From Alexander to Jesus

In honor of beloved Virgil—

O degli altri poeti onore e lume…

—Dante, Inferno

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution

to this book provided by the Classical Literature Endowment Fund

of the University of California Press Foundation, which is

supported by a major gift from Joan Palevsky.

HELLENISTIC CULTURE AND SOCIETY

General Editors: Anthony W. Bulloch, Erich s. Gruen, A. A. Long, and Andrew F. stewart

From Alexander

to Jesus

Ory Amitay

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley   Los Angeles   London

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University of California Press

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© 2010 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Amitay, Ory.

   From Alexander to Jesus / Ory Amitay.

       p. cm.—(Hellenistic culture and society ; 52)

   Includes bibliographical references and index.

   ISBN 978-0-520-26636-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

   1. Alexander, the Great, 356-323 B.C. 2. Generals—Greece—

Biography. 3. Greece—Kings and rulers—Biography. 4. Greece—

History—Macedonian Expansion, 359-323 B.c. 5. Alexander, the Great,

356-323 B.C.—Legends. 6. Alexander, the Great,

356-323 B.C.—Influence. 7. Jesus Christ. 8. Christianity. 9. Church history.

I. Title.

DF234.2.A48 2010

938'.07092—dc22                                                                     2009049416

Manufactured in the United states of America

19   18   17   16   15   14   13   12   11

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FsC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.

To Effie, who followed me to the West of West and back home again

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Son of Man, Son of God

2. In the Footsteps of Herakles

3. The Passage to India

4. Symbiosis

5. Amazon Queen

6. Post Mortem

7. Alexander and the End of Days

8. Alexander and Jesus

Conclusion

Appendix A. Alexander and David

Appendix B. Sacrifices and Related Matters in the Alexander Histories

Appendix C. Alexander Alcoholicus

Notes

References

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a great pleasure to be able to thank all the people whose help and support contributed to this work. In Berkeley, Prof. A. Bulloch read the work and commented on it. Prof. R. stroud rendered help in epigraphical matters, and the Alshire Foundation made possible a trip to inspect some important inscriptions. The Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology provided a warm academic home during my graduate years. Prof.D.Boyarin supported and advised the preparation of the PhD dissertation underlying this book. It was in his seminar that I first became acquainted with the Talmudic Alexander. Prof.A.stewart made important remarks on the initial manuscript and made sure that it included the wealth of material evidence on Alexander and Herakles. Chapters 1 ,3, and 6 are deeply indebted to him. The anonymous readers are also responsible for many positive contributions and saved me from mistakes and oversights. Their names are left unmentioned, but their assistance is warmly appreciated.

In Tel Aviv Prof.Z.Rubinsohn made available to me his excellent private collection. He was also the first to introduce me to Alexander studies. Prof.I.Malkin, who had long ago initiated me in the study of Ancient History, made sure I had ideal conditions for writing when still a Berkeley groupie but already working in Israel.

In Haifa I am indebted to a great many of my students, who heard many of the ideas expressed in this book and commented on them. Two of them—Mr.Nart Abrek and Ms. Hanneke Berman—offered original interpretation and brought to my attention an important locus. Mr. Eyal Meyer and Ms. Ronny Reshef, my research assistants at Haifa, contributed considerably during the editing process of the manuscript in its book phase. I am also thankful to the Research Authority at the University of Haifa for allowing me a subsidy for the preparation of the index.

Finally, there are two people whose help has proved invaluable. In Israel, Yaron Ben-Ami, a long-time friend and , read much of the work in various stages of its evolution, and made some crucial contributions. It was he who first brought to my attention Isaiah 45:1, the Midrash of Ten Kings and Seder ‘Olam 30. The readers of chapter 7 will immediately appreciate the magnitude of these contributions. In Berkeley, Prof.E.Gruen read the entire manuscript in draft and revised form (both as a dissertation and as a book), made numerous remarks, offered salutary criticism, and gave welcome advice. But for his efforts and constancy, this work would have been much poorer.

Any mistakes, infelicities, and unsound judgment that remain are certainly my own.

Introduction

The idea for this book was conceived more than a decade ago near the tiny hamlet of Malana, situated in the modern-day Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, three or four days' march from the fonts of the Hyphasis River. It is a small settlement, a mere five hundred strong when I visited there in the mid-1990s. Its inhabitants are secluded from their neighbors by language and custom, live by their own sacred ancestral law (dealing in depth with matters of purity) and are, in fact, a people unto themselves. They tell the following story: When Alexander the Great marched through India, he reached the river Beas (the Hyphasis's modern name). His soldiers would not cross it, and he was compelled to arrest his advance east. Yet one company did not turn back at the river. Rather, its men crossed to the other side and settled there. These were the forefathers of the present-day denizens of Malana.

None of the surviving Greek and Latin authors has preserved as much as a hint of any such group of hearty and adventurous soldiers. For all we know, the story may have been concocted by an enterprising worker in the flourishing north-Indian tourist industry, or perhaps by some clever Briton, back in the days when the Crown had an empire and the classics were widely read.¹ What is certain, however, is that the name of Alexander is still attractive enough to draw a number of western tourists over such terrain as even his hardy Macedonians would deem something more than a pleasant amble. The power of Alexander to enchant, about which I had till then only read in books, manifested itself in the field.

In subsequent years Alexander's enchantment over me grew stronger, his myth reappearing again and again in the unlikeliest of places. It appeared that Alexander stories could be told anywhere, and in a wild variety of languages. As I continued to read about Alexander, I became increasingly aware of a specific span of time, a crucial era in the history of western civilization and of humankind in general: the three centuries and more between Alexander of Macedon and Jesus of Nazareth. During this period monotheistic belief, already venerable in Judaism and samaritanism, experienced wide-ranging development, which culminated in the birth of a new world religion—Christianity. Today, two millennia later, it is the most widespread religion in the world, both geographically and quantitatively.

The great importance of Alexander's historical achievement for the development of Christianity has long been recognized. It would seem that J. G. Droysen, Alexander's first great modern historian, embarked on his Hellenistic studies in order to understand the connection between the extension of Greekdom to the East and Christianity's birth. The ingenious W. W. Tarn made Alexander the pioneer of one of the supreme revolutions in the world's outlook, the first man known to us who contemplated the brotherhood of man or the unity of mankind. The relevance to the teachings of Christ is inescapable. This general notion was taken a step further by A. R. Anderson, who claimed that Alexander unconsciously prepared the ground in which Christianity was to grow, and styled him a forerunner of Jesus, earlier representations of whom portrayed him in Alexander's likeness.²

The notion of Alexander as a philosopher-king who strives for a Unity of Mankind has come under serious attack by scholarship since Word War II. This romantic image of Alexander has been pushed aside in favor of a cold hard look at the terrible devastation and suffering wrought in fact by his actions. This approach, influenced no doubt by the horrible twin World Wars and their associated atrocities, is still dominant today.³ To be sure, many of Alexander's actions (the massacre of the Branchidai and the annihilation of the Kossaioi after Hephaistion's death come to mind) strike the modern reader as terrible war crimes. It was never pleasant to be the object of Alexander's ire.

Yet the influence of Alexander on the world of myth and religion depended not solely on what he did, but also on what other people thought, told, and wrote about him.⁴ Plutarch's speeches On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander (De Fortuna, discussed in chapters 4 and 8), which form a crucial part of Tarn's evidence in his Unity of Mankind theory, may not contain much relevant information about Alexander historicus, but they are prime evidence for Alexander mythicus at the turn of the second century C.E. This distinction between Alexander the real person and Alexander as he appeared to later generations—two very different personae—allows me to continue the line of thought initiated by Droysen and Tarn, while taking into account the sober and salubrious criticism of recent generations. The aim ofthis book is thus to suggest to the reader a possible link connecting the life, career and posthumous reputation of Alexander the Great with that of Jesus Christ.

Before moving on to my discussion, three methodological remarks are in order. The first concerns the way in which this book relates to Jesus. As the following chapters will show, my discussion deals at length with the interaction of myth and history during Alexander's lifetime, as well as after his death. It thus treats Alexander both as a historical character, and as a mythical one. This is not the case with Jesus, who is treated for his myth alone, and that only in the last chapter. The reason for this discrimination is twofold. For one, I must confess that I know precious little for certain about the historical Jesus.

As is well known, ancient testimony about Jesus is limited to his Conception, a unique and isolated episode a year before his Bar-mitzvah, the Ministry and the Crucifixion. From what seems purely historical about Jesus' life, we get the impression of an ardent student of the Torah (with a strong liking for legend and parable) driven by the inspiration to make the world a better place. Jesus' open disdain for worldly goods, the statements about the practical inability of the rich to attain the Kingdom of Heaven, his avowed pacifism, as well as the communistic nature of the early church, all point to what we today call the political Left. Greed, it is true, was hardly paramount among Alexander's reasons for undertaking his great adventure; yet Jesus' own outlook on the vanity of riches can be easily explained within his immediate Jewish context, without an appeal to the Macedonian. From the point of view of political science, Jesus appears as a monarchist, and in that he could well identify with Alexander, but also with a whole plethora of other monarchs who had by then already filled the pages of history books. If, indeed, Jesus conducted his Ministry in his early 30s rather than in his late 40s (more on this at the beginning of chapter 8), he could at least feel some affinity to Alexander in that at the end both men were about the same age. Even so, as far as Jesus historicus is concerned, he does not seem to have owed much to Alexander.⁵

Not so Jesus mythicus. A highly complex figure, Jesus obviously made a huge impression on his contemporaries, an impression that has since grown and multiplied immensely, and is still evolving and reaching new audiences even today. During this process the figure of Jesus had shed much of its historical clothing, and put on mythical apparel. The evidence we have today about Jesus is imbued with supernatural action and happenstance. As such, they form a vital part of Jesus' myth, but—unless they be interpreted as parables, or perhaps as hyperbole inspired by more mundane circumstances—they cannot be accepted at face value as historical facts.

This book deals throughout with questions of belief and religious feeling. It does so from a historical, rational point of view. In other words, miracles and Divine Providence are never allowed to take part in the reasoning about causality. In fact, the possibility that Divine Providence even exists is practically ignored by the modern discipline of history. Once admitted, it would leave little or no room for any answer to the question, Why did things happen the way they did? other than, Thus God willed it. A theologian might turn my thesis around to postulate Alexander as an instrument of Divine Providence, and the peculiarities of his career and myth as means of praeparatio euangelica.⁶ I believe that such an argument can certainly be made, though not by me. The reader is invited to form her or his own opinion as to the more appropriate disciplinary prism through which to look at the evidence gathered in the following pages.

The second issue concerns the question of history and myth. Early in my graduate studies I read Lévi-strauss's famous article, The structural study of Myth.⁷ While I have never considered myself a structuralist, nor ever taken Lévi-strauss's advice for a card system, I became thoroughly convinced of the usefulness of his gross constituent units. According to this notion, the meaning of a myth lies not only in its telling as a whole (which may certainly tell us a lot about the people who tell it and the context in which they live), but also in the various units, or building blocks, which form it. By looking at these gross constituent units, we are able to open the discussion to new questions. For example, Lévi-strauss's analysis of the Oedipus myth gives rise to a discussion about the meaning of foot deformities. In other words, the structuralist approach enables us to think about a deeper meaning of myth, outside both its framework and its immediate context. Another principle I learned from this article is that a myth, any myth, is alive as long as it is told. Myths are thus not merely stories, but stories which have a story of their own. They are almost like living beings.

The notion of myth as an organic entity has often occupied my thoughts during the research and writing of this book. On one hand, going over the evidence again and again I was strengthened in the idea that myths have lives, even interests, of their own. On the other, such thoughts as I had on the subject quickly deteriorated to simple reification, or worse, to mysticism. I thus continued to work without a clearly defined methodology, examining the evidence in the sources on a case by case basis.

Only during the second revision of the manuscript did I come across the concept of meme (rhymes with ‘cream’), coined originally by Dawkins and expanded since.⁸ In a nutshell, a meme is an idea or a form of behavior which can be copied through imitation—replicated, in the language of memetics—from one brain to another. A meme is to the world of culture what the gene is to biological evolution. When applied to the study of myth, it is not dissimilar to Lévi-strauss's gross constituent unit. The improvement of memetics over Lévi-strauss comes through the introduction of a model for cultural evolution, which provides a positive method for engaging with the paradox of myth as a living entity. In Dawkins's own words: We must not think of genes as conscious, purposeful agents. Blind natural selection, however, makes them behave rather as if they were purposeful, and it has been convenient, as a shorthand, to refer to genes in the language of purpose, for example, when we say ‘genes are trying to increase their numbers in future gene pools,' what we really mean is ‘those genes that behave in such a way as to increase their number in future gene pools tend to be the genes whose effects we see in the world.'⁹ Instead of gene, read meme, or even myth.

The application of meme theory to the study of myth has some manifest advantages. First and foremost, it gives us a way to relate to the evolution of myths, by applying the principle of natural selection. such an approach comes in handy when one addresses the phenomenon of evolutionary syncretism. Why has Isis become the emblem of Egyptian female divinity, while Hathor is familiar mostly to Egyptologists? Why is Jesus worshipped ecumenically while Herakles is confined to Greek mythology and sol Invictus to academic libraries?Looking at these questions from the meme's-eye view we try to figure out, not why the worshippers of some particular characters outdid the worshippers of other particular characters, but rather what are the traits (memes) of any particular figure (memeplex) which allowed it to replicate faster, spread farther and survive longer. In memetic terms, the thesis of this book is that the Jesus memeplex replicated a great many memes adopted and developed first by Alexander the living person, and after his death by the mythical memeplex which he had created. The popularity and success of Alexander thus furthered the popularity and success of Jesus. Eventually, each memeplex found a separate niche—Jesus in the fields of faith and religion, Alexander in the fields of history and myth.

Obviously, the theory of memetics still requires a great deal of thinking and tinkering. since I have become acquainted with it at such a late stage of my work, I decline to take up the challenge in this book. Accordingly, I have used memetic (and structuralist) language sparingly.

The final methodological point concerns typography. The reader of this work will notice an unwonted use of capital letters, referring most often to Royalty and Divinity as objects of special reverence. I have used these wherever I felt that they would have been used by people in antiquity, had they written Queen's English. The use of capital letters is, therefore, a means of articulating judgment.

The first half of the book deals with the special relation between Alexander and his mythical ancestral Hero—Herakles. By the very circumstances of his birth as heir to the Royal Argead family, Alexander was conceived as a direct descendant of Herakles. This connection is evident in the earliest stages of Alexander's career, and remained paramount throughout his life. The first three chapters of this book trace Alexander's self-relation to Herakles, in chronological and geographical order, from his birth to the Revelation at siwah (chapter 1); in the mountains and on the steppes of central Asia (chapter 2); and in India (chapter 3). My argument is that Alexander lived his entire life in emulation, competition, even self-identification with his ancestral Hero.

Chapter 4 deals with some topics from Alexander's lifetime which cannot be dated accurately, but mostly with the various interactions of Alexander's memory with the myth of Herakles in the centuries after his death. My argument here is that the myths of these two characters exerted a strong influence on one another, creating a sort of symbiosis. This relation between the two myth cycles thus mirrors the process of emulation and identification of the living Alexander with Herakles.

The association of Alexander and Herakles is crucial for a number of reasons. Firstly, the emulation of and competition with Herakles helped Alexander navigate his own way from humanity to Divinity. This transition, extraordinary in the Greek world before Alexander, became quite fashionable after him. Secondly, the myth of Alexander (spawned in his lifetime and developed after his death) replicated from the Herakles cycle a number of crucial motifs, such as Divine sonship, double paternity, a world Mission on behalf of humanity, and finally Divinization (apotheosis). All these motifs form an essential part also of the myth of Jesus.

In chapter 5 I treat a unique episode, the story of Alexander's meeting with the Amazon Queen. The importance of this story is twofold: first, it is a myth created already in Alexander's lifetime, providing yet another example of the creative mythmaking that accompanied his journey. second, it testifies that the vision of a harmonized world, one where Greeks and Barbarians could live in harmony and close cooperation, was indeed at one point on Alexander's mind. The significance of this notion is especially evident in comparison with the conventional Amazonian adventures of Greek Heroes (among them Herakles and Achilles, both ancestors of Alexander). Here the approach to the ultimate other is amiable rather than hostile, and sexual relations are aimed not at domination but rather at procreation. such a vision of Alexander could be seen as a prelude to the kind of idealized Alexander envisioned by later interpreters, from Plutarch to Tarn (who, ironically, dismissed the story as scurrilous gossip).

Chapter 6 traces the fate of Alexander's self-created mythical identity as a supernatural figure in the first generation after his death. As is well known, Alexander's vision of the united world empire died a slow and vicious death at the hands of the Successors. On the other hand, the notion of a self-Divinized monarch, deriving a sense of legitimacy both from an active cult and from a lively mythology, proved much more useful, and had a much longer life span. In this chapter I trace those of the Successors' actions that helped entrench Alexander's status as a superhuman, and established the pattern whereby a man could become a God.

In chapter 7 I explore three different and independent manifestations of Alexander in Jewish eschatological thought. One outstanding phenomenon is common to all three contexts: Alexander is situated at the very beginning of a new era, perceived as the last stage of history before the onset of the End of Days. We thus see that Alexander was understood in various strands of second temple and rabbinic Judaism as a necessary step on the road to the advent of the Messiah. such a position allows us to ask the question whether, and to what degree, the myth of Alexander could also influence the theology and mythology of the One who is to come.

The concluding chapter 8 features three parts. In the first I ask how it was possible for monotheistic mythology to give birth to a Son of God. The proposed answer is that Alexander's historical role as the paragon of apotheosis, coupled with his positive reception in wide circles within the Jewish world of antiquity and with his penultimate position in contemporary eschatology, could help prepare the way, at least for some people, for the acceptance by Jews of the Divine Sonship principle. In the second part I compare the myths of Alexander and Jesus, noting both the inherent similarities between them, and the comparable usage to which they are put by others. Other characters are invoked in order to demonstrate how different myths share key gross constituent units, or memes, which create a close affinity between them. Most notable among these is Herakles, whose own Divine Sonship, double paternity, world Mission and eventual apotheosis are so reminiscent of Jesus that some modern scholars have looked to his myth as a possible model for early Christian mythographers. Any admirer of Alexander, Herakles, or any of the other Divinities and Heroes who shared the same qualities, would thus find the myth of Jesus perfectly palatable, even natural. Finally, I stress the one criterion which distinguishes Alexander as a unique role model for Jesus—his historical humanity. All other figures who fall into the same category, sharing the stories of Divine sonship, double paternity and a transition from the human to the Divine, are all purely mythical. Alexander, on the other hand, was a flesh-and-blood character who broke the barrier between humanity and Divinity. He is thus a unique forerunner of Christ.

1

Son of Man, Son of God

HERITAGE AND CHILDHOOD

Herakles begat Hyllos; Hyllos begat Kleadates and he Aristomachos; Aristomachos begat Temenos, who ruled in Argos.¹ Three of the descendants of Temenos went from Argos as exiles; the youngest of these, Perdikkas, became the ruler of the Macedonians. Perdikkas begat Argaios, Argaios Philippos and Philippos Aeropos; his son was Alketes and his Amyntas. Amyntas begat Alexander, who ran the stadion in Olympia and was recognized as a Greek from Argos by the Hellenodikai—the official referees of the ancient Olympic games.² This Alexander bore Amyntas and he Arrhidaios and he Amyntas, who was King.³ His son was Philippos, who subdued all of Hellas. His son was Alexander. Or so might a Macedonian serving under Alexander relate the essential history of his Royal House.⁴

A fan of Euripides—there were many in the Macedonian court, not least of them Alexander⁵—might tell a different story: Archelaos, a son of Temenos, had been exiled from Argos by his brothers. Having fled to Thrace, he won renown as a warrior, but also aroused the suspicion of the local king, who attempted to kill him off. Archelaos managed to slay the king and was once more forced to flee. Inspired by Apollo and led by a goat, he arrived in Macedonia and founded its ancient capital—Aigai (Goatville).⁶

The connection of the Macedonian Royal House with Herakles was no trifle. The story of King Alexander (‘the first,' as he is known to modern historians) is proof enough. His ability to produce a lineage going all the way to Herakles (or perhaps to Temenos; Herodotus does not say) made him eligible to compete in the Olympic games. Proven Heraklid descent was the ultimate answer to the all-important question, Who is a Greek? From the Greek perspective, shared by both the Olympic judges and the Macedonian King, their recognition had transformed him from barbarian to Greek.

Heroic ancestry was serious business. One might consider Herodotus's introduction of the leaders of the Greek navy that assembled in Aigina in the spring of 480: Their general and admiral was Leutychides son of Menares, who traced his lineage from son to father through Hegesilaos, Hippokratides, Leutychides, Anaxilaos, Archidemos, Anaxandrides, Theopompos, Nikandros, Charilaos, Eunomos, Polydektes, Prytanis, Euryphron, Prokles, Aristodemos, Aristomachos, Kleodaios, to Hyllos who was the son of Herakles. […] The general of the Athenians was Xanthippos son of Ariphron (8.131). surely, the Athenian would have loved to tout a long list of names planted deep in Heroic times, had he had one.⁷

Myth played an important role in mapping out political relationships. In his address to Philippos published in 346 B.C., ten years before Alexander's accession, Isokrates made good use of the Heraklid origin of the Macedonian kings.⁸ After a longish introduction, Isokrates suggests that Philippos take upon himself the mission of reconciling Argos, sparta, Thebes and Athens. This daunting diplomatic task ought to be facilitated by the traditional good relations between these cities and the Macedonian ruling house. Mythical reference to Herakles plays a crucial role in Isokrates' mental framework of Greek diplomacy: the Thebans honor Herakles with parades and sacrifices above all other Gods; the Lakedaimonians have given the kingship to his descendants; the Athenians helped him win immortality and protected his children.⁹ According to Isokrates the connection between Herakles and the three cities—belonging entirely to the realm of myth—ought to set an example for present-day Heraklid policies. In fact, Isokrates does not even refer to these stories as myths. For him they are simply ancient history.¹⁰

Nor is this mere rhetorical flourish; Herakles is present throughout Isokrates' presentation. For example, when he saw Hellas torn by wars, stasis (extreme civil unrest) and other evils, Herakles put a stop to all of that and reconciled the cities. With the power of the united Greeks behind him, he managed to capture Troy and become master of the Aegean. Herakles had shown "with whom and against whom