ASPECTS OF LATE SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH APOCALYPTIC: A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON
AUTOR(ES)
Vicente Carlos Rodrigues Alvarez Dobroruka
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO
2005
RESUMO
Among the many difficulties raised by Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic literature (which include dating and original language of composition among other issues), one that stands out is that of the many visionary episodes described. Do they report genuine, first-hand experiences on the part of the writers, are they just a literary convention, or do they stand in-between those two possibilities (i.e. whether the written accounts reflect actual experiential practice though what we have in the accounts themselves is mere literary artifice). The most important issue to be raised among all these difficulties is that almost all apocalyptic literature is pseudonymous - i.e. even if we are facing authentic revelatory experiences these cannot, by definition, be first-person accounts even when they ostensibly appear to be so. Pseudepigraphy poses a barrier here but at the same time it has been suggested by a number of scholars that this device might be related to the whole visionary process, implying that there may be some mystical identification between actual writer and portrayed hero. In short, the actual writer may believe himself to have been used as a channel for communication which would account for the pseudonymous authorship of the texts. Such questions cannot be answered just by the study of apocalyptic literature alone, since the texts give us no evidence regarding this identification, or regarding the possibilities of evaluation of the visionary experiences. A different method must be used to try to assess that literary corpus and the above stated questions in a different light. To this end, cross-cultural comparison can provide a useful tool in dealing with cases such as ours, where evidence in the sources themselves is scarce but when phenomena apparently similar can be compared. Great care must be taken not to exaggerate the possibilities of cross-cultural comparison so as to find exactly what one wants to in arbitrary fashion, since by definition no genealogical link can be established between the two objects chosen for the given study. Cross-cultural comparison can indeed be very useful, however to note similarities and differences in each case of pseudonymous attribution of religious texts. In the case discussed in this thesis, we are dealing with authorship in which a later author viewed himself as in some way identified with a figure of the past as he wrote, leading to pseudepigraphy: the author took the step of searching for a suitable, well-documented modern counterpart to religious pseudepigraphy in Antiquity. The example chosen took the shape of Kardecist automatic writing (also known as psychography), a religious practice at the core of Brazilian Kardecist Spiritism. This proved insightful due to both the external similarity of religious pseudepigraphy and to the abundant examples of preparatory ecstatic practices found therein. In Kardecism, authorship is not really pseudonymous since the name of the medium who mechanically wrote the text is usually given; still the contents of the texts are ascribed to people other than the actual writer, i.e. the medium. Among these, the figure of Francisco Chico Xavier stands out as one who, at the same time, had an enormous output of texts (more than 400 books). The study of Kardecist material on automatic writing, and study of scholarship on its problems sheds light on a number of issues, some reinforcing the idea of actual identification on the part of apocalyptic writers, others pointing against it. Supportive of the hypothesis of apocalyptic pseudepigraphy being akin to Kardecist automatic writing are the effects reported by the visionaries - tiredness, fear, exhaustion, trembling, visual hallucinations are all standard issues in Jewish apocalypses and in the reports of Kardecist mediums and very frequent in Chico Xavier, especially in his earlier production (as time passed he admittedly learnt how to discipline his feelings and development of psychic abilities). Differences in style are also a common feature: a text like, say, 4Ezra does not resemble its canonical counterpart (Ezra), nor do texts like Há 2.000 anos atrás... resemble a report on the life of Jesus such as could be written at the time of his death, or even centuries after. Anachronism is thus a common feature of apocalyptic pseudepigraphy and Kardecist automatic writing. Manipulation of spirits and/or possession by them are practices that make Kardecist automatic writing something other than mere convention and testify to the sincerity of the mediums descriptions. In utilising the Kardecist evidence consideration is given to evidence of similar ideas from Late Antiquity, specifically Second Temple Judaism. Far more common are negative references to belief in reincarnation in patristic authors like Augustine, Origen or Jerome, but they are Christian, not Jewish, authors discussing with pagans imbued with specifically Pythagorean ideas and in a period much later than that ascribed to most of the apocalyptic output. The mere fact that these authors discuss the issue is indicative that people held such beliefs and this was a risk amongst those to whom they wrote as well. As a result of this comparison it would appear that there is some evidence to consider apocalyptic pseudepigraphy as potentially involving manipulation of spirits (of dead past figures such as Baruch and Ezra, but also of mythical characters like Enoch, who did not die but was taken up to heaven), since Josephus testimony - notwithstanding its inherent problems - clearly ascribes this belief to a major Jewish group, the Pharisees. It should be noted that the fact that reincarnation was a concept in the air for late Second Temple Jews makes pseudepigraphy (which may have involved the writer identifying in some way with a figure of the past) a viable proposition, but no more than that. Immediate preparatory practices, on the other hand, although plentiful in apocalyptic descriptions, do not form part of Kardecist training and can, as such, be dismissed as non-mandatory to perform automatic writing involving manipulating of spirits. Both short- and longterm preparations (i.e. immediate practices and life-long training and absorption of doctrine) play a very different role in the cases of apocalyptic pseudepigraphy and Kardecist automatic writing and this is an issue discussed in the appendix to the thesis. It stands out in most apocalypses that the characters under whose name the revelations happened undergo preparatory processes before the visions occur. This evidence may be adduced in support of this thesis, therefore. These descriptions take a highly stereotypical character (e.g. the sequence of fasts in 2Br) but this does not mean, however, that they could never have taken place. Such descriptions are very much absent from Kardecist usage, however. It must also be stressed that, since what changes is culture and not chemistry or physiology, the same preparatory practices can lead to very different results according to the mental tools that the visionary has at his/her disposal. Thus a Kardecist medium such as Chico Xavier sees things that fit well in his Kardecist point of view, which includes the manipulating of spirits in order to produce coherent texts exhortative to charity etc., in Kardecist fashion. The same result cannot be expected from mystics in societies where reincarnation (at the core of Kardecism) or invoking of spirits are absent. In the appendix I discuss preparatory practices of seers in apocalyptic texts.
ASSUNTO(S)
apocalyptic literature apocalyptic texts historia da teologia
