Festivals , cultural intertextuality , and the Gospel of John ’ s rhetoric of distance

Note: Prof. Dr Warren Carter is a member of the editorial board of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies; this article is dedicated to Prof. Dr Andries G. van Aarde with appreciation for his generous spirit, energetic leadership and insightful and creative scholarship. Prof. Dr Warren Carter is also participating as research associate of Prof. Dr Andries G. van Aarde, Honorary Professor in the Department of New Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa.


Introduction
According to a 568-line inscription displayed at the entrance to the Ephesian theatre and in the Artemision (IE 1a 27;Wankel 1979Wankel -1984)), 1 a wealthy, landowning Roman of the equestrian order, C. Vibius Salutaris, made a large donation to Ephesus in 103-104 CE (Rogers 1991:153-185).Amongst several provisions, Salutaris established a procession through Ephesus every two weeks.Taking about 90 minutes, it followed a circular and carefully choreographed route that embraced Roman, Hellenistic and mythological dimensions of the city's sacred identity rooted in Artemis.The procession bore some 31 images, 9 representing Artemis, others representing various Roman personnel (Augustus, the Roman emperor and his wife, the Roman senate, the Roman people), and 15 representing central figures and aspects of Ephesian life including Androklos, responsible for the city's founding, and Lysimachos, a Hellenistic king who re-founded the city in the 280s BCE.
What did Jesus-believers in Ephesus do during this bi-weekly celebration?Its route through significant areas of the city, its festival nature with 31 images, and its bi-weekly frequency suggest it was not easily avoided.Did Jesus-believers in Ephesus -amongst whom John's Gospel was, if not written, probably read and heard 2 -avert their eyes, turn their backs, utter the name of Jesus, or find another route?Or did the procession not trouble them so that they continued on with their daily business?Or did they join it as active participants and/or as spectators?We of course cannot know for certain; historical imagination is inevitably at work in the argument that follows, just as it is in all historical reconstruction.Such questions have received little attention in relation to John's Gospel; this discussion can be an initial exploration only.The neglect of the interface between the Gospel narrative and an Ephesian cultural context is no surprise given the restricted interests of much Johannine scholarship more concerned with a supposed separation from a synagogue or with reading strategies that spiritualise and individualise the Gospel.A solitary focus on a synagogue and a reading strategy that views John as an exclusively religious text artificially and anachronistically isolate it from social, cultural, and Imperial realities.
Yet positing that John-reading, Jesus-believers in Ephesus were isolated from their daily world and society is impossible to sustain.The recognition of their societal involvement might 1.I list Ephesian inscriptions hereafter by volume and number (I. 19).
2.Irenaeus (Adv Haer 3.1.1)links John's writing with Ephesus; see also Eusebius, To be clear, I am not arguing that John's Gospel originated in Ephesus or intended to address believers in the city explicitly, but I am making the reasonable assumption that it was read or heard in the city.This paper explores just one aspect of the possible interaction between the Gospel and this multidimensional urban context.
proceed by various means if space permitted, including the Gospel's participationist presentation of Jesus (17:15;18:20).Another approach -which I can only outline here, but which I sustain in my John and Empire (Carter 2008)might begin with recognising that the long-held focus on the separation of Jesus-believers from a synagogue (the Brown-Martyn scenario) increasingly fails to be persuasive (Carter 2008:22-26).The consequence of this acknowledgement is the recognition that Jesus-believers were probably part of a synagogue community.As recent work has shown (Trebilco 1991;Barclay 1996;Gruen 2002;Harland 2003), synagogues were not culturally isolated communities, but commonly maintained considerably, though not completely porous boundaries which allowed multiple and simultaneous societal interactions.John's Gospel disapprovingly styles Jesus-believers who were part of synagogue communities not as opponents of high Christology, as Raymond Brown argues (1979:71-73), but as fearful and committed to the 'love of human glory'(12:42-43) -the love of honour and status so fundamental to Hellenistic and Roman societies gained and secured through societal participation (Barton 2001;Keener 2003:886-888).
In order to begin to pursue the question of how John-reading or hearing, Jesus-believers might have negotiated civic participation in Ephesus, I assert (without arguing) three claims concerning John's Gospel and its audience: • Firstly, I posit that, wherever it was written, John was at least read and heard in Ephesus (Irenaeus Adv Haer 3.1.1;.My focus is its possible reception in and interaction with such a context.• Secondly, to pursue the intertextualities between John's Gospel and an Ephesian context beyond the synagogue, I adopt an approach pioneered by Sjef van Tilborg (1996) in his exploration of the 'interference' between John's Gospel and the large corpus of Ephesian inscriptions.
In Reading John in Ephesus, Van Tilborg prioritises Ephesian referents over Galilean or Jerusalem referents.In this way, he argues, for an Ephesian, Jesus-believing audience, the Gospel presentation of chief priests has interference not with Jerusalem structures or personnel, but with elite chief priests in Ephesus.Similarly, for an Ephesian audience, the Gospel's presentation of the Jerusalem temple has interference not with the Jerusalem temple but with temples -Artemis, Imperial, numerous deities -experienced daily in Ephesus.On the same basis, I explore the interference for an Ephesian audience between the festivals presented in the Gospel's narrative, on the one hand, and the Ephesian context, on the other, in which civic festivals were pervasive.• Thirdly, Jesus-believers in Asia were conflicted over cultural and cultic participation.This struggle is attested, for example, in Revelation 2-3 in the struggle between John and 'Jezebel' and their supporters (Carter 2009), in the command to honour the emperor in 1 Peter 2:17 (cf. 1 Cor 8-10) (Carter 2004) and, as will become evident, in the interaction between John's Gospel and Jesus-believers in Ephesus.

Pervasive Ephesian festivals
Salutaris' procession was of course not the only such festival in Ephesus.Pervading the civic landscape were Imperial cult celebrations and observances of various 'cults and deities' including those of Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Asclepius, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Isis and Sarapis, the Mother goddess, Hestia, Zeus, Hero cults, and other deities (Oster 1990;Mitchell 1990).Public processions, sacrifices, games and feasts manifested divine presence and purposes, defined public time and space, embraced elites and non-elites and constituted the city's sacred identity as blessed by, and beholden to, the gods manifested in their midst.
Major festivals shaped the urban calendar and conception of time (Price 1984:106).In the month of Lenaeon, the annual Dionysia (celebrating vine-growing and its produce) involved feasting and drinking (I.9), and probably theatrical performances (Strabo 14.1.29).2037, 2061-2063) were held (Van Tilborg 1996:176-179, 190-191) It was the time when the local festival of Artemis was being celebrated and the procession was going from the city to the sanctuary, a distance of three kilometers.All the local girls had to process, richly adorned, and the young men … A great crowd both of locals and foreigners gathered for the spectacle … The members of the procession filed past, first the carriers of the sacred objects, torches, baskets and incense burners, then horses, dogs, and hunting equipment for war and especially for peace … (1.2.2-5;Price 1984:110) Price (1984:174-75, 189) notes that sacrifices -to which garlanded animals were commonly escorted (Artemis V.1577A, B) -occurred in central areas.The council house included an Imperial altar as did the stadium where games were held (IV.1139).Imperial images, including cult statues, were located not only in the temple of Artemis but also in the theatre (I.28; VI.2047-48), near the harbour (II.508, 518), in the market (II.404),near fountains (II.413, 420) and in private houses (I.27 line 150-51; I.28; II.267; Van Tilborg 1996:192-196).In its temporal and spatial structure, 'the city … radiates (Imperial) cult' (Van Tilborg 1996:196) as a locus of divine blessing and presence.
By ordering civic space and time and facilitating social bonding, festivals participated in, and enacted, a cosmic order in Ephesus.They mediated the presence, will, and blessings of the city's protector Artemis and of other deities, as well as the social order of the divinely sanctioned Romans.Festivals were crucial to the city's sacred identity.How did John-reading, Jesus-believers negotiate such identities?

John's Gospel: Constructing festivals as contexts of conflict and/or condemnation
Jesus regularly attends festivals throughout John's narrative.
My focus here, shaped by Van Tilborg's approach of Ephesian 'interference' (van Tilborg 1996), concerns the cultural intertextuality between the Gospel depictions of festivals and the numerous and various festivals of late first-century Ephesus. 5 Much previous discussion has discussed the Johannine festivals at length, identifying the focus of festivals such as Passover, Tabernacles, Dedication and Sabbath and assessing the contribution of their traditions, rituals and symbols to the particular exchanges between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities.These discussions have shown that Jesus uses festival motifs simultaneously to define himself and to (re-)define the festivals.I will not rehearse those rich 5.I do not explore possible implications for the interaction between Jesus-believers and the rest of the synagogue community.
discussions here for several reasons.Partly, space precludes it and partly it is precisely this restricted focus that I wish to move beyond in this article.Previous scholarship has almost invariably assessed the functions of the festivals only in synagogal contexts and in terms of contested traditions where struggles over the interpretation of the festal repertoire have been central to the Gospel narratives.My concern here is to move beyond intra-synagogal debates and offer an initial exploration of some of the possible interactions between the Gospel's festal narratives and the civic festivals familiar to Jesus-believing readers or hearers in Ephesus.Such readers may well be involved in intra-synagogal disputes over the significance of festivals; this article will set that dimension aside and focus only on some possible interactions with civic Ephesian festivals.
It can be noted that a dominant feature of the Gospel's presentation of festivals concerns the frequent presence of conflict and condemnation.I am not claiming that conflict and condemnation are the only dynamic that festivals denote, nor that conflict and condemnation occur only in the context of festivals.Rather, the Gospel frequently presents festivals as, among other things, contexts or spaces in which significant conflict occurs between Jesus and his opponents and in which Jesus frequently announces condemnation on his opponents.This more general level of presentation offers a good starting place for exploring their interface with Ephesian civic festivals.
The following brief survey indicates the presence of conflict and condemnation through the festival narratives.The narrative connection between festivals and conflict or condemnation emerges with the first reference to a festival at 2:13 (cf.4:45, where the word occurs twice).Passover provides the space or occasion in which Jesus conflicts with the Romeallied, Jerusalem temple establishment, denouncing its preference for trade (2:16).The Ioudaioi 6 or temple leaders demand a sign or authorisation for Jesus' action, but do not comprehend his answer (2: [19][20].The reference to Jesus' zeal for God's house consuming him (2:17) and Jesus' selfreferencing words (2:19, 'destroy this temple') denote the conflict's fatal intensity.
Three factors indicate the presence of condemnation.Firstly, Jesus' echoing of the eschatological passage of Zechariah 14:21 in 2:16 ('and there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day') indicates God's judgment on 'business as usual' in the temple.Secondly, the link between the temple and Jesus' body (2:21) relocates the temple in the resurrected person of Jesus as the locus of divine encounter and revelation.And third, the Gospel originates after Titus' troops had destroyed the temple (Haenchen 1984:187), an act widely interpreted as God's condemnation of the temple and its leaders. 7 6.This term, preferable to the problematic 'the Jews,' denotes a subgroup comprising Jerusalem-temple-based leaders (1:19; 2:2:18, 20; 3:1) and supporters (6:41, 52), chief priests and leading Pharisees (18:3, 13; 19:14-15) allied with Rome (11:45-53) and often conflicting with Jesus (Carter 2008:156-158, 173-174, n. 63).
More conflict follows with the Sabbath healing in Jerusalem of the man-born-blind (9:14, 16).Here, the conflict is not, initially, directly with Jesus, but with the healed man who, as has often been noted, gains more insight into Jesus' identity and revelation of God as pressure is exerted on him. 10After doubts about his story (9:18), parental denials (9:19-21), sharp exchanges (9:24-27a) and sarcasm (9:27b), the man is 'cast out' for attempting to teach the Jerusalem elite (9:34).While the healed man gains insight, the elite deny any revelation or encounter with the divine through Jesus.He is not from God (9:16), he is a sinner (9:24), God has not spoken to him and his origin is unknown (9:29).Jesus enters the scene to condemn them for declaring that they 'see' when they do not (9:39-41) and to denounce them as thieves and robbers or brigands (10:1, 8, 10).
The festival of Dedication contextualises more conflict in Jerusalem and the temple (10:22-23).The Ioudaioi ask if Jesus is the Christ.He answers that he had told them but they did not believe; only those who believe participate in eternal life and never perish (10:25-28).Their condemnation is clear, as is the conflict.The Ioudaioi attempt to stone him (10:31), accuse him of blasphemy (10:32-38), and seek his arrest (10:39).
The narrative thus constructs festivals as, among other things, significant occasions of conflict and condemnation involving Jesus and the Jerusalem-based, Rome-allied elite.

Festivals Intertextuality between Gospel narrative and Ephesus
For Ephesian Jesus-believers who, along with some or many in synagogues, were participants in civic festivals, what happens in the cultural intertextuality between the Gospel's construction of festivals as (in part) occasions of conflict and condemnation and the various civic festivals that pervaded Ephesus?
Firstly, the Gospel's presentation of festivals as occasions of conflict and condemnation destablilises and problematises festivals in Ephesus.By locating conflict between Jesus and the Jerusalem-based, Rome-allied elite in the context of festivals and by showing this conflict to be a matter of lifeand-death, John's narrative contests the civic presentation of festivals as a normative or 'innocent' part of daily Ephesian reality.Festivals, so pervasive in the city's temporal, spatial, cosmic, and social order, become, in the Gospel's narrative world, problematic times and spaces marked by conflict, especially with powerful elites who create and secure the city's social order and sacred identity (Rogers 1991) Moreover, the interface between the Gospel narrative and civic Ephesian festivals reveals fundamental incompatibilities between Jesus' God-given mission and the civic status quo of Ephesus.The narrative probes beneath the claims associated with Artemis, Rome and various other gods of divine blessing, cosmic ordering, social bonding, and the celebration of central civic values and practices effected by civic festivals to highlight profound questions that are central to the Gospel's agenda.The conflicts that occur in the context of the Gospel's festivals involve recurring Christological affirmations that center on, or relate to, the mission of Jesus as God's agent: the revelation of the divine, 11 mediating divine encounter, 12 matters of cosmic order, sovereignty and destiny, life and death, 13 accountability to the divine 14 and a recognition of the locus of divine blessing and life-giving purposes. 15One likely implication of the Gospel's relentless insistence that Jesus alone provides the legitimate means of encountering the divine 16 and of its dualistic, pervasive 'either/or' worldview is that there is no room for Jesusbelievers to assent to crucial claims of Ephesian civic festivals that the emperor and/or Artemis and/or Demeter and/or Dionysus are legitimate manifestations of divine presence or blessing, or that their festivals are places of legitimate divine encounter and sources of life.
While some Jesus-believers in Ephesus seem to think that festival participation is harmless and meaningless, interaction with John's Gospel indicates an alternative perspective.The Gospel's presentation of festivals as occasions of conflict and condemnation interfaces with civic Ephesian festivals, deeming them not to be innocent or harmless events in which participation poses no problems; rather, they are deadly.Jesus attends festivals while pursuing his own identity and mission, yet he is, ultimately, rejected in being crucified at Passover.Festivals as times and spaces of conflict and condemnation under elite control present 'the world's' commitment to that which is contrary to God's purposes.Absence from them seems necessary for Jesus-believers.
The Gospel presentation of festivals is a further example of the Gospel's 'rhetoric of distance.'This rhetoric like the Gospel's dualisms, realised eschatology, Christological images or titles and notions of eternal life (Carter 2008) function to urge civically-involved believers to distant themselves from civic participation. 19By constructing festivals around conflict and condemnation and by evoking biblical narratives of liberation from Egyptian and Seleucid hegemony, the Gospel narrative (read in relation to Ephesus' festivals) underlines a profound incompatibility between Jesus-believers, accommodated synagogues and civic life.Social distance or retreat is the required response to the rhetoric of distance.Just what such 'social distance' might look like when festivals were so profoundly embedded in the city's structures and daily life, and whether some or many Jesus-believers in the city adopted the Gospel's perspective, are matters, regrettably, beyond our reach.
. While festivals sanction Ephesian life under the blessing of Artemis and other deities and of Rome's divinely-sanctioned power, the Gospel's presentation counters such ordering.It shows festivals to be conflictual occasions marked by opposition to the divine purposes revealed by God's agent Jesus who condemns those who do not 'receive' him.Contrary to the celebratory, carnival-like, atmosphere shared by elites and non-elites, festivals (and the related temples and deities) become, through this intertextuality, oppositional times and places.
appear in Ephesian inscriptions for the temples of Artemis and the Sebastoi.