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Galen and the Theodotians: Embryology and

Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome

Secord, Jared

Peeters Publishers

Secord, J. (2017). Galen and the Theodotians: Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian

Schools of Rome. "Studia Patristica", LXXXI, 51-63.

http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111164

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Galen and the Theodotians: Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome*

Jared Secord, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA

AbStrAct

This article disputes two common points made in previous interpretations of the claim that Galen was worshipped by the Theodotians, a group of Christians contemporary with him at Rome. First, the claim is a probable sign of the Theodotians’ interest in medical subjects, contrary to suggestions that they were only interested in Galen’s works on logic and philosophy. The Theodotians had good reason to be interested in the research of Galen and other doctors, particularly in the area of embryology, a topic that held an underappreciated significance in Christological debates of the second and third centuries. Second, there is no reason to believe that Galen had any personal connec-tion with the Theodotians, much less that he played a significant role in the development of their program of study, as has often been claimed. Galen had no patience for amateur scholars from non-elite backgrounds, and he would thus have had nothing to do with the banausic Theodotians, whose founder was a leather-worker by profession.

Introduction

Near the end of the fifth book of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, there is a fascinating hint that some Christians at Rome in the late second and early third century were familiar with the physician Galen, who was their exact contem-porary.1 The source for this hint is a work of uncertain authorship called the Little Labyrinth, which says that Galen ‘is almost worshipped by some of’ the Theodotians, a group of Adoptionist Christians named after their ostensible

* Abbreviations of ancient authors and texts follow the list given in Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (eds), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (Oxford, 2012). References to works from the Galenic corpus include information about the modern edition consulted, and the equivalent volume and page number from the older edition of Karl Gottlob Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1821-33). I also wish to express thanks to Greg Synder for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper; to Gregor Emmenegger for giving me a copy of his recent book; to Ellen Muehlberger for helpful advice about the Nag Hammadi literature; and to Heidi Marx-Wolf and Kristi Upson-Saia for the major efforts they have devoted to bringing together scholars interested in the overlapping fields of ancient medicine and religion.

1 For the life of Galen, see Véronique Boudon-Millot, Galien de Pergame: Un médecin grec à Rome (Paris, 2012); Susan P. Mattern, The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2013).

Studia Patristica LXXXI, 51-63.© Peeters Publishers, 2017.

52 J. Secord

founder, a certain Theodotus of Byzantium, who was a ‘leather-worker (σκυ-τεύς)’ by profession.2 This brief and enigmatic comment has attracted a great deal of attention, especially following the publication, in 1949, of Richard Walzer’s Galen on Jews and Christians, which collects the handful of refer-ences to Judaism and Christianity scattered throughout the massive Galenic corpus.3 Walzer’s discussion of the passage from the Little Labyrinth has proven to be quite influential. Many scholars have followed him in supposing that the Theodotians were familiar with Galen’s writings on logic and philoso-phy, rather than his works on medicine.4 Some scholars have even supported Walzer’s suggestion that the Theodotians may have known Galen, and that he offered them advice about how to make Christianity more intellectually rigor-ous.5 The Theodotians and their possible direct links with Galen thus provide seeming confirmation for Walzer’s claim that the great physician of Pergamum had a ‘fair and sympathetic’ perspective on Christianity, a claim that has been repeated in many later studies.6 My aim in this article is to challenge Walzer’s influential arguments, which misrepresent the likely intellectual interests of the Theodotians, and overstate the possibility that Galen would have had a positive outlook on them and other Christians. I have two claims to make. First, I shall

2 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.14. For the Little Labyrinth, see John T. Fitzgerald, ‘Eusebius and the Little Labyrinth’, in Abraham J. Malherbe, Frederick W. Norris and James W. Thompson (eds), The Early Church in its Context: Essays in Honor of Everett Ferguson, Supplements to NT 90 (Leiden, 1998), 120-46. For Theodotus’ profession, see Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.6, 9; Epiph., Adv. haeres. LIV 1.3.

3 Richard Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949).4 See R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 75-7, followed by Robert M. Grant, Heresy and Criticism:

The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian Literature (Louisville, 1993), 68-9; Ilaria Ramelli, ‘Galeno e i christiani: una messa a punto’, Invigilata Lucernis 25 (2003), 199-219, 204; Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser, ed. Marshall D. Johnson (Minneapolis, 2003), 347-8. The same argument had already been made before Walzer by Hermann Schöne: ‘Ein Einbruch der antiken Logik und Textkritik in die altchristliche Theologie’, in Franz Joseph Dölger, Theodor Klauser and Adolf Rücker (eds), Pisciculi: Studien zur Religion und Kultur des Altertums (Münster, 1939), 252-65, 260.

5 R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 77-9, with similar suggestions in R. Grant, Heresy and Criticism (1993), 60 (‘[Galen] may reflect contact with Jewish Christians, probably Adoptionists [sc. the Theodotians]’; Winrich A. Löhr, ‘Theodotus der Lederarbeiter und Theodotus der Bankier – ein Beitrag zur römischer Theologiegeschichte des zweiten und dritten Jahrhunderts’, ZNW 87 (1996), 101-25, 103 n. 6 (‘vielleicht hatten die Theodotianer in Rom persönlichen Kontakt zu ihm [sc. Galen]’); P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus (2003), 347 (‘At least a passing personal contact between [Galen] and the Theodotian circle is neither chronologically nor geographically out of the ques-tion’). Walzer’s suggestion has been dismissed as unlikely by Jonathan Barnes, ‘Galen, Christians, Logic’, in T.P. Wiseman (ed.), Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford, 2003), 399-417, 408.

6 R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 69, followed by Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Chris­tians (Bloomington, 1984), 144-5; Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 601; Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, 2nd ed. (New Haven, 2003), 72-3.

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 53

suggest that the great intellectual pretensions and the Adoptionist Christology of the Theodotians make it likely that they had interests not just in logic and philosophy, but also in medicine, and particularly embryology. Second, I shall suggest that Galen’s perspective on the Theodotians and other Christian scholars would have been colored by his elitist attitudes about education and scholarship. The Theodotians may well have been interested in Galen and his works, but he would never have overlooked the banausic connections of a group founded by a leather-worker.

1. The Theodotians and medicine

Support for my claim that the Theodotians had interests not simply in logic, but also in medicine, comes from the well-attested intellectualism of the group, and particularly from their engagement with Peripatetic philosophy. The group’s scholarly leanings were evidently fostered by their founder Theodotus, who was, according to Epiphanius, ‘a shoemaker with respect to his trade, but a much-learned man in knowledge’.7 The unknown author of the Little Labyrinth adds many details to confirm this characterization, suggesting that Theodotus’ followers were dedicated textual critics, and that they delighted in applying syllogistic logic to their studies of scripture.8 There is thus good support for Walzer’s claim that the Theodotians might have had an interest in Galen’s works on logic, including the still extant Institutio Logica.9 But the Little Lab­yrinth also provides signs that the Theodotians’ scholarly interests extended beyond syllogistic logic. It suggests that the Theodotians employed ‘the arts of the unbelievers (ταῖς τῶν ἀπίστων τέχναις)’ to support their doctrine.10 The key word here is ‘arts (τέχναις)’, which could be applied to a long list of different areas of study. Galen’s list of the arts (τέχναι) includes ‘medicine, rhetoric, music, geometry, counting, arithmetic, astronomy, grammar, and law’.11 With this list in mind, there is good reason to suspect that the Theodo-tians had wide-ranging intellectual interests. The Little Labyrinth leaves a similar impression also when it offers a list of authors favored by the group: ‘Euclid, at least, is painstakingly measured by some of them, and Aristotle and

7 Epiph., Adv. haeres. LIV 1.3. σκυτεὺς τὴν τέχνην, πολυμαθὴς δὲ τῷ λόγῳ.8 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.13-9.9 For a translation of the work, with a commentary, see John Spangler Kiefer, Galen’s Insti­

tutio Logica (Baltimore, 1964). Note also J. Barnes, ‘Galen, Christians, Logic’ (2003), 417, for the suggestion that this work may have been used by Christians.

10 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.15.11 Gal., Protrepticus 14, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot, Galien, Exhortation à la Médecine.

Art medical (Paris, 2000) = Kühn I 39. ἰατρική τε καὶ ῥητορικὴ καὶ μουσική, γεωμετρία τε καὶ ἀριθμητικὴ καὶ λογιστική, καὶ ἀστρονομία καὶ γραμματικὴ καὶ νομική.

54 J. Secord

Theophrastus are admired’.12 As is the case with Galen, all three authors men-tioned here could have helped the Theodotians to fuel their interests in logic.13 But, if the Theodotians did admire Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus, they should be approached in light of the wider range of interests held by Peripa-tetic philosophers of their time. Galen himself makes it abundantly clear that Peripatetic philosophers regularly attended his public medical demonstrations in Rome.14 He notes also in the opening sections of his work On Semen that contemporary Peripatetics were still reading Aristotle’s biological works, par-ticularly On the Generation of Animals.15 Galen therefore provides a welcome reminder that there are more works in the Aristotelian corpus than those relat-ing to logic and rhetoric. The same is true also for Theophrastus, who was the author of two major works on botany, among other scientific topics.16 As odd as it may now seem, plants and their seeds had a large place in ancient ideas about human reproduction, as is clear, for instance, from Galen’s extended treatment of the subject in his On the Formation of the Fetus.17 Tertullian even devoted a chapter to a discussion of trees in his De anima, where he engages with Aristotle’s ideas about the souls of plants, and applies botanical evidence to his investigation of the ensoulment of human embryos.18 As these examples demonstrate, the names of Aristotle and Theophrastus were often associated in the second and third centuries with biological and medical subjects, and not simply with logic. One final proof of such associations comes from Lucian, whose satirical treatment of philosophical schools in the second century asserts that Peripatetics would teach students about ‘sperm, conception, and the form-ing of embryos in the womb’.19 Lucian’s comment makes it increasingly likely that the author of the Little Labyrinth may have been signaling more than an interest in syllogistic logic when he suggested that the Theodotians admired

12 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.14. Εὐκλείδης γοῦν παρά τισιν αὐτῶν φιλοπόνως γεωμε-τρεῖται, Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ καὶ Θεόφραστος θαυμάζονται. See H. Schöne, ‘Einbruch der antiken Logik’ (1939), 258, for discussion of the odd use of the verb γεωμετρεῖται in this passage.

13 See J. Barnes, ‘Galen, Christians, Logic’ (2003), 409-10.14 For one significant example, note Gal., De praecognitione, V 6-10, ed. Vivian Nutton,

Galen On Prognosis, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 8.1 (Berlin, 1979) = Kühn XIV 625-7. See also S.P. Mattern, Prince of Medicine (2013), 145-6 on the interests of Peripatetics in Galen’s dissections.

15 See Gal., De semine, I 3.1-3, ed. Phillip De Lacy, Galen On Semen, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 3.1 (Berlin, 1992) = Kühn IV 516.

16 See Stephen Gero, ‘Galen on the Christians: A Reappraisal of the Arabic Evidence’, OCP 56 (1990), 371-411, 410 n. 121 for the suggestion that the reference in the Little Labyrinth to Theo-phrastus may have been to his botanical or scientific works.

17 See Gal., De foetuum formatione esp. III 8-17, ed. Diethard Nickel, Galen Über die Ausfor­mung der Keimlinge, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 3.3 (Berlin, 2001) = Kühn IV 663-7.

18 Tert., De anima, XIX 1-6, with the commentary of J.H. Waszink, Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani De Anima, Supplements to VChr 100 (Leiden and Boston, 2010), 270-1.

19 Luc., Vit. auct. 26. γονῆς τε πέρι καὶ γενέσεως καὶ τῆς ἐν ταῖς μήτραις τῶν ἐμβρύων πλαστικῆς.

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 55

Aristotle and Theophrastus and worshipped Galen. This author may well have been implying that the Theodotians also had interests in medical subjects popularly associated with the names of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen, including, as Lucian’s evidence suggests, embryology.

Even without the evidence of the Little Labyrinth, it is still likely that the Theodotians had embryological considerations in mind when they developed their controversial views on the nature of Christ. Certainly, the Theodotians’ Christological investigations depended heavily on evidence from scripture, and Epiphanius does preserve a collection of biblical passages that they used to support their claims.20 But we also have from pseudo-Hippolytus a brief account of the Theodotians’ Christological findings, which seem to show some engage-ment with contemporary ideas about conception and embryology.21 A key issue for the Theodotians to grapple with was Jesus’ parentage. They claimed that Jesus was born as a ‘mere man (ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον)’, and thus that he was not the biological son of a divine father.22 But the Theodotians nonetheless believed that Jesus was ‘born of a virgin (ἐκ παρθένου γεγενημένον)’.23 This insist-ence that Jesus was the result of a parthenogenetic conception would normally presuppose that he had a divine father, and was therefore not entirely mortal.24 But Theodotus challenged this idea, and it seems likely that he found support for his claim in contemporary embryological theory. Like a number of medical authors, Theodotus may well have believed that women produced semen of their own, which was reproductively viable without the addition of any male seed.25 Children born only from the seed of their mothers were expected to be

20 See Epiph., Adv. haeres. LIV 1.8-6.5. For discussion of these passages, see Daniel A. Ber-trand, ‘L’argumentation scripturaire de Théodote le Corroyeur (Épiphane, Panarion 54)’, in Lectures anciennes de la Bible, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 1 (Strasbourg, 1987), 153-67. Note also W. Löhr, ‘Theodotus der Lederarbeiter’ (1996), 112, for a defense of the authenticity of Epiphanius’ dossier of passages collected by the Theodotians.

21 [Hippol.], Haer. VII 35.1-2, 36.1; X 23.1-2, 24.1.22 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.2, 6; Hippol., Contra Noetum III 1; [Tert.], Adversus omnes haereses

VIII 2-3; Epiph., Adv. haeres. LIV 1.8; Theodoret, Haereticarum fabularum compendium II 4-5; Filastrius, Diversarum hereseon L.

23 [Hippol.], Haer. VII 35.2, X 23.1, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Hippolytus. Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, Patristische Texte und Studien 25 (Berlin, 1986). There is a conflicting claim at Epiph., Adv. haeres. LIV 1.8, where it is suggested that the Theodotians represented Christ as a ‘mere man born from the seed of a man (ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον … ἐκ σπέρματος ἀνδρὸς γεγεννῆ-σθαι)’. This claim cannot be reconciled with the repeated suggestion of pseudo-Hippolytus that Theodotus believed Jesus to have been born from a virgin. Epiphanius’ contrary claim might be explained as a reflection of the subsequent Christological debates among Theodotus’ followers, which are discussed at [Hippol.], Haer. VII 35.2.

24 For discussion of second-century ideas concerning the virgin conception of Jesus, see Andrew T. Lincoln, Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI, 2013), 168-98.

25 See Iain M. Lonie, The Hippocratic Treatises ‘On Generation,’ ‘On the Nature of the Child,’ ‘Diseases IV’, Ars Medica 7 (Berlin and New York, 1981), 119-21, for a discussion, with references, to the theory of female semen.

56 J. Secord

imperfect, if not monstrous, as is clear from medical discussions of female semen, which emphasize its weakness, and from the many offspring born par-thenogenetically in the Nag Hammadi literature.26 But Theodotus’ Jesus was different from these imperfect or monstrous creatures. And he evidently felt the need to explain why Jesus turned out so well, contrary to the expected pattern. In the process, Theodotus likely displayed his awareness of the prevailing belief that women could produce only imperfect or monstrous offspring on their own: ‘[Theodotus says that] Jesus was a man like any man, but different in this respect, that according to the will of god he was born from a virgin with the holy spirit shading him in protection when he became flesh in the virgin’.27 Protection from the holy spirit kept Jesus from becoming a monster, though he was born only of a woman’s seed, without a divine father. Pseudo-Hippolytus’ brief account of Theodotus’ Christology thus preserves likely signs that it engaged creatively with prevailing ideas about conception from female seed alone.

There are signs also, again from pseudo-Hippolytus, that the Theodotians incorporated into their Christological investigations a current theory about the link between sight and conception. This theory held that the images seen by a woman at the moment of conception had an impact on the form and appearance of the child conceived.28 An ugly man might therefore instruct his wife to look at ‘beautiful images (εἰκόνας)’ when they slept together, with the hope that the child they conceived would be beautiful.29 Breeders of horses could take advantage of the same principle, painting colored spots on a stallion, so that a mare would conceive a foal bearing the same pattern, ‘having received his multi-colored form with her eyes (δεξαμένη μορφὴν δὲ πολύχροον ὀφθαλμοῖσι)’.30 There need be no doubt that the Theodotians would have been familiar with this theory of conception, which was known to many scholars of their time, and which appeared in doxographical collections.31 The theory also

26 See Richard Smith, ‘Sex Education in Gnostic Schools’, in Karen L. King (ed.), Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Philadelphia, 1988), 345-60, 350-2, with references both to the medical literature, and to the Nag Hammadi texts.

27 [Hippol.], Haer. X 23.1. εἶναι μὲν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἄνθρωπον κ(οι)νὸν πᾶσιν, ἐν δὲ τούτῳ διαφέρειν, ὅτι κατὰ βουλὴν θεοῦ γεγένηται ἐκ παρθένου, ἐπισκιάσαντος τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύ-ματος <τ>ὸν ἐν τῇ παρθένῳ σαρκωθέντ(α). Compare Luke 1.35: ‘The holy spirit will come upon you [sc. Mary], and the power of the highest will overshadow (ἐπισκιάσει) you’.

28 For discussion of the theory, and a partial collection of ancient references, see M.D. Reeve, ‘Conceptions’, PCPS 35 (1989), 81-112.

29 Dion. Hal., De imitatione I 2, ed. Germaine Aujac, Denys d’Halicarnasse. Opuscules rhéto­riques tome V (Paris, 1992). For discussion of the passage, and an English translation, see Richard L. Hunter, Critical Moments in Classical Literature: Studies in the Ancient View of Literature and its Uses (Cambridge, 2009), 109-10.

30 [Oppian], Cynegetica, I 316-67, with the quotation from I 348, ed. A.W. Mair, Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus, Loeb Classical Library 219 (Cambridge, Mass., 1928).

31 Besides the example cited in the previous note from [Oppian], note the following appearances of the theory in non-Christian authors of the second and early third centuries: Sor., Gyn. I 39; [Plut.], Placita Philosophorum V 12 (906e), ed. Guy Lachenaud, Plutarque. Œuvres morales.

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 57

had a notable place in the works of some other Christian scholars active in the second century. It appears in Irenaeus’ discussion of Valentinian myth-making, where the being Acamoth saw the angels that accompanied the savior, and became pregnant with a spiritual offspring modelled after their ‘image (εἰκόνα)’.32 The method of conception envisioned here is parthenogenetic, and Acamoth’s sight provided the vehicle for her impregnation. Similar ideas appear also in the Nag Hammadi literature, where the images of various divinities serve both to inspire conception, and to shape the form of the entity conceived.33 The Theodotians too likely appealed to this influential theory in their Christological investigations. Admittedly, there are no explicit signs of the theory at work in the long passage quoted in the previous paragraph from pseudo-Hippolytus, but sight clearly did play a major part in ancient theories about conception, particu-larly in cases where no sex was involved. Given the Theodotians’ insistence on the humanity of Jesus, his mother must have seen in her mind the image of a ‘mere man’ at the moment of conception. A clearer sign that sight played a role in the Theodotians’ account of Jesus’ conception comes from pseudo-Hippolytus’ treatment of the Christological investigations of one offshoot of the group, led by Theodotus’ homonymous pupil, who was a banker by profes-sion.34 This Theodotus assigned to Melchizedek a vital role in the conception of Jesus, noting that Christ existed ‘according to his image (κατ’ εἰκόνα)’.35 Theodotus’ claim engages with Hebrews 7:15, where it is suggested, with ref-erence to Jesus, that ‘another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchi-zedek (κατὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητα Μελχισέδεκ)’. But Theodotus has replaced Paul’s ὁμοιότης with εἰκών, a word that has a prominent place in discussions of sight’s role in conception, as the previously cited examples demonstrate. Though pseudo-Hippolytus’ account is brief and somewhat opaque, we nonethe-less seem to have in it likely proof that the Theodotians did appeal to the prevail-ing belief that the image a mother saw at the moment of conception served to shape her child. Theodotus the banker thus seems to have believed that Jesus was born as a mere man from a parthenogenetic conception, and that his mother saw in her mind an image of Melchizedek when she conceived. As was the case for other Christians of the second century, the Theodotians too made use of

Tome 12.2 (Paris, 1993); [Gal.], De theriaca ad Pisonem 11, ed. Robert Adam Leigh, On Theriac to Piso, Attributed to Galen: A Critical Edition with Translation and Commentary, Ph.D. dis-sertation (University of Exeter, 2013) = Kühn XIV 253-4; Porph., Ad Gaurum V 4. See also James Wilberding, Porphyry. To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled and On What is in Our Power, Ancient Commentators on Aristotle (London, 2011), 27 n. 58, for some additional refer-ences, including to the theory’s appearance in later Christian literature.

32 Irenaeus, Adv. haer. I 4.5.33 For some examples, note Apocryphon of John 6 (NHC II 6.10-13); Hypostasis of the

Archons 4-5 (NHC II 87.13-32).34 See section 2 below for more on this Theodotus and his profession.35 [Hippol.], Haer. VII 36.1, X 24.1.

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contemporary thought concerning the important link between sight and concep-tion, making their Christological investigations compatible with prevailing ideas about embryology.

Conformity with embryological theory was, no doubt, an important factor in the increasingly sophisticated and critical intellectual world of Christian schol-ars in the late second and early third centuries.36 Theodotus and his followers had every reason to believe that their Christian contemporaries would have some familiarity with embryology.37 Tertullian certainly knew a number of different embryological theories, which he applied to his own Christological investigations.38 The same was true also for the authors of the Nag Hammadi literature who discussed the parthenogenetic conceptions of Sophia, and the role that sight might have in the shaping of a child.39 Embryology could even provide the basis for critiques of the doctrines of rival Christians.40 This much is clear from the example of Irenaeus, who himself subscribed to the same theory about the importance of what a mother saw at the moment of conception.41 He applied this theory as part of his attempt to refute the same Valentinian myths that he recorded in the first book of Against the Heresies.42 Their myth-making, Irenaeus charged, was simply incompatible with an accepted fact about embryology: if the being Achamoth was looking at both the angels and the savior when she conceived, why were her offspring not patterned after the savior, who was more handsome than the angels?43 Irenaeus’ use of embryol-ogy in his refutation reveals its common currency among Christians of the late second century, and at the same time establishes that embryological challenges might be presented against the doctrines of rival Christians. In such an environ-ment, the Theodotians surely had to defend their Christological investigations not only with passages from scripture, but also with embryological theory. Admittedly, the few remaining pieces of Theodotian Christological speculation

36 For general discussion of this context, see Jared Secord, ‘Irenaeus at Rome: The Greek Context of Christian Intellectual Life in the Second Century’, in Agnès Bastit-Kalinowska (ed.), Irénée entre Asie et Occident, Collection des Études Augustiniennes (Turnhout, forthcoming).

37 See now Gregor Emmenegger, Wie die Jungfrau zum Kind kam: zum Einfluss antiker medi­zinischer und naturphilosophischer Theorien auf die Entwicklung des christlichen Dogmas, Para-dosis 56 (Fribourg, 2014), 87-141.

38 See Thomas Heyne, ‘Tertullian and Obstetrics’, SP 65 (2013), 419-33.39 See R. Smith, ‘Sex Education’ (1988), 349-60. For another example of Christian engage-

ment with embryological theories, note also the discussion of Bernard Pouderon, ‘La notice d’Hippolyte sur Simon: cosmologie, anthropologie et embryologie’, in Véronique Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon (eds), Les pères de l’église face à la science médicale de leur temps (Paris, 2005), 49-71.

40 Note, for instance, G. Emmenegger, Wie die Jungfrau (2014), 125-41.41 See Irenaeus, Adv. haer. II 19.5, with the discussion of the passage by Jared Secord, ‘The

Cultural Geography of a Greek Christian: Irenaeus from Smyrna to Lyons’, in Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (eds), Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy (Minneapolis, 2012), 25-33, 216 n. 8.

42 See Irenaeus, Adv. haer. II 19.1-6, with I 4.5.43 Irenaeus, Adv. haer. II 19.6.

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 59

show no signs of engagement with technical works of embryology, such as Galen’s On Semen and On the Formation of the Fetus. On balance, it seems more likely that the Theodotians’ knowledge of embryology derived from less technical sources, such as a doxographical handbook, or earlier Christian literature of the sort represented in the texts found at Nag Hammadi, or even simply from their conversations and interactions with other scholars.44 But the Theodotians may still have drawn on embryological ideas that were popularly associated with the names of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen, as the Little Labyrinth suggests.

2. Galenic elitism

Theodotian interest in Galen and his works therefore does seem probable, but there is no justification for Walzer’s claim that the Pergamene physician would have generously offered advice and support to Theodotus and his fol-lowers. One immediate problem for Walzer’s suggestion is chronological in nature. Theodotus and his followers were active in Rome beginning in the 190s, by which point Galen had mostly given up his practice of speaking in public and performing medical demonstrations, something that he did quite frequently in the 160s when he first came to the city.45 It therefore seems improbable that the Theodotians had any opportunity to see Galen speak in public, which surely would have been one of the more likely ways that they could have encountered him.46 A more serious objection to Walzer’s argument about a possible connec-tion between Galen and the Theodotians, however, comes from his conclusion that the great doctor had a ‘fair and sympathetic’ outlook on Christians. Walzer does acknowledge that Galen was hostile to Christians, Jews, and anyone else who had ‘uncritical faith’ in the teachings of a particular school.47 But he none-theless supposes that Galen would have been sympathetic to Christians, Jews, or any other intellectuals with limited educations who tried to make up for this lack by studying logic and attempting to support their beliefs with rigorous

44 See especially [Plut.], Placita philosophorum V 3-19 (905a-908f), which includes a diverse collection of material about semen, conception, and embryology drawn from a range of philosophers and doctors. Most of what the Theodotians knew about embryology could easily have come from a doxographical handbook such as this.

45 See V. Boudon-Millot, Galien (2012), 144 for discussion of Galen’s demonstrably false claim to have given up public performances completely after his first stay at Rome, in the 160s. Still, as Boudon-Millot notes (195-7), Galen did gradually withdraw himself more and more from public life.

46 Note the suggestions to this effect by Vivian Nutton, ‘Galen in the Eyes of his Contempo-raries’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 58 (1984), 315-24, 317; Gotthard Strohmaier, ‘Galen in den Schulen der Juden und Christen’, Judaica. Beiträge zum Verstehen des Judentums 62 (2006), 140-56, 156.

47 See R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 38-40.

60 J. Secord

argumentation, as the Theodotians evidently did.48 Walzer’s argument on this point simply ignores the degree to which Galen held elitist attitudes about education and scholarship. As I shall show, Galen insisted that the pursuit of scholarship needed to begin in childhood, and that it had to be supported by a significant outlay of time and money. Galen had no patience for part-time, amateur scholars, or for anyone who tried to take up scholarship later in life. He consequently would have had no interest in the Theodotians, who, I shall argue, are best described as amateur scholars, despite their wide-ranging intellectual interests.

Galen’s elitist attitudes about education and scholarship were a consequence of his own privileged upbringing, and of his belief that people from banausic backgrounds could never become real scholars. Galen was well aware of the advantages that he had over many other scholars. When he was a youth, one of Galen’s fellow pupils allegedly said to him: ‘You have been furnished with a superior nature and a marvelous education because of your father’s ambition’.49 In later life, Galen continued to benefit from the help of his father, who left him a generous inheritance, which he used to support his travels and studies: ‘I use all the income that my father left me, employing no excessive amount of it, nor hoarding it’.50 All of Galen’s usual self-importance and hyperbole is present in these comments about his educational advantages and wealth, but there is no reason to doubt that he was privileged, or that he had little sympathy for the scholarly aspirations of anyone coming from a less privileged background. This lack of sympathy is on display in many of Galen’s works, especially those relating to the Methodist school of medicine, which was founded in the first century CE by a certain Thessalus of Tralles.51 Galen reports that Thessalus was the son of a woolworker, and he emphasizes this banausic background again and again in his attacks on the Methodist school.52 This school, Galen charges, claimed that a doctor could be trained in a mere six months, with the result that ‘leather-cutters, carpenters, dyers, and bronze-workers have abandoned

48 See R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 48.49 Gal., De methodo medendi VIII 3, ed. Ian Johnston and G.H.R. Horsley, Galen. Method of

Medicine, Loeb Classical Library 516-8 (Cambridge, Mass., 2011) = Kühn X 561-2. σὺ μὲν καὶ φύσει διαφερούσῃ κέχρησαι καὶ παιδείᾳ θαυμαστῇ διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρός σου φιλοτιμίαν.

50 Gal., De proprium animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione IX 9, ed. Wilko de Boer, Galeni De propriorum animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione, De animi cuius­libet peccatorum dignotione et curatione, De atra bile, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 4.1.1 (Berlin, 2001) = Kühn V 48. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν καταναλίσκω πᾶσαν ἣν ὁ πατὴρ κατέλιπέ μοι πρόσοδον, οὐδὲν ἐξ αὐτῆς περιττὸν ἀποτιθέμενος οὐδὲ θησαυρίζων.

51 For an overview of the Methodist school, see Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 2013), 191-206. Primary sources about the school are collected by Manuela Tecusan, The Fragments of the Methodists. Volume 1: Methodism outside Soranus (Leiden and Boston, 2004).

52 E.g. Gal., De methodo medendi I 2 = Kühn X 10.

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 61

their old trades and plunge into medicine’.53 Galen’s objection to the scholarly aspirations of banausic tradesmen was a consequence not only of prejudice, but also of his insistence that a scholar’s education needed to begin in his early youth. Banausic tradesmen who wished to become scholars later in life were, Galen claimed, not at an ‘age still suitable for an education (τὴν ἡλικίαν ἐπιτήδειον ἔτι πρὸς παίδευσιν)’.54 In Galen’s mind, there was no way that someone from a banausic background could ever make up for the education that he missed while learning his trade as a child.55 There is consequently no reason to believe that he would have supported the efforts of any would-be scholar, Christian or otherwise, who wished to play catch-up on the formative childhood training that he lacked.

Galen’s negative perspective on the scholarly aspirations of banausic trades-men has obvious relevance for his probable attitude towards the Theodotians, who were exactly the type of amateur, part-time scholars that he despised. My characterization of the Theodotians and their scholarship in this way is derived not simply from Theodotus’ profession as a ‘leather-worker (σκυτεύς)’, which made him no different from the ‘leather-cutters (σκυτοτόμοι)’ singled out for mention by Galen.56 It is derived also from clear signs that the Theodotians had limited resources to devote to their scholarship. Though one of Theodotus’ pupils was a banker (τραπεζίτης) by profession, the group as a whole still had little money.57 From the author of the Little Labyrinth, we learn that the Theo-dotians were only able to pay the bishop they hired a monthly salary of 150 denarii (= 600 sesterces).58 This amounted to an annual salary of 7,200 HS, which is an insignificant amount compared to the sums that Galen and his elite peers were able to spend on their scholarly activities.59 The author of the Little Labyrinth reveals also that the Theodotians’ efforts to produce revised copies of scripture depended on the labor of the group’s own members, who wrote them out ‘in their own hands (τῇ αὐτῶν χειρί)’.60 The in-house production of literary texts was the simplest and cheapest way for the Theodotians to make

53 Gal., De methodo medendi I 1 = Kühn X 5. σκυτοτόμοι καὶ τέκτονες καὶ βαφεῖς καὶ χαλκεῖς ἐπιπηδῶσιν ἤδη τοῖς ἔργοις τῆς ἰατρικῆς, τὰς ἀρχαίας αὑτῶν ἀπολιπόντες τέχνας.

54 Gal., De animi cuiuslibet peccatorum dignotione et curatione II 10 = Kühn V 65.55 Compare Lucian, Fug. 12, on the time that young banausic tradesmen had to devote to their

professions, rather than to education.56 The words σκυτεύς and σκυτοτόμος are synonymous. See Otto Lau, Schuster und Schus­

terhandwerk in der griechisch­römischen Literatur und Kunst, Ph.D. Dissertation (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, 1967), 50.

57 For his profession, see Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.9; [Hippol.], Haer. VII 36.1. Note also Theodoret, Haereticarum fabularum compendium II 6, where he is identified as a ‘money-changer (ἀργυραμοιβός)’.

58 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.10.59 For more details on the wealth of elite scholars, see Jared Secord, ‘Julius Africanus, Origen,

and the Politics of Intellectual Life under the Severans’, Classical World (forthcoming).60 Euseb., Hist. eccl. V 28.18.

62 J. Secord

copies of scripture. Their amateur efforts are to be contrasted with Galen’s insistence that scholars should have an expensive and elaborate support system, as he revealed in some chastising comments directed to a parsimonious friend: ‘I see that you dare neither to spend money on fine works, nor on the purchase and preparation of books and the training of scribes in shorthand, calligraphy, and accuracy, nor even on anyone who can read correctly’.61 All of these things that Galen deemed necessary for scholarship the Theodotians evidently lacked, with the result that they would hardly even have seemed liked scholars to him, much less peers. Regardless of their likely wide-ranging intellectual ambitions, the Theodotians could never have lived up to Galen’s demanding expectations for scholars, or overcome his prejudices against banausic tradesmen with schol-arly aspirations.

Galen’s supposed sympathy for Christians should consequently not be over-stated. Nor should we assume that his outlook on Christians was necessarily more positive than that of his elite peers, as Walzer and others have suggested.62 Rather, Galen may ultimately have been little different from his older contem-porary Celsus, who included a number of critical comments about the economic standing of Christians in his True Word.63 Celsus notably labelled Christian teachers as ‘wool-workers, leather-cutters, fullers, and the most uneducated and rustic individuals’.64 The example of the banausic Theodotians suggests that there was some substance to Celsus’ charges, even if he was exaggerating his point somewhat.65 Galen never had occasion to remark on the social and eco-nomic standing of Christians, but it is likely that his comments on this point would have been similar to his attack on the Methodists, and to Celsus’ charges against Christianity. Though there were, by the end of Galen’s long life, some Christian scholars who had more access to wealth and better educations than nearly all of their earlier counterparts, there were still relatively disadvantaged Christian intellectuals like the Theodotians.66 And Galen’s attitude towards them and other similar Christians can hardly have been positive.

61 Gal., De propriorum animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione IX 9 = Kühn V 48. βλέπω γάρ σε μήτ’ εἰς τὰ καλὰ τῶν ἔργων δαπανῆσαι τολμῶντα, μήτ’ εἰς βιβλίων ὠνὴν καὶ κατασκευὴν καὶ τῶν γραφόντων ἄσκησιν ἤτοι γ’ εἰς τάχος διὰ σημείων ἢ εἰς κάλλος <καὶ> ἀκρίβειαν, ὥσπερ γε οὐδὲ τῶν ἀναγινωσκόντων ὀρθῶς.

62 See R. Walzer, Galen (1949), 53-4; E. Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (2003), 601; I. Ramelli, ‘Galeno e i christiani’ (2003), 219.

63 On Celsus’ date, see Michael Frede, ‘Celsus philosophus Platonicus’, ANRW 2.36.7 (1994), 5183-213, 5190-1.

64 Origen, C. Cels. III 55. ἐριουργοὺς καὶ σκυτοτόμους καὶ κναφεῖς καὶ τοὺς ἀπαιδευτο-τάτους τε καὶ ἀγροικοτάτους.

65 Note R. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (2003), 97-8.66 On the increasing wealth and elite legitimacy of Christian scholars under the Severan

dynasty, see J. Secord, ‘Julius Africanus’ (forthcoming).

Embryology and Adoptionism in the Christian Schools of Rome 63

Conclusion

To conclude: the two claims of this paper both point to a need to approach the Theodotians within a wider frame of reference than has traditionally been employed. Narrow interpretations of the evidence found in the Little Labyrinth have led to a broad consensus that the Theodotians had no interest in the medical and biological topics so prominently associated with the names of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen. But, as I have argued, the Theodotians and other Christian scholars of their time likely took completely for granted prevailing embryological theories, and applied them to defend or attack Christological claims. The Theodotians and other Christians were also part of the socio-eco-nomic world of the Roman Empire. Galen and other scholars of elite backgrounds certainly would have recognized them as Christians, and understood something about their distinctive beliefs. But Galen and his peers would not have ignored the banausic background of the Theodotians’ founder, or the limited funds that they had to support their activities as would-be scholars. It is therefore a mistake to approach the Theodotians only as Christians, and to offer blithe judgments about Galen’s attitude towards Christians and Christianity as a whole. The Theodotians’ interests were shaped by the larger intellectual world in which they lived, and Galen would have regarded them at least as much as scholarly imposters from banausic backgrounds as he would have viewed them as Christians.