Apoc. Bar speaks of those 'who have forsaken vanity and fled for refuge beneath thy wings,' in contrast to those who have ' withdrawn from thy covenant and cast from them the yoke of thy law' (4H-*);|| and refers to them again as -those who before knew not, but afterwards knew life
• See Zee 2", Est 9».
t Cf. Dt e's 1020.
j Naaman is hardly an exception, since he can worship J" in ft foreifrn land only by talduff some of J"'8 land with him (2 K &'r 18).
9 See references above.
I So Philo contrasts proselytes with apostates (o« rSr iipSo re/A** «rorTa,ri,-, de Pwnit, 2),
and mingled with the seed of the people which had separated itself ' (42').
Much uncertainty must be acknowledged regard- ing the use of the phrase the ' devout ' or ' God- fenrefs' (".t 'N*i', oI ^pofioijfj.evoi rbv Oedv [Kvpiovlf ol ire/JAfifi'oi T. 6.) as the technical name either for proselytes in general or for a certain class of prose- lytes. In Judaism (after Dt 6-- 1^- -■" 10'2-» Lr Ijju. 32 2517 etc.) it became so far a standing phrasa for Israelites, or the true Israelites, themselves that it would seem inappropriate as a distinctivs designation of converts, or half converts, from heathenism (see Ps 15* 2^-'^ 2512-" 31" 60* etc., Mai 3'" 4-, Sir 2'"" 6"*- " 34"-"' etc., Ps.-Sol 2" 3'« 4-* etc.).* It is indeed commonly held that in Ps 11511. IS iig4 13520 proselytes are distinguished by this title from the Israelitisli laity and priesthood.t But this is not certain. The phrase may be a comprehensive and summary one, as it probably is in Ps 22-» (so in Three «*, cf. «'-^, ■» [LXX Dn 390. 83-8is. 33]_ Kev 195 (11'8?), whcrc it is equivalent to ' servants of the Lord '). 2 K 17^-- ^ does indeed suggest that heathen mi"ht fear J" and at the same time serve their own gods ; but this is perhaps an ironical description of the Samaritan religion.
It is Acts wliich seems most clearly to imply a technical use of the phrase. Sf^i/ieyoi or ^o/Joi'/xej-oi, with or without rbf debf, is commonly regarded as designating such non-Jews as held to the Jewish synagogue worship and observed the most elemen- tary Jewish laws of food and purity and Sabbath observance, without entering by circumcision into the Jewish community. Such a class, distinct from Jews on the one side and from casual travellers to Jerusalem on the other, Josephus once mentions as contributing to tlie wealth of the temple (Ant. XIV. vii. 2, cre/36/xf;'oi rbv eebv).X Yet the references to them here and in Acts are indefinite enough, so that Bertholet (pp. 328-334) can argue that they are nothing but circumcised proselytes, while on tlie other hand O. Holtzmann (NT Zeitgexrh. p. 185) declares that irpoo-ijXi/ros is the technical name of (uncircumcised) <po^ovp,(voi. They are distinguished from Israelites (Ac 13"), children of Abraham's race (13*), the Jews (13** 17"), and these two classes together composed the .synagogue audiences at Antioch of Pisidia and at Atliens. The ' God-fearers ' seem to be identified with prose- lytes in IS'^, for ol <re^6fi(fOi Tpoir-fiXwoi can hardly be different from oi ipo'^ovfievoi rbv Bedi/ of vv."'-^". Schiirer himself recognized the identification in Riehm's Handweirterbtick'' ( 1894), art. ' Proselyten,' but denies it again in the 3rd ed. of his G,/K (1S98) iii. p. 124 ff., where he argues against Bertholet that proselytes proper are included in the first category, that of Jews or Israelites. This might indeed be used in common speech to include all the circumcised, whether of Jewish birth or not, but the phrase ' children of the race of Abraham' (v.-*) seems more explicit. But, on the contrary, 'the devout Greeks' of Thes.salonica (l"*) were hardly a different class from the ' Greeks ' whom St. Paul found in the synagogues at Iconium (14') and Corinth (18''). St. Paul carries out his threat to leave the Jews and go to the Gentiles by going to the house of Titius Justus, one of the affihixcvtn (18'), who could therefore hardly have been circum- cised. As to Lydia (lO") and ' the devout women' of Antioch ( 13°"), we cannot determine the degree of their connexion with Judaism ; but Cornelius is unmistakably an uncircumcised foreigner (dXXi- i^uXos, lO-*), with whom a Jew could have no free intercourse (IP). Bertholet is obliged to say that
• See references in Cremer's V>'6rterbHch, «. fe^itt.
♦ Bertholet (p. 181 1.). Baethgen {DU Psatmen) on P8 11511; Wellhausen (PB). This interpretation goes back to Theodoret, Ibn Ezra, Rashi.
J These are ' the Greeks who honour our customs* {Ant m viii. 9) ; those who have a ' zeal for our religion ' (c. Ap. ii. 29X
PKOSELYTE
PROSELYTE
135
the phrase <t>opovfi.evo% rbv 8e6r (10'--') is not >ised of him in its technical sense. It is true tliat its use here, in connexion with other descriptive words, and especiallj- in v." (' he tliat fears him and works rigliteousness'), does not suggest the technical name of a definite class of men. But surely Cornelius would have been found in the synagogue on the Sabbath (see 10---), and he ia not to be distinguished from the class of foreigners informally connected with Judaism, with whom the other passages acquaint us. Another such is the cen- turion who loved the Jewish nation and built them a synagogue (Lk 7^"*); and another, the eunuch who came to Jerusalem to worship (Ac 8-'"'-)> hut who could not, if he would, enter into the a.«sembl3' of the Lord (Dt 23'); others are mentioned iu Jn 12^.