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St. Hippolytus Commentary On the Song of Songs:A Mystagogical Transformation of Domestic Art

On the Song of Songs features an extended peroration on baptismal anointing (In Cant. 2.1-35) and a call to receive the anointing that is most likely timed for the Easter season and post-baptismal.[footnoteRef:1] Toward the end of the commentary Hippolytus exhorts his hearers to bold witness in professing Christianity in face of persecution, with a seal on the forehead (19:2-3). Peroration on the leaping lover as the Logos (referring to incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection) (20.1-22.10). [1: See Johnson, Rites of Christian Initiation, 86-88. For North Africa, Tertullian, Bapt. 8. With this may be contrasted the early eastern practice, the history of which has been elaborated in Sebastian P. Brock, Studies in the Early History of the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy, JTS 23 (1972): 16-64; idem, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (Gorgias Press Studies 4; Piscataway, N.J.: 1979); Gabriele Winkler, The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing an Its Implications, in Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation (ed. Maxwell E. Johnson; Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1995), 58-81; Dominic E. Serra, Syrian Prebaptismal Anointing and Western Postbaptismal Chrismation, Worship 79 (2005): 328-41; Paul F. Bradshaw, Diem Baptismo Sollemniorem: Initiation and Easter in Christian Antiquity, in Eulogma: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft, S. J. (ed. E. Carr et al.; Rome: 1993), 41-51; Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries (2nd, ed.; Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier Books, 1994), 263-6.]

The conferring, not of the Spirit, but of the anointing of the Logos upon the newly baptized is particularly associated with post-baptismal anointing (In Cant. 2.2, 5).[footnoteRef:2] In effect, such a practice domesticates baptism, originally practiced by unmarried male ascetics like John the Baptist in the desert of the eastern empire, by bringing it into the interpretive framework of the celebratory household meal. Such a patteren embodied in the domestic sphere is already discernible in Acts 16:25-34. [2: Johnson, Rites of Christian Initiation, 87.]

Baptism and anointing thus become preparations for entry into the circle of those who commune at table: like the normal routine of women and men who prepare themselves for a banquet by visiting the public baths. As anointing rituals developed, eastern pre-baptismal anointing was not at first for the purpose of exorcism. It appears to have been Christic, growing out of an imitation of the royal anointing of Jesus by the Holy Spirit as King and Son of God, with no necessary connection to a meal time.[footnoteRef:3] Egyptian pre-baptismal anointing was exorcistic from the beginning.[footnoteRef:4] Didache 9.5 shows how quickly royal baptism moved into the domestic, meal-time sphere.[footnoteRef:5] In On the Song of Songs 2.8, Hippolytus indicates that Jesus reception of the Spirit in his baptism purified the waters of baptism and gathered the Church. [The Spirit] was sent down over the waters and it purified the waters.[footnoteRef:6] It was spread out to the Gentiles, and it congregated the Gentiles. It was spread out over Israel, nevertheless those who were disobedient did not accept the aroma. Now the mystery has been poured among Israel and the Gentiles came together who believed it (In Cant. 2.7). So for Hippolytus baptism itself brought the believer into the experience of the Spirit through the water. However, the Christic anointing after baptism was an anointing with the Logos and it brought the believer into the embodied experience of sharing the Logos incarnated through very physical media: the fragrances of spices, the kisses, the sensations and the banqueting associated with receiving the Logos. [3: Ibid. In comparison with the Syrian (and possibly Egyptian) tradition comes the most obvious distinction in rite and interpretation between early Eastern and Western Christianity. While in the Syrian East . . . the Holy Spirit was associated with the prebaptismal anointing as the great rushma or sign of ones baptismal assimilation by the Spirit to the Messiah-Christ, . . . in North Africa the prebaptismal and baptismal rites themselves are viewed as rites of purification and cleansing in preparation for the postbaptismal blessing or gift of the Holy Spirit.] [4: Michael Zheltov, The Anaphora and the Thanksgiving Prayer From the Barcelona Papyrus: An Underestimated Testimony to the Anaphoral History in the Fourth Century, VC 62 (2008): 467-504. See the convincing arguments on this in the recent work on the Barcelona papyrus in Alistair C. Stewart, ed. Two early Egyptian Liturgical Papyri: the Deir Balyzeh Papyrus and the Barcelona Papyrus with Appendices Containing Comparative Material (Joint Liturgical Series: Hymns Ancient and Modern 70. Norwich, England: Alcuin Club, 2010), 1-58. ] [5: , (Did. 9.5). Let no one eat nor drink from your Eucharist[ic] feast, except those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord. For indeed concerning this the Lord has spoken, Do not give what is holy to the dogs.] [6: The reference to the Spirit descending over the water to purify possibly echoes the variant reading represented in the Gos. Eb. , and immediately a great light shone around the place (according to Epiphanius, Pan. 30.13), also known to Justin (Dial. Tryph. 88.3) , and a fire was kindled in the Jordan. Witnesses to the Diatessaron also preserve a similar reading. Cf. the Old Latin tradition, viz., a, g1 (sixth century), et cum baptizaretur [Iesus], lumen magnum fulgebat de aqua, ita ut timerant omnes qui congregati erant. And when Jesus was being baptized a great light flashed from the water, so that all who had gathered there were afraid. See, William L. Petersen, Tatians Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship (SupVC 25; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 14-6. More likely it refers to anointing oil poured on the water, as in Cyril, Procatechesis, 15 the waters of baptism . Cf. idem, Mystagogical Catacheses 3.1.9-10 .]

The powerful liturgy and rituals instigated by Hippolytus did not emerge out of thin air. Rather, such a Christic anointing represents first a transfer of eastern Christic pre-baptism anointing to a post-baptismal anointing. These rituals may appear to represent a counter to nuptial liturgies competing with baptism among certain Valentinian groups. One hundred sixty years later Ambrose of Milan made use of the Song in his mystagogical teaching perpetuating earlier western traditions[footnoteRef:7] and Cyril of Jerusalem adapted the same for his eastern audience, also making use of the Song of Songs in baptismal instruction. In the West, Ambrose clearly used Hippolytus the exegetes On the Song of Songs as an important source for his Commentary on Psalm 118, a series of sermons on the Christian ethical life for recent converts. [7: Ambrose, De Sacr., 5.5, 6 (Botte 122).]

Hippolytus On the Song of Songs has some remarkable contributions to make in the early history of Christian liturgical and trinitaria development. This paper centers on a few examples of how the commentaries theological message interacts with the the pagan imaginary of new converts to give them eyes to see the new creation of the Divine Logos emerging from within the very pagan world that surrounded them. While it was most likely written in the early decades of the third century, it enshrines theological developments from the second, as a comparison with certain aspects of Clement of Alexandrias Protrepticus will show. The Greek original of the commentary is lost, but it survives in a Georgian translation from the ninth century that in turn was based on a lost Armenian Vorlage. The commentary is preserved in two manuscripts from the tenth and twelfth or thirteenth centuries. A Greek paraphrase composed in the seventh cenutury preserved in a thirteenth century manuscript along with Armenian, a few Syriac fragments and some Paleo-Slavonic florilegia provide additional witnesses to the text.[footnoteRef:8] [8: See G. Nathanael Bonwetsch, Hipppolyts Kommentar zum Hohenlied auf Grund von N. Marrs Ausgabe des grusinischen Textes (TUGAL n.F. 8/2; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902), 17; Marcel Richard, Une paraphrase grecque rsume du commentaire dHippolyte sur le Cantique des cantiques, Mus 77 (1964): 13740; Grard Garitte, Traits dHippolyte sur David et Goliath, sur le Cantique des cantiques et sur lAntchrist: Version gorgienne (2 vols.; CSCO 263, 264; Louvain: CSCO, 1965), 2:iiv; for translation and introductory studies see Yancy Smith, Mystery of Anointing: Hippolytus Commentary on the Song of Songs in Social and Critical Contexts, forthcoming from Gorgias Press. ]

I have argued elsewhere that Hippolytus Commentary on the Song of Songs is a early Roman mystagogya speech intended to amplify and contextualize the meaning of the mystery of the rite of anointing by the Logos for newly baptized Christians.[footnoteRef:9] Clement of Alexandria, in some passing references to the mysteries of the Logos in closing paragraphs of his Protrepticus expresses a sentiment that summarizes the approach of Hippolytus: [9: See Yancy W. Smith, Womens Ordination in Hippolytus Commentary on the Song of Songs, and the Question of Provenance, in Finding a Womans Place: Essays in Honor of Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J. (eds. David L. Balch and Jason T. Lamoreaux; Princeton Theological Monograph. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011).]

Come, you who are too drunk to stand up, dont come steadied by your Dionysiac club, dont come decked out with ivy or with your head-dress and leave off your fawn-skin costume. Come sober! I will show you the Logos, and the mysteries of the Logos, and I will explain the mysteries in images familiar to you ( ... ).[footnoteRef:10] [10: , , , , , , : , .Miguel Herrero de Juregui, The Protrepticus of Clement of Alexandria: A Commentary (Phd. diss. Universidad del Alma Mater, Bolonia, Spain, 2008) favors the translation to follow your image. Here I follow Hugo Rahner, The Christian Mystery and the Pagan Mysteries, in The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks (vol. 2; trans. Ralph Manheim; New York: Pantheon Books, 1955), 337.]

Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 12.119.1[footnoteRef:11] [11: Cf. tr. G. W. Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria (LCL; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 255.]

While Clement invites his polytheistic friends to leave the rowdy worship of their god to receive anointing by the Logos (Butterworth, 259), Hippolytus commentary provides, after a fashion, a liturgical substitute Christian experience in series of panegyrics focussed on the mystery of anointing. Both Hippolytus and Clement explain the mysteries in images familiar to their polytheisitc audience. That is, they both present a gospel message through images of feasting men and women, and women declaring mysteries, prophets declaring the mysteries, images of healing, and the defeat of death, marking with a seal. Both also refer to the image of the Logos as the charioteer gathering mankind into his team of horses (for Clement, see Butterworth, 255-59). In both cases the references to Dionysiac iconography is fairly transparent. Such paralells raise the possibility that either Hippolytus commentary exhibits literary dependence on the Protrepticus or they both depend upon similar initiatory and perhaps even mystagogical liturgical traditions. The later is far more likely, for Clement prescribes a wineless initiatory experience for his would-be polytheist initiates (Butterworth, 255) while Hippolytus explains that Christ himself mixes wine for their feast, but prescribes moderation. In commenting on the LXX phrase I have loved your breasts more than wine Hippolytus trips over himself distinguishing the nourishing milk of Christs breaststhat for him symbolize commandments in both the Old and New Testamentsfrom wine. Nevertheless, Hippolytus does not rule out the use of wine. The commentary reads:In CantPaleo-Slavic

3.3 I have loved your breasts more than wine.[footnoteRef:12] Not that [wine] that is mixed by Christ, but the [wine] that of old made Noah slow witted by intoxication, and which deceived Lot, more than this wine do we love your fountains of milk, for the breasts through Christ were the two commandments. It makes one joyful, but not in order to make one confused. Indeed (lit. also) for this very reason the apostle says, Do not be drinking too much wine to the point of intoxication.[footnoteRef:13] [12: Song 1:2, 4 .] [13: The reading of Eph 5:18 in the Georgian NT textual tradition closely follows the Greek . In Cant., however, resembles more closely Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.2.28 ; Const. ap. 8:44, and Tobit 4:15, , than Eph 5:18 in either Greek or Georgian text traditions. Ambrose, depending upon In Cant., has a similar text at, Exp. Ps. 118, 2.7 (CSEL 62, 23.14-17), diligamus ubera tua super uinum, sic tamen bibens, ut non absorberetur uino, sed gratia eius laetituam cordis hauiret, non corporis ebrietate titubaret. We love your breasts better than wine, however, means drinking in such a way as not to guzzle wine, but that by his grace one might imbibe joy of heart, and not drink to drunkenness of the body.]

3.3 We love your breasts more than wine not speaking of [wine] taken from Christ, but wine that led to the drunkenness of [...] Noah and into the trap that lured Lot. About this wine, do we love your breasts? Yes the breasts of Christ are both Testaments, making believers sober. Therefore the voice of the apostle speaks: Drink wine, but that do not drink wine to excess.

For the moment we will leave aside the interesting paralell between familiar images of the androgynous Dionysus and the very androgynous image of Christ in this passage. Important here is to note that Hippolytus comment clearly depends upon a reading of the Song of Songs but also depends upon a tradition of Christian banqueting practice. I suggest the commentary functioned as an oral performance in such a context. Such banquets were not exclusively practiced in the domestic sphere. Indeed Clement refers to a banquet in the , meaning either out of doors or in the mountain. Nevertheless the rich imagery Hippolytus uses in On the Song of Song recalls the breadth of imagery found on the walls and mozaic floors of Greco-Roman domestic spaces from the hanging houses of Ephesus to Rome to the Campanian cities of Pompei and Herculaneaum and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. The practice of drawing upon visual representations in the service of oral rhetoric known as ekphrasis was a common divice to build rapport with an audience. Even a cursory reading of the commentary reveals an abundance of the use of this divice. Indeed, the powerful scripts of the Greco-Roman social imaginary expressed in the themes of domestic art appear to form many of the topoi or points of contact between Hippolytus scriptural exposition of the Song of Songs and his audience. It is just as Clement said, I will explain the mysteries in images familiar to you. In the final peroration of the commentary (In Cant. 27.1-10) on Song of Songs 3:7-8 Hippolytus interprets the bier of Solomon as a banqueting couch (in the Greek paraphrase, a ). But his interpretation switches between singular and plural couch and couches. The singular couch represents Christ and is a place of rest, healing and resurrection. But the image is also plural O the good places of rest! By the type of mystery capable of congregating everyone! (27.2). And the scene of couches also clearly evokes the scene of a banquet, See these marvelous couches[footnoteRef:14], for all who see [them] are called to the righteous nuptials, tasting the water become wine (In Cant. 27.6). Abundant examples of domestic and funerary representations of banqueters in groups and as individuals indicates the central importance artistic representations of banqueting the formation of identityrepresenting the ideal of the good life or even, as in the commentary, the hope of bliss in an afterlife. Hippolytus transformation of this cultural icon into an image of the Logos playfully associates Christ with both the joy of life and the afterlife. [14: Garitte translates marvelous couch, despite the plural in the Georgian text of In Cant. 27.6.]

From Dioscuri to Peter and Paul?Another example at this juncture may help to explain what attention to the gaze of the text, or the visual register of the text might reveal. In Cant. 8.8 calls upon the synagogue to repent and turn to Christ, holding up Peter and Paul as examples of the effect Jews who turn to Christ might have in the world. Hippolytus frames the mention of Peter and Paul in fraternal unity and mission. They are an example for Jews who would believe and represent for the rest of the world the fruitfulness of concordia apostolorum, a central theme of In Cant. 8. Hippolytus describes Peter as like a shepherd and Paul as swift like a steed. From early times Peter and Paul were venerated together in Rome,[footnoteRef:15] because of the early tradition that they were martyred there. [15: Margherita Guarducci, The Tomb of St. Peter: The New Discoveries in the Sacred Grottoes of the Vatican (London: Harrap and Co., 1960). Cited: 08/09/2012. Online: http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/ MG/TheTombofStPeter-9.htm#fig48.]

Hippolytus initiated Christian audience would have been disposed to see Paul and Peter as great martyrs and examples of Christian mission in service of the Lord Jesus. At the same time, they perhaps they would have seen in their own presbyter-bishop one like Peter (or Paul) and the other apostles who were without a shepherd in a positive light. Still, he describes Peter as like a shepherd (8.9). Perhaps this intriguing reference points to the developing church polity in Rome as Roman churches moved toward the monarchy of a bishop? Attention to the gaze of the text pushes us to ask why Peter and Paul should make an appearance in the commentary at all? A third century medallion with faces of both apostles discovered in the cemetery of Domitilla comemorates the veneration (See image on hand out) of the apostles provides an answer to this question. The third-century interpretation of the Song gratuituously features Peter and Paul and may very well be a reference to Christian visual culture, either Roman or Italian.[footnoteRef:16] Scholars commonly accept that depicton of the meeting of Paul and Peter in the basicila of St. Pauls Outside the Walls in Rome is the first appearance of this iconography. However, my reading of Hippolytus suggests that these images perhaps had a pre-history obsured by the destructive ravages of persecution and urban renewal. Whether or not that pre-history was represented in artistic representations in Rome at Hippolytus time, the text of his commentary alludes to the textual prehistory of this tradition. Nevertheless, the prehistory goes back, I suggest, to pre-Christian iconography, as a transforming replacement. Representations of Peter and Paul together in this text and in visual culture seem to depend upon the popular image of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux refracted through the Christian tradition and the text of the commentary of On the Song of Songs.[footnoteRef:17] While representations of Castor and Pollux are ubiquitous as figures in Greco-Roman figural art, the interpretation of Peter and Paul in a manner reminiscent of the Dioscuri is distinctly Roman.[footnoteRef:18] [16: See Pascuale Testini, LIconografia Degli Apostoli Pietro E Paolo Nelle Cosidette Arte Minori, in Saecularia Petri Et Pauli (Studi Di Antichit Cristiana 28; Vatican City: 1969), 241-323, and Herbert L. Kessler, The Meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome: An Emblematic Narrative of Spiritual Brotherhood, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 265-75, who traces origin of the images to the fourth or fifth century. ] [17: The brother gods, the Dioscuri, were often related to Dionysus in iconography.] [18: See, Christine Kondoleon, Domestic and Divine: Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos (New York: Cornell University Press, 1995), 227. The link between Dionysus and the Dioscuri is a tenacious one in the Greco-Roman world. See the image on page ? , Figure 6, which features a second-century BC marble funerary representation (Height: 63.5 cm [25 in]. Width: 40.5 cm [15.9 in]) from Thessaly of the Dioscuri at a banquet. The inscription reads: [] []. To the Great Gods, Danaa daughter of Aphtonetos (Atthoneiteia). From Larissa, Thessalia, 1861, excavated during the archaeological mission of Henri Daumet and Lon Heuzey; no accession number, 1863. In the upper tier the Dioscuri as riders wearing a short chiton and a chlamys, galloping above a winged Victory; lower tier: banqueting couch (), rectangular table with cakes and altar with a man laying an offering and a woman raising an object towards the sky. And the commentary engages and blends their divine traits. The relationship between the divine figures is not obvious either from literary or visual sources. Kondoleon, however, argues that the Calibridivine overseers of grape harvestwere worshipped along with Dionysus and confused with the Dioscuri. Thus, for example the Dioscuri are seen in a Paphian mosaic overseeing a great vine harvest.]

The mention of Peter and Paul, then, is deeply evocative for the audience, a case of indirect reference to powerful cultural symbols. The appearance of Peter and Paul on the funerary medallion from the tomb of Domilla points to their use as garauntors of the resurrection, symbols of martyrdom.The Transformation of Helios into ChristThe chariot itself is also decorated with the image of four living creatures: a lion, an ox or perhaps a vine,[footnoteRef:19] an eagle, and a human being. The chariot pulled by these creatures remind of the reference in the ancient fourth-century anaphora in the Barcelona papyrus, [Jesus Christ] who sits on the chariot, Cherubim and Seraphim before it.[footnoteRef:20] Each of these represent the four evangelists (8.6). The apostles are both a yoke of twelve, and yet four.[footnoteRef:21] On profile, one sees a wheel within a wheel which represents the Old and New Testaments, according to Hippolytus (8.6).[footnoteRef:22] [19: So the Paleo-Slavic florilegium, which has ox. The Georgian text has the shoot as the vine of a high priest, that could be based upon a misunderstanding of the Greek text of Hippolytus the exegete. An original reading might account for both the Georgian and Paleo-Slavic readings. Paleo-Slavic dropped while the Georgian text lost or dropped and tried to make sense of the resulting text by interpreting as vine-shoot. On the other hand, the image of the vine was common in early Christian iconography as a symbol of Messiah and church (perhaps echoing passages like Jn 10; Is 27:3-6).] [20: Zheltov, Barcelona Papyrus, 488. The Ur-text of the anaphora Zheltov rightly argues dates from the third century.] [21: The Georgian text consistently makes the apostles twelve; Paleo-Slavic only gives their number as four, and Ambrose gives their number as both twelve and four: o bonourm equorum duodecauigum mirabile, et sine offensione currebant, quia bona uita equorum quadrabat, currebant igitur equi, quia non dormiebat que ascenderat equos. Ambrose here is likely nearer the original text. ] [22: The marvelous Spirit inhabits both the wheels and the living creatures, a symbol of biblical inspiration.]

Christ is the charioteer, a righteous one (8.8). Hippolytus emphasizes the unity of the horses and the world-wide scope of their mission. The image is complex and composite. It is ostensibly drawn by Hippolytus from Ezekiel 1 and 10 (yet that vision has no horses!). The image has elements of the chariot of the sun in Psalm 19representing the order or law of nature, analogous to the written Torahand that of Ezekiel carried by four living creatures, the chariot of Helios carried by four horses, and the chariot of Dionysus, pulled by a panther, a bull and a griffin.[footnoteRef:23] However, Hippolytus emphatically connects this image to the synagogue (In Cant. 8.1, 8) and uses the image as the basis of an appeal for the synagogue to repent and join Christ in his mission. Thus it seems possible that Hippolytus is giving a Christian interpretation of a Jewish image, which in turn is taken from polytheistic mythical images.[footnoteRef:24] Yet Clement of Alexandria also referred to this same image in his Protrepticus 11 with no apparent connection at all to Judaism: [23: Cf. the famous fourth century mosaic image of Christ-Helios in the dome of the Mosauleum M (of the Julii) of the Vatican Necropolis. See the discussion of the image in Jensen, Face to Face, 147-8. The image of the four horses drawing a chariot with Helios as the driver was a pervasive, living image in the late antique world, promoted by church, synagogue and empire with differing interpretations. See Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 572-75. The chariot of Dionysus is known in various forms, see vase paintings from the Pasithea Painter, K12, 8 the Chariot of Dionysos, Louvre NMB 1036 (400 - 390 BC): Beazley Archive Number 230398, Cited 08-21-2008. Online: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K12.8.html.] [24: See Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 89-91, 197-8. The fourth century synagogue in Hammath Tiberius depicts the zodiac and Helios chariot with charioteer, as do others. No images of this type survive from the third century. Hippolytus the exegetes In Cant. is good indirect testimony that such images were employed as early as the second/third century. ]

For the Sun of Righteousness, who drives his chariot over all, pervades equally all humanity, like his Father, who makes his sun to rise on all men, and distills on them the dew of the truth. He has changed sunset into sunrise, and through the cross brought death to life; and having wrenched man from destruction, he hath raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating earth to heavenhe, the husbandman of God. Pointing out the favorable signs and rousing the nations to good works, putting them in mind of the true sustenance.[footnoteRef:25] [25: ANF 2.203, Clement cites Aratus, Phaen. 1.7 , , ' , , Arati, Phaenomena: Fragmentum (e codicibus) (ed. J. Martin; Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1956), 2.]

Clements charioteer is also reminiscent of the god Apollo-Dionysus.[footnoteRef:26] Interestingly, as Hippolytus, so also Clement equates the solar charioteer image of Christ with the Logos, which supports the notion that the Helios-chariot image as Logos is a topos within the tradition of Logos christology. What is more, Clement also points out that Logos-Christ transcends gender.[footnoteRef:27] He represents a new , that transcends the categories of male and female: [26: Other references in Clement show a deliberate tendency to interpret Christian initiation in the terms of Hellenistic mystery religion: Clement of Alexandria, Prot. 12 (ANF 2.205, Greek text in GCS 12, 1:84, 23. Online: Clement, Clemens Alexandrinus, GCS 12.1 [1905]. Cited 10-16-2008. Online: http://books.google.com/books.; PG 8.241A). See Lampe, Seal of the Spirit, 10.] [27: But see Johannes N. Vorster, Androgyny and Early Christianity, RT 15 (2008): 97-132.]

And the one whole Christ is not divided: There is neither barbarian, nor Jew, nor Greek, neither male nor female, but a new (new man/new human) transformed by Gods Holy Spirit. Further, the other counsels and precepts are unimportant, and respect particular things,as, for example, if one may marry, take part in public affairs, beget children; but the only command that is universal, and over the whole course of existence, at all times and in all circumstances, tends to the highest end, that is, life, is piety,all that is necessary, in order that we may live for ever, being that we live in accordance with it. (Prot. 11).[footnoteRef:28] [28: , , , , . ' , , , , , , , , ]

The Androgynous ChristThe Christian use of graphic representations of Christ with androgynous, Dionysiac or Apollonian characteristics has been long documented.[footnoteRef:29] Christ appears in representations with protruding breasts and long, curly hair in images of fourth and fifth century iconography, leading some scholars to think such representations were depictions of women in some cases.[footnoteRef:30] Irenaeus, reports that such images were used by at least one type of Christian group in Rome from the late second century at the latest.[footnoteRef:31] Some scholars have suggested that this type of image emerged in heterodox circles.[footnoteRef:32] Nevertheless, as Clement of Alexandria illustrates, the image of the androgyne had a an honored place in Christian teaching appears as an important symbol, both of the gentleness of Christ as teacher, as previously seen, and of the restoration of original humanity in Christ, beginning with Paul and the Pauline churches (Gal 3:25-27).[footnoteRef:33] [29: On the secondary literature, especially see especially Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, 202, n. 52; Michael Jameson, The Asexuality of Dionysus, Masks of Dionysus (ed. Thomas H. Carpenter and Christopher A. Faraone; Myth and Poetics; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 44-64. The historian Diodorus, in commenting on Dionysus ambiguous age and sex concludes that there were actually two Dionysi the one ancient and masculine with a long beard and the other appearing youthful and effeminate (Diodorus, Hist. 4.5.2; cp. Ovid, Met. 4.13.20; Seneca, Oed. 420).] [30: See Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, 117-25. ] [31: See Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church, 75, Plate 13, who suggests that a seated Christ-Serapis with long ringlets, feminine features, and seated in the posture of a teacher is a Carpocratian teacher. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.25.6 reports that Marcellina, a female teacher with some relation to Carpocrates, is said to have gone to Rome during the time of the presbyter-bishop Anicetus (155-160 AD). She and her followers apparently used images, including images of Christ, and gave them honor with ceremonies including garlanding. Irenaeus does not offer any description of these images.] [32: Thomas F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: a Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Rev. ed.; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 135-38.] [33: Wayne A. Meeks, The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity, HR 13 (1974): 167.]

Specifically here, as Jensen summarizes: Apollo and Dionysus iconographic types . . . share feminine attributes seen in . . . youthful Jesus images, including the round shoulders, small but obvious breasts, wide hips, and full cheeks of the nearly hermaphroditic figures described by Euripides, Ovid, Diodorus, and Seneca or portrayed in classical iconography.[footnoteRef:34] [34: Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, 125.]

As Jensen suggests, androgynous representations of Jesus were consistent with the portraiture of savior deities in the Hellenistic mystery cults.[footnoteRef:35] Hippolytus the exegetes depiction of Christ in such terms might represent his attempt at relevance for his audience. However, he was also likely borrowing from well-known iconography and hallowed philosophical and pastoral tradition. Such iconography in domestic contexts would have been an impressive link with the Songread in Greekto the newly baptized who had been religiously nurtured in paganism. Hippolytus made use of such images to co-opt the divine attributes of familiar deities and other cultural forms, transforming them into attributes of Christ and even of himself as a presbyter-bishop who represented Christ to the people. [35: Ibid.]

Some important preliminary conclusions can be drawn from Hippolytus the exegetes use of polytheistic motifs used in service of Christian mystagogy. The textual moves of Hippolytus represent an approach remarkably similar to the Christian application of motifs of visual culture in the representations of Christ that begin to appear in the third century.[footnoteRef:36] In On the Song of Songs Christ, described variously in terms of motifs belonging to Dionysus, Orpheus, Apollo, Helios, or Heracles are typical rhetorical moves of amplification used in the genre of encomium. Hippolytus praises Christ by a favorable comparison to the traits of god-men, divinities and philosophical figures. As Aristotle said, when praising someone, you must compare him with illustrious personages for it affords grounds for amplification and is noble, if he can be proved to be better than men of worth.[footnoteRef:37] Mutatis mutandis, the principle is true in praising divine figures as well. Hippolytus could be confident in making use of themes borrowed from mythological figures because of his certainty that the resurrected Christ was far superior to the gods.[footnoteRef:38] [36: Hippolytus the exegetes attitude of co-opting mythical attributes in his text in On the Song of Songs is similar in approach to the so-called statute of Hippolytus. Most interpretations agree that the statue was understood as a symbolic representation either of Logos-Sophia or of the community itself as the Roman Church, a representation, perhaps, of the queenly bride of Christ. The Guarducci-Brent posits that the statue began existence as the representation of a female Epicurean philosopher. Vinzent argues that it began existence as a representation of the Amazon Hippolyta.] [37: Aristotle, Rhet. 3.14.6; Cicero, Inv. 1.16.23; Quintilian, Inst. 4.15.] [38: In the same way, the community in Rome, under Hippolytan influence, could reinterpret a statue they knew had represented many cities of the East and in Rome represented Roma, its divine genius, because of a sense of confidence that, despite their ancestral origins in non-Roman peoples and places, they were Roman nonetheless and citizens of a New Jerusalem.]