 follows the cited version almost verbatim, Ms. Vatican 122, the Vilna and Venice prints have
See Rubenstein, Stories of the Babylonian Talmud, 198. Note the slight manuscript variance regarding Mosesâ incomprehension in the Bavli in note 14 above. While there are many instances of the phrase âhe did not knowâ in the Bavli (see, e.g., Megillah 13b and Bava Qamma 103b), the phrase âhe did not know what they were sayingâ is, to the best of my knowledge, paralleled only the present Bavli Hullin 137b (a reference which is missing in Zellentin, âTypology and the Transfiguration of Rabbi Aqiva,â 266 n. 74), adding weight to the extra-rabbinic affinity.
Based on Jeremiah 23:29, Godâs fiery words become like sparks (
Silence, for example, is used to denote quiet suffering (see, e.g., Ps 32:3, Lamentations 3:27â31), or reducing someone to silence (e.g., Ps 31:18â19). Both types of silence are well-attested in rabbinic literature as well, see e.g., Ekha Rabba 1.1, where humans and God sit in order to mourn, and Bavli Keritot 12b, where a rabbi regrets to have remained silent during a legal disagreement. On silence in the Psalms and its Chrsitian reception history see Hermann Spieckerman, Lebenskunst und Gotteslob in Israel; Anregungen aus Psalter und Weisheit für die Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 232â246, as well as Massimo Cacciari, âSilence biblique, silence néotestamentaire,â in David Banon, ed., Héritages dâAndré Neher (Paris: Ãclat, 2011), 167â178. A particular case of silence is the quietness of God in certain situations, as laid out perceptively in Eric D. Reymond, âThe Hebrew Word
Cited according to Harold N. Fowler, Theaetetus and Sophist (Loeb Classical Library 123; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), 440â441.
See Menahem Luz, âPhilo on Prayer as Devotional Study,â in John Dillon and Andrei Timotin (eds.), Platonic Theories of Prayer (Brill: Leiden, 2016), 46â57; Tatjana Alkniené, âLa prière à lâUn dans le traité 10 [V,1] de Plotin et la tradition philosophique grecque,â in Filip KarfÃk and Euree Song (eds.), Plato Revived: Essays on Ancient Platonism in Honour of Dominic J. OâMeara (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 339â340; and Anna Pawlaczyk, âThe Motif of Silence in Philo of Alexandriaâs Treatise âQuis rerum divinarum heres sitâ. Some Remarks,â Polish Journal of Biblical Research 1 (2000): 125â130.
Cited in accordance with Mss. Kaufman and Parma de Rossi. Amram Tropper, in his discussion of the saying of ShimÊ¿on ben Gamliel, does not explore its philosophical context, instead stipulating that its message may by âironicâ; see Amram Tropper, Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography: Tractate Avot in the Context of the Graeco-Roman Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 82â83.
Andrei Timotin, âPorphyry on Prayer: Platonic Traditions and Religious Trends in the Third Century,â in John Dillon and Andrei Timotin (eds.), Platonic Theories of Prayer (Brill: Leiden, 2016), 103. For a perceptive history of platonic and neo-platonic thought on silence, see, e.g., Nicholas Banner, Philosophic Silence and the âOneâ in Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
On the meaning and the textual tradition of Berakhot 62b, see David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 166â167. A treatise on rabbinic views of silence, to the best of my knowledge, remains a desideratum.
See note 22 above.
Cited according to Manuscript Cambridge T-S 12.863, folio A I recto, translation following the NRSV with modifications.
See e.g. Sharon Lea Mattila, âBen Sira and the Stoics: A Reexamination of the Evidence,â Journal of Biblical Literature 119 (2000): 473â501.
On the intriguing relationship of the rabbis to Ben Sira see Vered Noam, âBen Sira: A Rabbinic Perspective,â in J. K. Aitken, R. Egger-Wenzel and S.C. Reif (eds.), Discovering, Deciphering, and Dissenting: Ben Sira Manuscripts after 120 Years (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 201â217; and Jenny R. Labendz, âThe Book of Ben Sira in Rabbinic Literature,â AJS Review 30 (2006): 347â392.
Cited according to the Vilna Print, see also Bereshit Rabbah 8:2.
On the prohibition to inquire beyond the limits of the creation, see already Mishna Hagigah 2:1 and its Talmudic commentaries in Bavli and Yerushalmi; also Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), esp. 209â210.
See, Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide (CSCO 154â155; Louvain: Durbecq, 1955), 1.215 (Syriac) and 2.187 (German trans.); see also Jeffrey T. Wickes, St Ephrem the Syrian: The Hymns on Faith (The Fathers of the Church 130; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 340 and Paul S. Russell, âEphraem the Syrian on the Utility of Language and the Place of Silence,â Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000): 28.
Ephrem regularly cites Ben Sira, see Wido van Peursen, âBen Sira in the Syriac Tradition,â in The Texts and Versions of the Book of Ben Sira, ed. Jean-Sébastien Rey and Jan Joosten (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 146â147. In the present case, however, his plausible allusion cannot be linked with any certainty to the extant Aramaic versions of Ben Sira, see Paul de Lagarde, Libri Veteris Testamenti Apocryphi Syriace (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1861), 4.
See Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, Fide, 1.129 (Syriac) and 2.106 (German trans.); the translation of this passage and the following is my own, in consultation of Beck Wickes, St Ephrem, 224. On the hymn, see also Russell, âEphraem,â 28. The theme of silence (shetqaʾ) as marking the end of inquiry is central to Ephremâs hymns on faith. Ephremâs Hymn on Faith 38:13, for example, is dedicated to the juxtaposition between silence and speech: here, God is portrayed as having added silence and having given âareas in which we could inquire,â yet at the same time, God âheld back other (areas) in which we could keep silenceâ; see also verses 2â4, 8â10, and 18â20; see Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, Fide, 1.127 (Syriac) and 2.104 (German trans.); see also Wickes, St Ephrem, 220, and Russell, âEphraem,â 27â28.
Russell, âEphraem,â 30, see also ibid., 21â37 and Pierre Yousif, âParole et silence chez Saint Ãphrem de Nisibe,â La Maison-Dieu 226 (2001): 95â114. Among Ephremâs hymns on faith, many others focus on silence (shetqaʾ): 1:18â19 (which enjoins to keep silent before God); 2:4; 3:9 (which depicts the angels as praising God silently, a theme further developed in 4:1, 5, 14 and 17); 8:2 (on the silence of the Jews when faced with Mosesâ splendor); 10:2; 11:5â9 (on Godâs silence, a theme further developed in 54:2); 13:10; 16:12â13 (on prayer in silence); 20:1; 23:15; 37:18 (on the silence of the son); 43:3; 70:18 and 74:18.
See, Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem, Fide, 1.154 (Syriac) and 2.155 (German trans.); see also Wickes, St Ephrem, 291; and Russell, âEphraem,â 29; see also Hymn on Faith 1.19. Ephremâs hymns are often laced with anti-Jewish tropes, in 57:1, for example, Jews again appear as âthe crucifiers.â
On John of Apamea (first half of the fifth century), see, e.g., Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, ââMore Interior than the Lips and the Tongueâ: John of Apamea and Silent Prayer in Late Antiquity,â Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (2012): 303â331; on Philoxenus (turn of the sixth century), see B. Bitton-Ashkelony and Sergey Minov, ââA Person of Silenceâ: Philoxenos of Mabbug, Letter of Exhortation Sent to Someone Who Left Judaism and Came to the Life of Perfection,â Orientalia Christiana Periodica 82 (2016): 101â125; on Dadisho Qatraya (late seventh century), see Francisco del RÃo Sánchez, âDadiÅ¡oâ du Qatar et la quiétude,â in Alain Desreumaux, ed., Les mystiques syriaques (Paris: Geuthner, 2011), 87â98. On the elaborate discourse on silence in the Greek Christian tradition, see Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence: The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986); note also Sebastian Brock, âSecundus the Silent Philosopher: Some Notes on the Syriac Tradition,â Rheinisches Museum für Philologie N.F.121 (1978): 94â100; see also Gabriele Winkler, âEin bedeutsamer Zusammenhang zwischen der Erkenntnis und Ruhe in Mt 11,27â29 und dem Ruhen des Geistes auf Jesus am Jordan: Eine Analyse zur Geist-Christologie in syrischen und armenischen Quellen,â Le Muséon 96 (1983): 267â326 and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, âSpoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,â Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001): 105â131.
Cited according to Manuscript British Library Add. 14,726, as edited and translated by Bitton-Ashkelony and Minov, âA Person of Silence,â 116â117, for its date see 103.
See note 27 above.