Meaning of Agency and Apostleship

From Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., introduction.

Agency represented commission and authorization, the sense of the concept which pro- vides a broad conceptual background for early Christian agency. The agent’s own legal status may have been low;288 under rabbinic rulings, even slaves were permitted to fill the position.289 Yet agents bore representative authority, because they acted on the authority of those who sent them. Thus perhaps the most common rabbinic maxim concerning a person’s agent is that “he is equivalent to the person himself.”290 Later rabbis, probably wishing to minimize the possibility of accidental bigamy, regarded a divorce performed on the testimony of an agent as valid even if the husband later denies its validity.291 In the broader Mediterranean world envoys or messengers were backed by the full authority of those they represented.292 They also bore diplomatic immunity, so mistreating them was an insult not only to those who sent them293 but also to the standards of Mediterranean justice,294 for their office had long been held sacred.295 The principle applied much more broadly, in fact, than to heralds; one could express one’s feelings toward a sender by so treating the sender’s representative. Thus Turnus thinks that King Evander deserves death, and accordingly kills his representative in battle (Virgil Aen. 10.492); by contrast, Achilles tells frightened heralds that he is angry with Agamemnon who sent them, not with them (Homer Il. 1.334–336).

Because the agent had to be trustworthy to carry out his mission, various teachers ruled on the character the pious should require of such agents;296 an agent who fails to carry out his commission is penalized.297 This also implies, of course, that a shaliach’s authority was entirely limited to the extent of his commission and the fidelity with which he carried it out.298 Granted, high-ranking ambassadors could act in the spirit of their senders, but even in such cases governing bodies could refuse or modify their agents’ terms.299 (In this Gospel Jesus appears as the Father’s perfect agent, in continual communion with him, rendering such modification unnecessary; cf. 5:19–20; 8:28–29.) In the broader Mediterranean world as well, messengers of all sorts were required to have exceptional memories so as to communicate accurately all they were sent to say,300 and any suspicion that they exaggerated a report could be held against them.301

The LXX regularly employs "apostle" and not "sent" with divine sending.302 For instance, God sent Joseph (unknown to Joseph; Gen 45:5, 7, 8) and Abigail (unknown to her; 1 Sam 25:32); the term often applies to one sending another on a mission.303 But God particularly sent Moses (Exod 3:10, 13–15; 4:28; 7:16; Deut 34:11; cf. Exod 4:13; 5:22) and the prophets, whether individually (2 Sam 12:1; 2 Chr 25:15; cf. 2 Sam 12:25) or collectively (2 Kgs 17:13; 2 Chr 24:19; Bar 1:21). Especially noteworthy here are 2 Chr 36:15 (God sent by his "angel," the noun cognate of "apostle" apparently being unavailable), and the language of Jeremiah (Jer 7:25; 24:4; 26:5; 28:9; 35:15; 44:4), where unsent prophets are evil (Jer 14:14–15; 23:21, 32; 27:15 [36:15–16 LXX]).

Some later Jewish teachers thus viewed as agents Moses,304 Aaron,305 the OT prophets306 or, most generally, anyone who carried out God’s will.307 Jewish teachers who saw the prophets as God’s commissioned messengers were consistent with the portrait of prophets in their Scriptures. Israel’s prophetic messenger formulas echo ancient Near Eastern royal messenger formulas such as, “Thus says the great king,” often addressing Israel’s vassal kings for the suzerain king Yahweh.308 Old Testament perspectives on prophets inform the early Christian view of apostleship,309 although they do not exhaust its meaning;310 early Christianity clearly maintained the continuance of the prophetic office, while seeming to apply to apostles the special sort of position accorded only to certain prophets in the OT (such as prophet-judges like Deborah and Samuel, and other leaders of prophetic schools like Elijah and Elisha).311

The first Christian “apostles” were probably distinguished from prophets because they were sent on missions while Jesus was with them in the flesh (Mark 6:7–13, 30). True apostles were apparently defined partly by their message of revelation. Most probably saw themselves as “sent” with a revelatory message to Israel like prophets of old, until Paul expanded the categories (like Jeremiah as a prophet to nations; Jer 1:5; Rom 11:13). Most significantly, early Christian apostles used Moses as a primary model (John 1:14; 2 Cor 3). Although the noun appears in John only at 13:16 (where it clearly functions as cognate in sense to the verb), at least some Johannine Christians used the term for the Twelve (Rev 21:14) and for Christian leaders until the end (Rev 18:20; false ones in Rev 2:2). If the prophetic use of the verb probably stands behind the general sense of the early Christian “apostle,” it is even more likely to stand behind the use of the verb in this Gospel.

Footnotes

288 B. Ketub. 99b–100a.

289 B. Git. 23a; cf. p. Git. 2:6, §1.

290 T. TaÁan. 3:2 (trans. Neusner, 2:274); also m. Ber. 5:5; b. Naz. 12b. For the sender’s responsibility, see m. MeÁil. 6:1; but reportedly pre-Christian tradition in b. Qidd. 43a holds the agent liable even if the sender is liable also.

291 P. Git. 1:1, §1. For discussion of how a sender could nullify an agent’s task, see p. Git. 4:1, §1; the stricter rule required speaking to the agent (see m. Git. 4:1).

292 E.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 6.88.2; Diodorus Siculus 40.1.1; Josephus Life 65, 72–73, 196–198; 2 Macc 1:20. Cf. Zeno’s dispatch of two fellow scholars in his place in Diogenes Laertius 7.1.9.

293 Diodorus Siculus 4.10.3–4; Josephus Ant. 8.220–221.

294 Cf. Euripides Heracl. 272; Xenophon Anab. 5.7.18–19, 34; Apollodorus Epitome 3.28–29; Polybius 15.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 8.43.4; Diodorus Siculus 36.15.1–2; Dio Cassius 19.61; Appian R.H. 3.6.1–2; 3.7.2–3; 4.11; 8.8.53; Valerius Maximus 6.6.3–4. This was important, since receivers of news sometimes responded positively or negatively to messengers depending on the news they received (e.g., Homer Il. 17.694–696; 18.15–21; Euripides Medea 1125–1129; Appian R.H. 12.12.84; Arrian Ind. 34.4; 35.1; 2 Sam 1:15; 18:20, 22; Ps.-Callisthenes Alex. 1.35, 37).

295 Homer Il. 1.334; 7.274–282; 8.517; Aeschines Timarchus 21; Cicero Phil. 13.21.47; Herodian 6.4.6. Ambassadors who risked their lives merited special honor (Phil 2:25–30; Cicero Phil. 9.1.2).

296 M. Demai 4:5; t. Demai 2:20; cf. also Aeschines Timarchus 21.

297 B. B. Qam. 102ab.

298 Wenham, Bible, 114–15. In the broader Mediterranean culture, cf., e.g., Demosthenes On the Embassy 4–5.

299 E.g., Appian R.H. 9.9.3 (196 B.C.E.).

300 E.g., the ideal herald Aethalides in Apollonius of Rhodes 1.640–648.

301 Cf. Euripides Heracl. 292–293.

302 The sense of a cognate noun and verb need not agree, but given the noun’s absence in the LXX and the verb’s prominence there in a manner analogous to early Christian usage, it seems likely that the noun here reflects a Christian usage coined to match the cognate LXX verb (albeit in less technical use in secular vocabulary).

303 Joshua by Moses (Josh 14:7; cf. Josh 11:15); Barak by Deborah (Judg 4:6); Saul’s messengers (1 Sam 19:20); David (allegedly) by Saul (1 Sam 21:2); angels from God (e.g., Judg 13:8; Tob 12:14; cf. Gen 24:7); cf. messengers in 1 Kgs 18:10; 19:2; 2 Kgs 1:2, 6, 9, 11, 13; etc. A disciple may be “sent” as his master’s representative (the false but believable claim in 2 Kgs 5:22; cf. 2 Kgs 9:1–4).

304 Sipra Behuq. pq. 13.277.1.13–14; ÂAbot R. Nat. 1 A, most MSS; Exod. Rab. 6:3 (marriage negotiator); Pesiq. Rab Kah. 14:5; cf. Josephus Ant. 4.329. Samaritan literature sometimes portrayed Moses as God’s apostle (Memar Marqah 6.3, in Boring et al., Commentary, 263; Bowman, Documents, 241, 243; Meeks, Prophet-King, 226–27; idem, “Jew,” 173); Meeks regards this as significant for John (Prophet-King, 301–2); later Jewish texts may polemicize against Christian exploitation of such a position (cf. Barrett, John and Judaism, 49).

305 Sipra Sav M.D. 98.9.6.

306 Mek. Pisha 1.87 (Lauterbach 1:8), referring both to Jonah and to the wind God sent after him; ÂAbot R. Nat. 37, §95 B.

307 Sipra Sav M.D. 98.9.5. For a background for John’s sending motif in Isaiah’s servant, see esp. Griffiths, “Deutero-Isaiah,” 359.

308 Holladay, “Statecraft,” 31–34; cf. Judith 2:5; Rabe, “Prophecy,” 127. The form was probably used similarly in other ancient Near Eastern ecstatic prophetism (see Paul, “Prophets,” 1160; cf. Moran, “Prophecy,” 24–25).

309 See Grudem, Prophecy, 43–54; he probably goes too far, as Hill, Prophecy, 116–17, points out, although he does distinguish the two.

310 Hill, Prophecy, 116–17.

311 Schmithals, Apostle, 55–56, rejects the prophetic background for apostleship (preferring a gnostic background); by contrast, Betz, Jesus, 105, thinks apostleship is modeled “above all on the Old Testament prophet.” Meeks, Moral World, 107, 109, seems to equate Paul’s “false-apostle” opposition with wandering prophets; Aune, Prophecy, 206, mentions “itinerant Christian missionaries” (Did. 11.3–6); but Richardson, Theology, 320, rightly observes that Apollos, Timothy, and Titus did not explicitly receive the title, suggesting that the Didache usage is a post-NT development.