Christian Texts and History • Re: John Granger Cook 2017 article on the Question of an Empty Tomb in 1 Corinthians 15

2. The Semantics of ἀνίστημι and ἐγείρω

James Ware, in a recent analysis of ἐγείρω, distinguishes three senses, the first two of which are closely related: (1) ‘awaken, raise from sleep’ or ‘wake up, rise from sleep’; (2) ‘rouse up, stir up’; and (3) ‘raise up, set up right’ or ‘rise up, stand upright’ [Footnote 6]. In the first and third senses ‘the basic semantic meaning of getting up or arising to stand is present’ [Footnote 7]. This seems correct in general, although there are usages such as Homer, Iliad 2.41 where ἔγρετο δ’ ἐξ ὕπνου (‘he woke from sleep’) is followed by ἕζετο δ’ ὀρθωθείς in 2.42 (‘he sat up straight’). In such a text, one cannot demonstrate that the meaning ‘arising to stand’ is necessarily present in ἔγρετο. On the whole, however, Ware is accurate. One could argue that Iliad 2.42 simply clarifies the action of ‘getting up’ that is implied by ἔγρετο.

A text (probably first or early second century CE) attributed to Ammonius the grammarian distinguishes between the two verbs: ἠγέρθη καὶ ἀνέστη διαφέρει. ἠγέρθη, μέν, λεκτέον ἀπὸ ὕπνου, ἀνέστη δὲ ἀπὸ κλίνης (‘ἠγέρθη and ἀνέστη differ. Ἠγέρθη (he/she rose) is, on the one hand, to be said “from sleep”, but ἀνέστη (he/she rose) is to be said “from that on which one lies”’) [Footnote 8]. Clearly Ammonius perceives a physical meaning in both verbs. In another text, Ammonius writes: ἀναστῆναι καὶ ἐγερθῆναι διαφέρει. ἀναστῆναι μὲν ἐπὶ ἔργον, ἐγερθῆναι δὲ ἐξ ὕπνου (‘ἀναστῆναι and ἐγερθῆναι differ. Ἀναστῆναι is, on the one hand, to rise for a task, but ἐγερθῆναι is to rise from sleep’) [Footnote 9]. In another work dedicated to ‘incorrect phraseology’ (περὶ ἀκυρολογίας), the grammarian distinguishes the verbs so: ἀναστῆναι τοῦ ἐγερθῆναι διαφέρει. ἀναστῆναι ἐγρηγορότως, ἐγερθῆναι τὸ ἐξ ὕπνου (‘ἀναστῆναι differs from ἐγερθῆναι.

One rises (ἀναστῆναι) while awake, but one rises (ἐγερθῆναι) from sleep’) [Footnote 10]. Grammatical rules are occasionally broken, as in Ps.-Plato's Axiochus: Ἀγαμήδης γοῦν καὶ Τροφώνιος … κοιμηθέντες οὐκέτ’ ἀνέστησαν (‘Agamedes and Trophonius indeed going to sleep no longer rose up’) [Footnote 11]. A text of Eupolis the comic has a similar usage: τίς οὑξεγείρας μ’ ἐστὴν οἰμώξει μακρά· | ὁτιή μ’ ἀνέστησ’ ὠμόϋπνον (‘Who was it that waked/raised me? You will wail aloud | because you raised [or “woke”] me from my unfinished sleep’) [Footnote 12]. In general, it is true that classical Greek texts do not use the verb ἀνίστημι to mean ‘rise (from sleep)’. Both verbs imply a physical motion upward from the state of sleep, lying down or death – in contexts where individuals are sleeping, lying down or dead.

LXX and NT usage of the verbs for resurrection has roots in classical usage. A chorus in Sophocles’ Electra tells her that she will never raise her father from the lake of Hades, which is common to all, by wailing or by prayers (ἀλλ’ οὔτοι τόν γ’ ἐξ Ἀίδα | παγκοίνου λίμνας πατέρ’ ἀν|στάσεις οὔτε γόοισιν, οὐ λιταῖς) [Footnote 13]. There are a number of examples of the verb used in this way in classical literature [Footnote 14].

Examples of ἐγείρω and its cognates are more difficult to find. In Aeschylus’ Choephoroe, Orestes asks his dead father: ἆρ’ ἐξεγείρηι τοῖσδ’ ὀνείδεσιν, πάτερ; (‘Father, are you roused up by such taunts?’). Electra adds: ἆρ’ ὀρθὸν αἴρεις φίλτατον τὸ σὸν κάρα; (‘Are you raising up your beloved head erect?’) [Footnote 15]. If Ammonius is correct, then both lines are essentially referring to the same motion. Apollodorus describes Heracles’ raising of Theseus (who was bound near the gates of Hades) using the same verb: ὁ δὲ Θησέα μὲν λαβόμενος τῆς χειρὸς ἤγειρε, Πειρίθουν δὲ ἀναστῆσαι βουλόμενος τῆς γῆς κινουμένης ἀφῆκεν (‘Taking Theseus by the hand he raised him up, but although he wanted to raise Pirithous, when the earth quaked, he let him go’) [Footnote 16].

Theodoret presumably quotes Apollodorus (the second-century BCE historian) accurately, when the latter writes that Asclepius raised some who had died (τινας τῶν τετελευτηκότων ἐγείρειν) [Footnote 17]. In the case of the resurrections/awakenings of Tyrian Heracles and Dionysus the verb ἐγείρω was also used [Footnote 18].

Physical motion upward (usually ‘standing up’) is implied in all these texts. Clearly the verb is not equivalent to ‘exalting’ (for which an ancient Greek author would use ὑψόω) [Footnote 19].

4. Resurrections in Paganism

4.1 Resurrections Performed by Asclepius, Polyidus and Heracles

Philodemus (ca. 110–40/35 BCE), in his treatise On Piety, has a tradition of Asclepius’ resurrections:

Zeus struck down Asclepius with a thunderbolt, as the one who wrote the Naupactica [Hesiod's era] affirms and Telestes [4th C. BCE] in the Asclepius and the lyric poet Cinesias [ca. 450–390 BCE], because after being entreated by Artemis, he raised Hippolytus [from the dead] (ὅ[τι τὸ]ν Ἱππόλυτον [παρα]κληθεὶς ὑπ᾽ Ἀρ[τέμι]δος ἀνέστ[η]σε[ν]); but Stesichorus [ca. 600–555 BCE] in the Eriphyle wrote that it was because of Capaneus and Lycurgus.

Ps.-Eratosthenes (second century CE) notes that Asclepius’ transgressions included raising the dead by the art of the physician, and that his last resurrection was that of Hippolytus, son of Theseus (τούτου τέχνῃ ἰατρικῇ χρωμένου, ὡς καὶ τοὺς ἤδη τεθνηκότας ἐγείρειν, ἐν οἷς καὶ ἔσχατον Ἱππόλυτον τὸν Θησέως). There are numerous testimonies to resurrections accomplished by Asclepius.

Agatharchides (second century BCE) includes Alcestis among those whom Heracles raised:

And Alcestis, Protesilaus and Glaucus who died rose again (καὶ τὴν μὲν Ἄλκηστιν καὶ Πρωτεσίλαον καὶ Γλαῦκον τετελευτηκότας πάλιν ἀναστῆναι), the one being brought up by Heracles (τὴν μὲν ὑφ’ Ἡρακλέους ἀναχθεῖσαν), the other because of his love for his wife, and the last because of the prophecy about the one buried with him.

In all the examples above, individuals’ material bodies are raised (i.e. there is no statement that their corpses were left in tombs).

4.2 The Resurrection Narratives of Naumachius

Proclus (410/12–85 CE) describes certain individuals who apparently rose from the dead:

καὶ γὰρ ἐφ’ ἡμῶν τινες ἤδη καὶ ἀποθανεῖν ἔδοξαν καὶ μνήμασιν ἐνετέθησαν καὶ ἀνεβίωσαν καὶ ὤφθησαν οἳ μὲν ἐγκαθήμενοι τοῖς μνήμασιν, οἳ δὲ καὶ ἐφεστῶτες.

Because in our time certain individuals who were thought to have been already dead and who had been buried in their tombs came to life again and appeared (were seen), some lying on their tombs and others standing up.

Proclus gives several examples from an individual named Naumachius:

And Naumachius of Epirus, who lived in the time of my grandparents [mid 4th c.(?)], records that Polycritus, one of the most distinguished of the Aetolians who had obtained the office of Aetoliarch, died and came to life again in the ninth month after his death (ἀποθανεῖν καὶ ἀναβιῶναι μηνὶ μετὰ τὸν θάνατον ἐνάτῳ); and he came to the public assembly of the Aetolians and advised them on the best course of action to take concerning affairs that they were deliberating. Among the witnesses to these events were Hieron the Ephesian and other historians who wrote about what happened to Antigonus the king and other friends of theirs who were not present during the events.

It is a bodily resurrection.

< omitted >

4.3 Resurrections of Greco-Roman Divinities

4.3.4 Tyrian Heracles

A number of individuals in the ancient Mediterranean identified Tyrian Heracles with Melqart. An illuminating passage from Josephus refers to Menander's account of Hiram of Tyre's reign:

Moreover he went off and cut timber from the mountain called Libanos for the roofs of the temples, and pulled down the ancient temples and erected new ones to Heracles and Astarte; and he was the first to celebrate the awakening of Heracles in the month of Peritius (πρῶτός τε τοῦ Ἡρακλέους ἔγερσιν ἐποιήσατο ἐν τῷ Περιτίῳ μηνί).

There is a parallel text in the Contra Apionem:

He demolished ancient temples and built new ones, both to Heracles and to Astarte. He initiated the ‘Awakening’ of Heracles, in the month of Peritios (πρῶτόν τε τοῦ Ἡρακλέους ἔγερσιν ἐποιήσατο ἐν τῷ Περιτίῳ μηνί) …

... Menander is probably referring to the institution of an annual festival of the “Awakening” of the God …’Footnote 78 ‘Resuscitation’ or ‘resurrection’ would probably be good translations for ἔγερσιν in the texts in Josephus.

4.3.5 Attis

... In Pausanias’ (second century CE) Lydian version of the Attis myth, Attis is either killed by a boar or goes mad during a wedding and castrates himself when Agdistis, in love with Attis, interrupts the youth's wedding:

• But Agdistis repented of what he had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay (μήτε σήπεσθαί τι Ἄττῃ τοῦ σώματος μήτε τήκεσθαι).

< omitted >
Smith notes the ‘second to fourth century AD reinterpretation, within some of the “mystery” cults, of archaic locative traditions of dead deities in new experimental modes which appear to testify to these deities returning to life.

Ps.-Hippolytus, in his discussion of the Naassenes, affirms a resurrection for Attis (who is called ‘Pappas’ in the text) ...

λέγουσι δὲ οἱ Φρύγες <τὸν> αὐτὸν τοῦτον καὶ νέκυν, οἱονεὶ ἐν μνήματι καὶ τάφῳ ἐγκατωρυγμένον ἐν τῷ σώματι … οἱ δὲ αὐτοί, φησί, Φρύγες τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον πάλιν ἐκ μεταβολῆς λέγουσι θεόν· γίνεται γάρ, φησί, θεός, ὅταν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστὰς διὰ τῆς τοιαύτης πύλης εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.

But the Phrygians say that the same one is also a ‘corpse’, having been buried in the body as in a monument or tomb … And the same Phrygians, he says again, say that this same one is by reason of the change a god. For he becomes a god when he arises from the dead and enters into heaven through the same gate [the gate of the heavens].

< omitted >
The ‘Gnostic’ Phrygians of Hippolytus...relate the bodily resurrection of Attis to the spiritual resurrection of the pneumatikoi who are ‘born again from the bodies of the earthly’ (τουτέστιν ἐκ τῶν σωμάτων τῶν χοϊκῶν, ἀναγεννηθέντες πνευματικοί, οὐ σαρκικοί).

5. Protesilaus the Hero

Philostratus [fl. ~190–211 CE], in the Heroikos (a dialogue between a Phoenician and a vinedresser in Elaious), asserts that Protesilaus returned to life twice ...

PHOEN.: And yet he is said to have died after he came to life again (ἀποθανεῖν γε μετὰ τὸ ἀναβιῶναι λέγεται) and to have persuaded his wife to follow him.

VINEDR.: He himself also says these things. But how he returned afterwards too, he does not tell me even though I've wanted to find out for a long time. He is hiding, he says, some secret of the Fates (Μοιρῶν τι ἀπόρρητον). His fellow soldiers also, who were there in Troy, still appear on the plain, warlike in posture and shaking the crests of their helmets.