#epiphanes

Found by chief conservator Orna Cohen during routine maintenance, this coin showcases Antiochus with a crown and a goddess with a scarf on its reverse. This surprising find at a site thought to have been fully excavated reveals a tangible piece of the tumultuous Hasmonean era, linking the Jews, once again, directly to biblical history, and proving their indigenous connection to Judea.

Richard Armitage - Filmography 1/5

Readings:  L&F #555-557 (pp. 391-94), Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 3.4-10, Gaca, Kathy.  2003.  The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity Chapter 10, “The fornicating justice of Epiphanes,.”

What struck me most about today’s reading was its relevance to life today, particularly in this political climate.  All right, so maybe communal sexual ethics are not exactly widely-advocated.  But Clement of Alexandria sounds like he is the mouthpiece of Focus on the Family, an unsettling similarity.  Gaca points out that the root of Christian social conservatism is found in Clement’s argument that procreationist monogamy is the only way to go.  Even his argument style sounds familiar -- he calls Epiphanes a “lewd outcast” and villifies his principles.  Somewhere Jerry Falwell is cackling with glee.  Maybe nobody today is pushing Platonic/Stoic sexual communalism.  But Epiphanes’ argument resonated with me in other ways, particularly his statement that God’s righteousness is social equity with no distinction between anybody (at least in the eyes of God, if not in the eyes of humanity).  I feel as though I’ve encountered variations of his argument from the kinds of Christians who attend Cornerstone Festival before.  It’s striking to me to see the dialogue I’ve heard so often between various groups of Christians reflected here, even if the historical context is completely different.

I was also intrigued by how much property is tied into sexuality, for both Clement and Epiphanes.  Epiphanes advocates for communalism not just sexually, but also in terms of property.  I guess this shouldn’t be surprising.  After all, I remember earlier in the semester when we talked about how property was easily the most important thing to the ancients, but I tend to think of ancient Christians as being somehow “different” than their counterparts.  That’s not true, though -- they would still have been influenced by their culture as much as anybody else.  I am also surprised to encounter such a strong bedrock of philosophy that endorsed the liberation of the burden of private ownership, to paraphrase Gaca.  I feel like I tend to associate Christianity with being obsessed with the ownership of private property (or at least a ringing endorsement of free-market capitalism), but that’s just my own cultural lens talking.

I’d also like to comment on how valuable I found Gaca’s chapter on Clement and Epiphanes in setting up historical context.  The context she provides near the beginning of the chapter really makes clear the importance of the dispute about sexual principles, and also helps Epiphanes’ arguments for sexual communalism make sense.  Gaca writes that Christianity at the time was countercultural* and shaped by communal social ideals.  This sentence made everything so much clearer for me.  Sexual communalism is a natural extension of the communal social ideals Christianity was shaped by at the time.  It wouldn’t have been a weird and foreign concept to them as it may be to us, especially since there was already a precedent of support for communalism established by Plato and early Stoics.

Lastly, I suppose I should comment on Paul.  I believe I’m the one person I know who actually likes Paul.** I’m not really a fan of predestination, but I think Paul captures the essence of the Christian message very well.  When I argue with friends about Paul, however, they’ll usually throw today’s readings at me and appeal to my feminism to ask how I can support him.  But does Paul not display an inclusive view of women by saying there is no difference between women and men in the eyes of God (at least in Galatians)?  I don’t know, I haven’t had time to do as much research into Paul’s writings on women as I would like but I feel like there has to be more to this story than the way so many people have interpreted it since (as an excuse to oppress women).  After all, he actively worked with women in the church (see Priscilla, off the top of my head) so I feel like we can’t take his (or pseudo-Paul’s?) comments that women must stay silent at face value.  But I don’t know much about this, so perhaps don’t put too much faith into this last paragraph.

Helmet less Epiphany fellow. A new Armitage character after quite a while.