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  • From: "Daniel P. Bailey" <DanPBailey AT aol.com>
  • To: corpus-paul
  • Subject: RE: HILASTERION
  • Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 1:22:42


Dear ALL:

I've just joined this list. I notice that some of the earliest subject
strings last year concerned "justification by faith" or the "dying for"
formula and discussed Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus in terms
of substitutionary atonement, propitiation, expiation, penal satisfaction,
etc. More recently on Feb. 5, 2000, Steve Nelson contributed a note on
"Redemption as Ransom" in Romans 3:24 (to which no one has yet responded).
On March 31, 1999, I find a message from Bill Ross with my title
"HILASTERION." Jim West was on the same subject thread. I've tried to link
to these messages, so as not to break the subject thread.

This discussion has been rather wide-ranging. If anyone would like to focus
it more narrowly, I've just written a Ph.D. dissertation (University of
Cambridge, 1999) concentrating on the lexicography of the Greek term
HILASTERION and the implications that the lexical data have for the
interpretation of HILASTERION Romans 3:25 and 4 Maccabees 17:22 (codex S).

An abstract of the dissertation is appearing in Tyndale Bulletin 51.1
(April 2000). If anyone would like a preview, it is included below, and is
not too long (about 4 pages in journal form). Members may use this material
in any way they like, but please cite the printed version for any formal
purposes.

My external thesis examiner, Prof. James Dunn (Durham), said he liked my
lexicography but urged me to include more "theology." (There is indeed more
"Semantics" than "Theology," to quote from my subtitle.) What do you
think?

Best wishes,

Dan Bailey

Daniel P. Bailey (Ph.D. Cantab.)
6977 N. Bethmaur Lane
Milwaukee, WI 53209
_________________________

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
(to be printed in Tyndale Bulletin 51.1, April 2000)

Jesus as the Mercy Seat: The Semantics and Theology of Paul’s Use of
Hilasterion in Romans 3:25

by
Daniel P. Bailey

Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1999

Interpreters of Rom 3:25 and of 4 Macc 17:22 (codex S) commonly base their
conclusions about hilasterion upon the immediate literary context coupled
with vague notions of Jewish sacrifice and of the verbs hilaskesthai and
exilaskesthai. Instead, scholars should consider first the more important
linguistic evidence, namely, the concrete, non-metaphorical uses of the
substantive hilasterion in other ancient sources. They should be wary of
investing hilasterion with meanings that are otherwise unattested (even
though they may make sense in Romans or 4 Maccabees) and of parallelling
Romans and 4 Maccabees prematurely. Only concrete, inanimate referents of
this term are actually found in the other ancient sources; a hilasterion is
always a thing -- never an idea or an action or an animal. This suggests
that the uses of hilasterion in Rom 3:25 and 4 Macc 17:22 are metaphorical,
while further exegesis shows that the two metaphors must be distinct,
reflecting two different concrete uses of the term.

Unfortunately, past studies of hilasterion have often allowed theological
considerations to overshadow lexicography. Hence it was the doctrine of
propitiation rather than the actual occurrences of the term hilasterion in
ancient sources that dominated the English-language discussion of Rom 3:25
in the twentieth century. C. H. Dodd reacted against this doctrine and
argued that the root idea behind Paul’s use of hilasterion was one of
expiation (of sin) rather than propitiation (of God). However, Dodd based
his study not on hilasterion itself but on the use of the verb hilaskesthai
and its cognates in the Septuagint. The result was an over-emphasis upon
verb-based notions of a theological function, whether the propitiating of
God or the expiating of sin, with too little attention to the concrete
referents of the term hilasterion, such as the Old Testament mercy seat and
Greek votive offerings. Neither Dodd nor most of his early opponents
considered what hilasterion actually denoted in Paul’s day.

Admittedly, abstract notions of propitiation or expiation can be fitted
into the context of Rom 3:21-26, causing centuries of debate. The problem
from a lexicographical standpoint is that words ending in -terion seldom
denote abstract verbal ideas, while hilasterion never does; the suffix
-terion is very concrete.

Additional mistakes can be made by ignoring the available linguistic
evidence. Since Paul elsewhere compares Jesus to an animal victim, as for
example in Rom 8:3, where the phrase "peri hamartias" is standard
Septuagintal language for the Levitical "sin offering," Heb. "hattat" (cf.
NRSV mg.), many have mistakenly concluded that similar victim language must
be present in Rom 3:25. Jesus is said to be a hilasterion; he is also said
to have shed his blood. Therefore, it is commonly assumed that a
hilasterion in the ancient world must have been something that could shed
its blood, i.e. a sacrificial victim ("sacrifice of atonement," NIV; NRSV).
This, too, fits the immediate context. But it is a false syllogism, since
it assumes that the meaning of hilasterion can be determined by the meaning
of "blood" (after all, blood is sprinkled on the hilasterion of the
Pentateuch, i.e. the mercy seat, but this does not make the hilasterion
into a "victim"). It is also unsupported by external evidence: hilasterion
never denotes an animal victim in any known source.

In fact, there are only two main applications of the term hilasterion up
through the middle of the second century AD. It can designate (1) the
golden "mercy seat" or "kapporet" on top of Israel’s ark of the covenant
(LXX Pentateuch; Heb 9:5; six times in Philo); or (2) durable votive
offerings to the pagan deities, generally anathemata (so LSJ s.v.
"hilasterios" II 2). There are also minor extensions of the Pentateuchal
use in the prophets: the altar ledges in Ezek 43:14, 17, 20 and perhaps the
altar or one of its parts in Amos 9:1. (The later uses of hilasterion by
Symmachus to refer to Noah’s ark at Gen 6:15 MT [6:16 Sym.] and by
Byzantine Christian writers to refer to churches, altars, monasteries, and
saints’ tombs raise additional problems.)

The application of hilasterion to Greek votive offerings was the normal or
mainstream use in the first century AD. While generally pagan, it is also
reflected in Jewish sources such as Josephus Ant. 16.182 and 4 Macc 17:22
(see below). The hilasterion in Josephus is a marble monument. But the most
famous hilasterion in the ancient world was the Trojan Horse. This was
called a thelkterion or "charm" by Homer (Od. 8.509) but a hilasterion or
"propitiatory gift" by Dio Chrysostom (Or. 11.121) and by two later
commentators on Homer (anonymous scholia, ed. Dindorf [1855]; comm. by
Eustathius of Thessalonica, ed. Stallbaum [1825]). The term hilasterion or
its Rhodian variant hilaterion was customarily inscribed on other gifts
dedicated to the gods. These include statues, monuments, stelae (Inscr. Cos
81 and 347, ed. Paton and Hicks [1891]; Bullettino del Museo dell’Impero
Romano 3 [1932], p. 14, no. 11, ed. Patriarca, printed as appendix to
Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 60 [1932];
variant hilaterion, Lindos II, no. 425, ed. Blinkenberg [1941]), drinking
bowls (e.g. a "phiale" as a hilaterion, Die Lindische Tempelchronik, B49,
ed. Blinkenberg [1915]), and tripods (e.g. a "tripous" as a hilasterion,
scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes 4.1549, ed. Wendel [1935]).

Hilasterion (hilaterion) in all these extra-biblical occurrences can be
glossed by "(sc. anathema) propitiatory gift or offering" (LSJ). Or, to
adopt an ancient definition, pagan hilasteria are generally "ta
ekmeilixasthai dunamena dora," "gifts capable of appeasing" (sc. the gods)
(scholion on Apollonius).

Since this application to votive offerings was typical, it is a possible
background to Rom 3:25. Yet no one has ever succeeded in showing how God is
supposed to have presented humanity (or himself?) with a gift that people
normally presented to the gods. Moreover, the mainstream use of hilasterion
finds no parallel in "the law and the prophets" to which Paul appeals (Rom
3:21). The general meaning "propitiatory gift" therefore fails to fit the
context of Rom 3:25.

By contrast, a more specialized allusion to the biblical "mercy seat"
(which is not a gift to the gods) does fit Paul’s context, with plenty of
support from lexicography (cf. LXX Pentateuch). Paul focuses on "the law
and the prophets" and more particularly on the Song of Moses in Exodus 15.
The combination of God’s righteousness and redemption in Exod 15:13
("hodegesas te dikaiosune sou ton laon sou touton, hon elutroso") closely
parallels Rom 3:24 (dikaioo and apolutrosis). Furthermore, Exod 15:17
promises that the exodus would lead to a new, ideal sanctuary established
by God himself. God’s open setting out of Jesus as the new hilasterion --
the centre of the sanctuary and focus of both the revelation of God (Exod
25:22; Lev 16:2; Num 7:89) and atonement for sin (Leviticus 16) -- fulfils
this tradition.

Applying the biblical sense of hilasterion to Jesus in this theologically
pregnant way would not have been be entirely unprecedented for Paul (contra
D. Moo, Romans, NICNT [1996], 236 with n. 79), since Philo thought of the
mercy seat as "symbolon tes hileo tou theou dunameos," "a symbol of the
gracious power of God" (Mos. 2.96; cf. Fug. 100). Perhaps this shows that
Philo traced the term hilasterion etymologically not to hilaskesthai (to
propitiate or expiate) but to hileos, "gracious" or "merciful." This would
then support the translation by "mercy seat," though the vaguer expression
"place of atonement" is also in common use (NRSV mg. at Rom 3:25 and Heb
9:5). The old objection that Paul cannot have alluded to "the" well-known
hilasterion of the Pentateuch without using the Greek definite article is
baseless, since Philo clearly uses anarthrous hilasterion to refer to the
mercy seat (Mos. 2.95, 97; Fug. 100).

Finally in 4 Macc 17:22 the original text, preserved in codex S (codex A is
secondary), contains the controversial expression "to hilasterion tou
thanatou auton," "the hilasterion of their death" (referring to the
martyrs). This can be interpreted by the same kind of appeal to established
usage, only the results are different from those seen in Rom 3:25. It makes
no sense to speak of "the mercy seat of their death" in 4 Maccabees; this
imagery works, if it does, only in Romans. However, the mainstream Greek
metaphor "the propitiatory offering of their death" or "their death as a
propitiatory votive offering" is completely in keeping with the use of
Greek heroic and athletic imagery elsewhere in 4 Macc 17:8-24. While Rom
3:25 cannot be understood apart from a knowledge of the Septuagint, no such
knowledge is necessary to understand 4 Macc 17:22. The language and imagery
are essentially Greek, and the more Jewish or biblical-sounding translation
"their death as an [act of] atoning sacrifice" (NRSV) is misleading, since
hilasterion does not denote an act of sacrifice, nor are the martyrs
compared with the victims of sacrifice (such as those on the Day of
Atonement).

In sum, considerations of both lexicography and context combine to
discourage the common practice of parallelling Rom 3:25 and 4 Macc 17:22.
Different metaphors -- one biblical, the other mainstream Greek -- explain
each passage.

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