17-
THE HELLENISTIC SYNAGOGAL PRAYERS:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DISCUSSION
David Fiensy
Institute for the Study of Christian Origins
Keplerstrasse 17, 7400 Tübingen 1, Germany
In 1893 K. Kohler first recognized that parts of the fourth-
century Christian document, the Apostolic Constitutions
(= AC), books 7 and 8, contained prayers and other materials
that were based on sources. Since that time, scholars of
Jewish
early Christianity, early Judaism and liturgics have made
further observations about the Jewish sources of this work.
History of the Investigation
The history of the investigation may be divided into three
chronologically overlapping approaches: the History of Reli-
gions approach; the comparative Liturgy approach; and the
comparative Genre approach.
The first school of investigation includes W. Bousset, E.R.
Goodenough, and M. Simon. The scholars at work during this
period saw the prayers as sources of Jewish theology in the
diaspora. This collection, then, has roots in the same soil as the
Hebrew benedictions, but also stands over against it theologi-
cally. The prayers are not just Greek versions of the Hebrew
benedictions, but have also adopted Greek philosophical con-
ceptions. They are in short the liturgical equivalent of Philo.
Bousset in 1916 began the investigation of the sources of the
AC. He pointed out thoughts or expressions in the prayers of
7.33-39; 8.5-6, 9, 12, 15, 37-39, and 41 which were Jewish or
which occurred in Jewish literature and liturgy. He especially
18
recognized the parallels between these prayers and Greco-
Jewish authors such as Philo and the Wisdom of Solomon.
Bousset attempted to demonstrate that the author(s) of these
prayers used Aquila’s version of the Old Testament and that
where there were obviously Christian phrases in the prayers
they were actually in tension with the main text. He also
pointed to lists of spiritual heroes in the prayers which come
only from the Old Testament.’
Bousset concluded that the prayers represent late (second
century CE) diasporic Judaism since they incorporate terms
from Aquila’s Greek Old Testament. This ’prayer collection’
then has preserved the liturgy of the synagogue in the dias-
pora.2
Goodenough carried Bousset’s work further in 1935 in
E.R.
a chapter of his monograph on Philo. Goodenough maintained
that the Hellenized Judaism demonstrated in the writings of
Philo-which he named ’mystical Judaism’-was not
uniquely Philo’s but common throughout the diaspora. Mysti-
cal Judaism may have been ’as familiar among the Jews of
Rome and Tarsus as in Alexandria itself’.33
Goodenough found in these prayers-whose Jewish origin
he believed Bousset had convincingly demonstrated-strong
and crucial support for his thesis of a widespread mystical
Judaism in the diaspora. Not only could he suggest further
striking parallels to Philo in thought and expression, but he
found that the notion of God in the prayers was essentially
Philonic. The concept of God in these prayers ’in terms of
mystery is not sporadic but is the fundamental approach to
God ...’4
M. Simon in 1948, also following Bousset, cited the Jewish
prayer collection from the AC as evidence that diasporic
Judaism continued after 70 CE to be much the same as it had
1. W. Bousset, ’Eine jüdische Gebetssammlung im siebenten Buch
der apostolischen Konstitutionen’, Nachrichten von der königlichen
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-his-
torische Klasse, 1915 (1916), pp. 438-85; reprinted in A.F. Verheule,
Religionsgeschichtliche Studien (Leiden: Brill, 1979), pp. 231-86.
2. Bousset, Nachrichten, p. 465.
3. By Light, Light (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), p. 237.
4. Op. cit., pp. 303-40.
19
previously been. These second-century prayers furnish us
with a window into the theology and piety of non-Palestinian
Judaism after the destruction of the Temple. These prayers
indicate that Jews still employed philosophical and ethical
ideas from the Greek world and, more importantly, that the
universalistic attitude of pre-70 diasporic Judaism continued.
The two hymns of creation (AC 7.34 and 8.12.9-20) represent
all humanity as earning death through disobedience and yet
as having the hope of resurrection. Thus, pczce A. Harnack,
diasporic Judaism did not after 70 CE withdraw into itself and
abandon its universalistic attitude toward Gentiles.1
The History of Religions approach to this prayer collection
was to see it as one more link in the chain of evidence about
diasporic Judaism in the second century CE. The prayers were
studied mainly alongside Philo, but also other Greco-Jewish
sources, to indicate their similarity in that they utilized both
the Old Testament and Greek philosophy.
The second approach or school of investigation really began
before the first. Kohler had already suggested in 1893 that
certain portions (7.33; 8.12; 8.41) of the AC stemmed from the
synagogue.2In another publication in 1903 he made the same
claim concerning further texts (AC 7.26, 33-38).3 His detailed
examination of these prayers came, however, in 1924 when
he described what he termed the ’Essene version’ of the syna-
gogal prayers preserved in the AC.4
In these publications Kohler used the methodology of com-
parative liturgics to indicate that the compiler/redactor of AC
had more or less taken whole cloth a prayer collection from
the Jewish synagogue (i.e. the Essene synagogue). Kohler
showed that AC 7.33-38 were essentially the first six of the
Seven Benedictions recited in the synagogue on Sabbaths. The
prayers are pre-Christian, from Jewish Essenes, and were
1. M. Simon, Verus Israel (Paris: Boccard, 1948), pp. 74-82. See A.
Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums (Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1915), p. 15 n. 3.
2. K. Kohler, ’Über die Ursprünge und Grundformen der syna-
gogalen Liturgie’, MGWJ 37 (1893), pp. 441-51, 489-97.
3. K. Kohler, ’Didascalia’, Jewish Encyclopedia, IV, cols. 592-94.
4. ’The Essene Version of the Seven Benedictions as Preserved in the
VII Book of the Apostolic Constitutions’, HUCA 1 (1924), pp. 410-25.
20
transmitted to the church in the second century by Jewish
Christians who probably had been Essenes.
Kohler’s use of the term Essene to describe the origin of
these prayers would be misleading today. He appears to have
meant by that term a theology similar to Philo’s since he calls
the prayers ’the product of... Essenes, of Hellenic culture, as
may be learned from... their Alexandrian or Philonic accen-
tuation of the Logos ...’1
A. Baumstark, a scholar of comparative liturgy, maintained
in his work of 1939 that behind AC 7.33-38 stood the morning
service of the synagogue with additions for Sabbaths and festi-
vals. This ’Greco-Jewish’ ritual could easily be discerned
under ’the light veneer of a somewhat superficial Christian
revision ...’2
E. Werner too found many parallels between the A C
(among other early Christian sources) and the synagogue
liturgy. He concluded that only Jews converted to Christianity
who were conversant with the synagogue texts and who knew
the Hebrew language could have borrowed the prayers for
Christianity.33
L. Bouyer, another scholar of comparative liturgy, following
Bousset and Goodenough, accepted the idea that the prayers of
AC 7.33-38 and 8.12 were composed in Greek by Hellenized
Jews in Alexandria. Yet since he also found semiticisms in the
prayers he affirmed that the authors worked with Hebrew
sources.4
P. Sigal recently suggested that AC 7.33-39 and 8.12
more
were based Jewish piyyutim, prayers which were
on
’undoubtedly, originally written in Aramaic’. A piyyut is a
liturgical poem containing rhyme, acrostics, rich metaphors
and flights of hyperbole. Further, he claimed that part of the
wording of AC 7.35 and 8.12 was based on the targumic ver-
sion of Isa. 6.3. Sigal agreed with Baumstark that these
prayers represent the morning worship order of the Greco-
1. Op. cit., p. 418.
2. A. Baumstark and B. Botte, Comparative Liturgy (trans. F.L.
Cross; Westminster, MD: Newman, 1958; first printed in 1939), pp. 11f.
3. E. Werner, The Sacred Bridge (London: Dobson, 1959), p. 30.
4. L. Bouyer, Eucharistie (Tournai: Desclée, 1965), pp.122-24.
21
Jewish community, but stressed the Aramaic origin of the
1
prayers, especially in the piyyut form.i
The present author’s treatment of the Hellenistic Synagogal
2
Prayers is also from the perspective of comparative liturgy.2
First of all I tried to show that Kohler’s assertion that the
Seven Benedictions lay behind some of this liturgy was
correct. To strengthen Kohler’s argument I attempted to
identify verbal Greek equivalents in some prayers in AC to the
3
Hebrew Benedictions.3
I have also tried to demonstrate that Bousset’s and Goode-
nough’s handling of these prayers was, however, often erro-
neous. They argued that the prayers in the Christian AC were
originally Jewish because they contained an expression or
concept which was Jewish. For example, 7.35.3 contains the
Kedusha and 7.36 extols the Sabbath.’ Yet these arguments
are not compelling since: (a) a Christian may have merely
quoted the Jewish Kedusha (thus the whole prayer is not nec-
essarily Jewish), and (b) Christians also honoured the Sabbath
in the eastern church. These two weak arguments indicate
the problem with Bousset’s and Goodenough’s methodology
(and with most of those following them). They assumed that
isolated expressions which could possibly be Jewish proved
that the whole prayer was Jewish.
The most serious mistake, however, made by virtually all
who have studied these prayers, is the failure to consider the
theological tendencies and linguistic and literary conventions
of the compiler of AC. One must do redaction criticism on the
prayers first to discern what elements in the prayers may
belong to the compiler. Since we have three of the sources used
by the compiler (the Didascalia, the Didache, and the Apostolic
Traditions), a redactional analysis of the AC can be based on
solid evidence.
1. P. Sigal, ’Early Christian and Rabbinic Liturgical Affinities:
Exploring Liturgical Acculturation’, NTS 30 (1984), pp. 63-90.
2. D. Fiensy, Prayers Alleged to be Jewish: An Examination of the
Constitutiones Apostolorum (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985); idem,
’Redaction History and the Apostolic Constitutions’, JQR 72 (1982),
pp. 293-302.
3. Fiensy, Prayers, pp. 129-34.
4. Bousset, ’Gebetssammlung’, pp. 435-45.
22
Failure to consider the compiler’s redaction of the prayers
can lead to completely erroneous conclusions. For example,
Goodenough affirmed that the prayers were composed in the
environment of Hellenistic Jewish Mystery since they stress
in the same manner as Philo the concept of providence:
Sophia in the (prayer) Fragments is the daughter of God.
She is ’creative’... and dispenses... the Providence of God...
These statements suggest the Mystery.
Yet emphasis on God’s providence is one of the most common
themes in the AC, and in passages clearly redactional (2.24.3;
2.57.4; 3.3.2; 4.1.2; 4.5.4; 5.16.3; 6.4.1; 6.6.4; 6.10.1; 6.14.4; 6.23.3;
6.28.8). Thus should not conclude that the prayers were
one
composed in the environment of Mystery but, rather, that the
AC was compiled/redacted in that environment.
Failure to consider the redactional technique of the
compiler of AC led Bousset erroneously to affirm that A C2
7.39.2-3 was originally instruction for Jewish proselytes.2
Following an introductory formula which is clearly Christian,
the text then reads:
Let him learn the order of diverse creation (6qviovpyiaq
61aolpov 16§w), the sequence of providence (1tpovoíaç Eipuov),
the judgment seats of different legislation (vovo8Eaiaq
8tacpopov ÔtKatO>’tllpta).3
The first phrase, ’the order of a diverse creation’, is found in
two other places in the AC, in obvious redactional sections
(2.36.2; 6.11.3), again with the admonition to ’know’ the
diverse creation. The second phrase emphasizes providence
which, as we have just stated, is a favourite redactional theme
of the AC. The final phrase ‘judgment seats of different leg-
islation’, which probably refers to the law as written and as
naturally implanted in the human soul (as Goodenough rec-
ognized4) is expressed more clearly in 7.33.3, 8.6.5, 8.12.18 and
8.12.25 as v6>og I>pvrog Kat ypaxr6g. These passages are not
1. Goodenough, By Light, Light, p. 343.
2. ’Gebetssammlung’, p. 470.
3. Translation in Fiensy, Prayers, p. 89. Text in M. Metzger, Les Con-
stitutions Apostoliques (Paris: Cerf, 1987), vol. 3.
4. By Light, Light, p. 327.
23
clearly redactional, however, since we do not have the extant
sources behind these sections of AC. Nevertheless, their fre-
quency and distribution at least should cause one to suspect
that this last phrase is also redactional.
The ’instruction for proselytes’, as Bousset named it, ends
with a recitation of Old Testament heroes as examples for the
new believer (7.39.3). But such lists are common in redac-
tional sections of the AC (2.55.1; 5.7.12; 6.12.13; 7.5.5).
Thus most of AC 7.39 parallels the compiler/redactor’s
favourite themes and expressions and was, then, probably his
own composition, written for Christian catechumens and not
originally a Jewish composition for proselytes. A similar
examination leads to the same conclusion regarding several of
the prayers, though in other cases redactional analysis actu-
ally strengthens the claim for Jewish authorship.
Thus redactional examination of the prayers leads to four
general conclusions: (1) the editorial activity in connection
with the Hellenistic Prayers was generous and free; (2)
though some of the prayers alleged to have originated in the
Hellenistic synagogue are clearly Jewish, significant portions
of some of the ’Jewish’ prayers are the work of the compiler;
(3) many of the prayers alleged to be Jewish were either com-
posed by the compiler or are now so heavily redacted that we
cannot speak of an origin in Judaism; and (4) redactional
analysis underlines and accents the Jewish origins of some of
the prayers.
The comparative liturgy approach in general compares the
prayers in the AC with what became the standardized
Hebrew liturgy.The scholars who represent this school look
1. See e.g. A. Spanier, ’Die erste Benediktion des Achtzehngebetes’,
MGWJ 81 (1937), pp. 71-76; E. Peterson, ’Henoch im jüdischen Gebet
und in jidischer Kunst’, Miscellanea Liturgica in honorem L.C.
Mohlberg (Rome: Liturgiche, 1948), vol. 1, pp. 413-17; H. Lietzmann,
Mass and the Lord’s Supper (trans. D.H.G. Reeve; Leiden: Brill, 1953),
pp. 102-105; F. Gavin, The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacra-
ments (New York: Ktav, 1969), pp. 88-90; L. Ligier, ’The Origins of the
Eucharistic Prayer: From the Last Supper to the Eucharist’, Studia
Liturgica 9 (1973), pp. 161-85; F. Perles, ’Notes critiques sur le texte de
la liturgie juive’, REJ 80 (1925), pp. 101f.; E.R. Hardy, ’Kedusha and
Sanctus’, Studia Liturgica 6 (1969), pp. 183-88; C.P. Price, ’Jewish
Morning Prayers and Early Christian Anaphoras’, ATR 43 (1961),
24
for of expression, structure, form and wording. The
parallels
of
proponents this approach usually conclude that the prayers
were composed originally in a Semitic language. They usually
understand the transmitters of the prayers to have been Jew-
ish Christians who could read both Hebrew (or Aramaic) and
Greek. Their interest is to investigate the bridge between the
church and synagogue in the first four centuries of the com-
mon era.
The third approach in examining these prayers may be said
to have begun when J.H. Charlesworth decided to include a
translation of these prayers in the second volume of his Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha. A much-improved translation by
D.R. Darnell supplemented by a brief introduction from the
present author introduced these texts for the first time to a
wider audience.In including the materials in a section called
’Prayers, Psalms, and Odes’ alongside such documents as the
Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and the Odes of
Solomon, Charlesworth seemed to be indicating that the
prayers need also to be studied in general comparison with
ancient documents from the same genre. Comparison should
not be limited merely to Philo or the canonized liturgy which
is today only extant in texts from the middle ages.
In other recent publications on this topic Charlesworth also
sets the materials in the AC alongside the prayers and hymns
in the Hodayoth from Qumran, the New Testament, the
Apocrypha, the rabbinic literature and other sources.2His
interest seems to be to explain from the widest base possible the
development of ancient Jewish praise and worship. He is call-
ing for an examination of these materials ’with the sophisti-
cated methods developed in the study of the Psalter...’ Such
pp. 153-68; E.J. Bickerman ’The Civic Prayer for Jerusalem’, HTR 55
(1962), p. 169; M. Liber, ’Structure and History of the Tefilah’, JQR 40
(1950), p. 336.
1. D.R. Darnell and D.A. Fiensy, ’Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers’,
The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (ed. J.H. Charlesworth;
New York: Doubleday, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 671-98.
2. See Charlesworth, ’Jewish Hymns, Odes and Prayers’, in Early
Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (ed. R.A. Kraft and G.W.E.
Nickelsburg; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 411-36. See also idem,
’Prolegomena to a New Study of the Jewish Background of the Hymns
and Prayers in the New Testament’, JJS 33 (1982), pp.165-85.
25
an investigation could produce significant new insights into
the theology and piety of ancient Judaism.
Text
The first critical edition of the AC was made in 1854 by C.K.J.
von Bunsen,~ followed by P. de Lagarde’s edition of 1862.2 The
1905 publication of F.X. Funk’s3 had superseded the previous
editions until very recently. M. Metzger’s4 three-volume
work on the AC in the Sources Chretiennes series, with a new
critical edition of the Greek text and a French translation on
facing pages, should now become the standard.
Original Language
Kohler, Bousset, and Goodenough believed that the prayers
were originally composed in Greek, the latter two scholars
maintaining that Aquila’s Greek version of the Old Testament
had been the Bible for the author(s) of these prayers.5 Bouyer
and Werner argued that the prayers were based on Hebrew
sources.~Sigal stated that the original language was ’un-
doubtedly’ Aramaic.~The present author has argued, on the
basis of examples of parallelismus membrorum, on evidence
that the Greek of the prayers is translation Greek, and on sev-
eral verbal parallels to the Hebrew Seven Benedictions, that
the original language was Hebrew.~8
1. Analecta Ante-Nicaena (Aalen: Scientia, 1968; first published
1854).
2. P. de Lagarde, Constitutiones Apostolorum (Leipzig: B.G. Teub-
ner, 1862).
3. Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn: Schoen-
ingh,1905).
4. Les Constitutions Apostoliques (Paris: Cerf, 1985-1987).
5. Kohler, ’Essene Version’, p. 418; Bousset, ’Gebetssammlung’,
pp. 465f.; Goodenough, By Light, Light, p. 318.
6. Eucharistie, p. 123; Sacred Bridge, p. 30.
7. ’Liturgical Affinities’, p. 70.
8. Fiensy, Prayers, pp. 211-15.
26
Provenance
Bousset concluded that the prayers were composed by Greek-
speaking Jews somewhere in the diaspora, but offered no sug-
gestion as to a specific location. Bouyer assumed that the
prayers originated in Alexandria.2 Yet strong external evi-
dence exists which leads to the conclusion that Syria was the
provenance of the prayers. Other sources of the AC (the
Didascalia and Didczche) originated in Syria, as did the AC
itself. Furthermore, many Jews lived in Syria, especially in
and around Antioch, during the first four centuries of the
common era and the interaction between the Jews and Chris-
tians in this region is beyond question. Thus the kind of bor-
rowing from Judaism that the presence3
of these prayers in AC
attests could easily happen in Syria.3
Date
Kohler affirmed, without offering any reasons, that the
prayers were pre-Christian.’ Bousset maintained that the
prayers must be dated later than the mid-second century CE
since he believed the author(s) had used Aquila’s Greek ver-
sion of the Old Testament.5 Goodenough argued that the
prayers were post-Philonic because of the expression 16 ~.i~ 6v
which appears in the prayers (8.12), but not later than the
mid-second century CE since after that relations between the
synagogue and church were ’not cordial enough’ to have
allowed for borrowing.~The present author has argued for a
date between 150 and 300 CE. The terminus ad quem would be
one or two generations before the compiling of AC (380 CE) or
around 300 CE. What we now know about the relations
between the church and synagogue calls into question Good-
enough’s claim that no borrowing could take place after the
mid-second century. The terminus post quem is 150 CE since
1. ’Gebetssammlung’, p. 464.
2. Eucharistie, p. 123.
3. Fiensy, Prayers, pp. 216-20.
4. ’Essene Version’, p. 418.
5. ’Gebetssammlung’, p. 465.
6. By Light, Light, p. 357.
27
the forms, both of the Seven Benedictions and of the Kedusha,
which are found in the prayers (AC 7.33-38; 7.35.3) are post-
first century.1
Milieu
Various scholars have suggested that the prayers originated
in Essenism,2in Hellenistic Jewish Mysticism,3 and in
Samaritanism.4 None of these suggestions appears convinc-
ing, however. One must carefully compare the religious
milieu of the prayers with that of the compiler/redactor of the
AC. The apparent late date of these prayers must also be
considered. Thus, more study needs to be done before we can
successfully identify the milieu.
Some questions about these prayers have still not been ade-
quately addressed. One question is: What do these prayers
teach us about the development of prayer and praise in
ancient Judaism, and specifically about the development of the
Shemoneh Esreh? Other important questions are: How do the
prayers inform us about Judaism in Syria in the second cen-
tury ? What was the relationship between the church and the
synagogue in Syria? What does the compiler/redactor’s hand-
ling of these Jewish sources in AC teach us about documents
such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs which was
also heavily redacted by Christians?
1. Fiensy, Prayers, pp. 222-27.
2. Kohler, ’Essene Version’, pp. 410-25.
3. Goodenough, By Light, Light, pp. 343f.
4. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp. 11f.
