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A Nicandrian Nero? The Symbolic Significance of the Viper in Acts 28.1–6
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2023
Abstract
While surviving the shipwreck and the viper bite in Acts 28.1–6 have often been recognised as symbolic assertions of Paul's innocence, the viper may hold further symbolic significance. Following his act of matricide in 59 ce, Nero was linked to Aeschylus’ portrayal of Orestes, who, in turn, was linked to a tradition that understood a viper's birth as matricidal. Thus, through his encounter with the viper, Paul symbolically ‘appears before’ the emperor Nero—something that is anticipated yet never happens overtly in the narrative of Acts itself.
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1 C. Kavin Rowe asserts, ‘No longer can Acts be seen as a simple apologia that articulates Christianity's harmlessness vis-à-vis Rome. Yet neither is it a direct call for liberation’ (World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 4). Although Acts was clearly never intended (simply) as a ‘simple’ apology, certainly not aimed at outsiders, Rowe's claim does not account for the place of Acts on the trajectory towards the later second-century Apologists. See, for example, Alexander, L. C. A., Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (LNTS 289; London: T&T Clark, 2005) 201–2Google Scholar; D. W. Billings, ‘In the Image of the Empire: The Acts of the Apostles and Imperial Representations’ (PhD dissertation, McGill University, 2015) 299–302; Hilton, A. R., Illiterate Apostles: Uneducated Early Christians and the Literates Who Loved Them (LNTS 541; London: T&T Clark, 2019) 96Google Scholar, 156, 165. Nor does Rowe's argument account for the apologetic tone of individual texts within Acts, such as Acts 28.1–6.
2 D. Ladouceur, ‘Hellenistic Preconceptions of Shipwreck and Pollution as a Context for Acts 27-28’, HTR 73 (1980) 435–49; C. K. Barrett, Acts, Volume ii (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998) 1091; A. Neagoe, The Trial of the Gospel: An Apologetic Reading of Luke's Trial Narratives (SNTSMS 116; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 207; J. J. Clabeaux, ‘The Story of the Maltese Viper and Luke's Apology for Paul’, CBQ 67 (2005) 604–10, at 606–7; T. M. Troftgruben, ‘Slow Sailing in Acts: Suspense in the Final Sea Journey (Acts 27:1-28:15)’, JBL 136 (2017) 949–68, at 958. While acknowledging that the theme of the innocence of Paul ahead of his anticipated trial by the emperor is a ‘well-documented topos’, Warren Carter notes that others have seen the primary focus here to be portraying Paul as a Hellenistic hero, or God's efforts to protect Paul in his efforts at evangelising the nations, or simply to ‘assert God's superiority to the Graeco-Roman gods’, or (as Carter himself suggests) a metaphorical example of how to navigate the precariousness of the Imperial world (‘Aquatic Display: Navigating the Roman Imperial World in Acts 27’, NTS 62 (2016) 79–86, at 80). To this could be added M. David Litwa's claim that it seeks to present Paul as one who incarnates God's power (‘Paul the “God” in Acts 28: A Comparison with Philocetes’, JBL 136 (2017) 707–26); or Troy Troftgruben's claim that Acts 27–8 is seeking to create narrative suspense (‘Slow Sailing’, 958–9). In fact, it could be argued that the Lukan author weaves a number of such narrative threads through these chapters and none are actually incompatible. It all depends on which one of these threads someone wishes to pull on (so to speak). As Drew Billings asserts, ‘Texts are not necessarily univocal’ (‘In the Image’, 17).
3 G. B. Miles and G. Trompf, ‘Luke and Antiphon: The Theology of Acts 27-28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about Divine Retribution, Pollution, and Shipwreck’, HTR 69 (1976) 259–67; Ladouceur, ‘Hellenistic Preconceptions’, 443; D. R. MacDonald, ‘The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul’, NTS 45 (1999) 88–107, at 107 n. 87; L. A. Kauppi, Foreign but Familiar Gods: Greco-Romans Read Religion in Acts (LNTS 277; London: T&T Clark, 2006) 111–12; K. Backhaus, ‘Paulus und die Dioskuren (Apg 28.11): Über zwei denkwürdige Schutzpatrone des Evangeliums’, NTS 61 (2015) 165–82, at 168; Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, 86–7; cf. R. I. Pervo, Acts (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009) 672.
4 Kauppi, Foreign but Familiar, 107–8, 110–11; cf. Pervo, Acts, 674; D. Marguerat, Die Apostelgeschichte (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022) 844–5.
5 Kauppi, Foreign but Familiar, 106–9.
6 Kauppi, Foreign but Familiar, 110–11. On reading δίκη as Δίκη, see L. T. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1992) 462; Barrett, Acts, 1223; J. A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (AB 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998) 783; B. R. Gaventa, Acts (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2003) 356–7; Litwa, ‘Paul the “God”’, 710 n. 11. Rick Strelan identifies the viper, first, with the goddess Echidna, then with Dike, then with Echidna again (Strange Acts: Studies in the Cultural World of the Acts of the Apostles (BZNW 126; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004) 289–91). This is confusing, unhelpful and improbable.
7 Kauppi, Foreign but Familiar, 114–16; cf. Clabeaux, ‘The Story’, 610; C. R. Holladay, Acts: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: WJK, 2016) 501; Marguerat, Die Apostelgeschichte, 844–5; contra J. W. Jipp, Divine Manifestations and Hospitality to Strangers in Luke-Acts: An Interpretation of the Malta Episode in Acts 28:1-10 (NovTSup 153; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 11, 46. As both Lynn Allan Kauppi (Foreign but Familiar, 112–16) and David Ladouceur (‘Hellenistic Preconceptions’, 443–7) note, the mention of the Dioscuri as the protective deity of the ship in which Paul departs from Malta (v. 11) would further enhance the assertion of Paul's innocence. This will be discussed further below.
8 Barrett, Acts, 1222; Fitzmyer, The Acts, 783; Gaventa, Acts, 358; Litwa, ‘Paul the “God”’, 710.
9 J. H. Charlesworth, ‘Phenomenology, Symbology, and Lexicography: The Amazingly Rich Vocabulary for “Serpent” in Ancient Greek’, RB 111 (2004) 499–515. In comparison, there are ‘primarily’ only three words used for snakes in Latin, serpens, anguis, and vipera (Charlesworth, ‘Phenomenology’, 499).
10 The reference to a πύθων in Acts 16.16 is not actually referring to a snake. See Barrett, Acts, 784; Holladay, Acts, 322. I assume the common authorship of Luke and Acts. Although Patricia Walters (The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence (SNTSMS 145; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)) has argued against this, her arguments remain unpersuasive. See, for example, P. Foster, ‘Review of The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence, by Patricia Walters’, ExpTim 121 (2010) 264–5; M. C. Parsons and H. M. Gorman, ‘The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Review Essay’, Neot 46 (2010) 139–52.
11 Charlesworth, ‘Phenomenology’, 512. In this regard, however, it is interesting that the Lukan author's usage appears to approximate the usual Latin taxonomy.
12 Barrett, Acts, 1222; cf. H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 223.
13 Conzelmann, Acts, 223; F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 19903) 531; Johnson, The Acts, 462; Holladay, Acts, 501.
14 As Carl Holladay argues, ‘The episode should be interpreted as literary drama rather than realistic history’ (Acts, 501). For the same reason, it does not matter that there are no poisonous snakes on Malta. See Conzelmann, Acts, 223; Barrett, Acts, 1217; Holladay, Acts, 501.
15 Nicander's work was quite widely known. It was highly regarded by Cicero (De or. 16), and Quintilian claims that Ovid emulated him (Inst. 10.1.56). He is also said to have influenced Vergil. See F. Overduin, Nicander of Colophon's Theriaca: A Literary Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2014) 127–8. On the other hand, Nicander's work is fiercely disparaged by Plutarch (Mor. 16c), although he also deigns to refer to it (Mor. 567f). Henry J. Cadbury gives the impression that the Lukan author might have been familiar with Nicander's Theriaca (‘Lexical Notes on Luke-Acts: II. Recent Arguments for Medical Language’, JBL 45 (1926) 190–209, at 199). Given that the one overt citation from a classical author in Acts (17.28) is from a didactic poem (Aratus, Phaenomena), it is not unreasonable to think that he might be familiar with another such poem in Nicander's Theriaca.
16 K. D. Wilson, ‘Avenging Vipers: Tragedy and Succession in Nicander's Theriaca’, CJ 113 (2018) 257–80, at 259; cf. Overduin, Nicander, 234–8; E. Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper: Zoological Lore and Political Critique in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana’, AJP 141 (2020) 635–64, at 648.
17 Wilson, ‘Avenging Vipers’, 260–1. Hence the English name, ‘viper’. While there is no modern scientific truth to this tale, Capettini suggests that it may have arisen from ‘empirical observations of the fact that female vipers do not frequently survive reproduction’ (‘Nero the Viper’, 646).
18 The clearest connection is made by Aelian (Nat. an. 1.24). Aeschylus, himself, ‘does not associate Clytemnestra exclusively with the viper’ but also associates her with other snakes as well (Wilson, ‘Avenging Vipers’, 263–6).
19 A. A. Barrett, Agrippina: Mother of Nero (London: Batsford, 1996) 214; J. Malitz, Nero (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) 29–31; L. J. Keppie, ‘“Guess Who's Coming to Dinner”: The Murder of Nero's Mother Agrippina in its Topographical Setting’, GR 58 (2011) 33–47, at 33; T. Luke, ‘From Crisis to Consensus: Salutary Ideology and the Murder of Agrippina’, Illinois Classical Studies 38 (2013) 207–28, at 207.
20 Barrett, Agrippina, 218–21; Keppie, ‘Guess Who's Coming’, 34–5; Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 642; Luke, ‘Crisis to Consensus’, 207. Trevor Luke is sceptical of Tacitus’ account and doubts the veracity of the attempted shipwreck story (‘Crisis to Consensus’, 208–9). However, it is told by Suetonius and Dio Cassius as well as Tacitus and, thus, would appear to derive from a popular tradition. Anthony Barrett suspects that it contains a kernel of truth (Agrippina, 221), while others, like Jürgen Malitz (Nero, 32–4) and Lawrence Keppie (‘Guess Who's Coming’, 33), seem convinced by Tacitus’ reliability.
21 Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 642–3. In fact, that association was apparently strengthened by Nero playing the role of Orestes on stage after Agrippina's death. See S. A. Curry, ‘Nero Quadripes: Animalizing the Emperor in Suetonius's Nero’, Arethusa 47 (2014) 197–230, at 198; Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 644.
22 Barrett, Agrippina, 226. Although Tacitus (Ann. 14.12) uses the generic term, anguis, the fact that it is a live birth is highly suggestive.
23 Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 654–5; cf. R. M. Frazer, ‘Nero the Singing Animal’, Arethusa 4 (1971) 215–18, at 216. Emilio Capettini argues that this connection is also made in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (‘Nero the Viper’, 657–8). Nero was not the first emperor to be likened to a snake. Suetonius also claims that Tiberius described Gaius (the future emperor Caligula) as a natrix or water snake (Cal. 11). Plutarch also cites a legend that Alexander the Great's mother, Olympia, had actually been impregnated by a god in the form of a δράκων or serpent (Alex. 2.4, 3.2). Livy also repeats this legend, but uses the generic term, anguis. A similar legend is also associated with Pomponia, the mother of Scipio Africanus. See S. Barnard, ‘Cornelia and the Women of Her Family’, Latomus 49 (1990) 383–92, at 383. Only Nero, however, seems to be associated specifically with a viper (vipera).
24 Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 654–6. It may also be an allusion to Nero's history of ‘non-normative sexual behavior’ including ‘playing a passive and female role’. See Curry, ‘Nero Quadripes’, 200, 219.
25 Capettini, ‘Nero the Viper’, 657.
26 The most recent and thorough assessments of the dating of Acts are by Richard Pervo, who dates it to about 115 (Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2006) 343–6), Billings, who dates it in the early second century during the time of Trajan (‘In the Image’, 21–4), and Knut Backhaus, who dates it 100–130 (‘Zur Datierung der Apostelgeschichte. Ein ordnungsversuch im chronologischen Chaos’, ZNW 108 (2017) 212–58).
27 Barrett dates the voyage to Rome to 59 (Acts, lvii), Bruce suggests 59–60 (The Acts, 93), and Beverley Gaventa simply places it after 59 (Acts, 51).
28 Bruce, The Acts, 531.
29 See, for example, H. E. Raugh jr, ‘Review of Fred D. Crawford, Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia: A Cautionary Tale’, Middle East Journal 54 (2000) 670–1.
30 M. A. L. Zuffi, F. Giudici and P. Ioalè, ‘Frequency and Effort of Reproduction in Female Vipera aspis from a Southern Population’, Acta Oecologica 20 (1999) 633–8, at 634.
31 Barrett, Acts, 1222.
32 F. Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2015) 2064.
33 In Greek the fasces are normally referred to as αἱ ῥάβδοι συνδɛδɛμέναι (e.g. Plutarch, Mor. 283e), or simply αἱ ῥάβδοι (e.g. Josephus, BJ 2.365–6). Interestingly, ῥάβδος is never used in the NT in the plural and, thus, never with this technical sense.
34 Ladouceur, ‘Hellenistic Preconceptions’, 444–5; Marguerat, Die Apostelgeschichte, 848. Backhaus points out that, traditionally, the Dioscuri served four primary functions: they were (1) rescuers of those in peril at sea, (2) avengers of the wicked, especially at sea, (3) messengers of good news of victory/salvation, and (4) deities that promoted Rome's claims to power and undergirded its expansionism (‘Paulus und die Dioskuren’, 167–8). He claims that the primary function of the Dioscuri here is as heralds of salvation, but co-opted and Christianised (‘Paulus und die Dioskuren’, 179–82). This is unlikely. As Amber Gartrell points out, at least among the Romans, the Dioscuri were heralds of ‘victory in battle’ rather than salvation per se, and then usually in regard to battles in which they themselves had assisted (The Cult of Castor and Pollux in Ancient Rome: Myth, Ritual, and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) 84–6, 89, 92, 95–9).
35 Gartrell, The Cult, 189. Gartrell notes one possible allusion to Titus and Domitian as the Dioscuri, but no such connection is made again until the late fifth century, and she asserts that it was at its strongest with the Julio-Claudians (The Cult, 190–1).
36 Although Kauppi (Foreign but Familiar, 113) and Backhaus (‘Paulus und die Dioskuren’, 171) note the connection between the Dioscuri and the imperial family, they fail to note this personal connection to Nero. While Gartrell suggests that Nero ‘reportedly spurned his Domitian ancestry upon his adoption by Claudius’ (The Cult, 95), it is doubtful that Suetonius was the only one who made this familial connection.
37 Luke, ‘Crisis to Consensus’, 220.
38 Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, 80–5. In this regard, it is perhaps significant that Nero was one of the few emperors who was actually able to close the gates of the temple of Janus (indicating a cessation of war throughout the Empire) and declare himself the bringer of peace ‘on sea and land’. See H. Cornwell, ‘Die Pax Romana und die Idee von einem Imperium. Frieden in der römischen Antike’, AW 3 (2018) 17–21, at 21.
39 Luke, ‘Crisis to Consensus’, 220. Carter does not consider this inter-connected sense of pax (‘Aquatic Display’, 80–5). On pax in the Roman ideology see, for example, K. Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 47; G. Woolf, ‘Roman Peace’, War and Society in the Roman World (ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley; London: Routledge, 1993) 171–94; A. Brent, ‘Luke-Acts and the Imperial Cult in Asia Minor’, JTS 48 (1997) 411–38, at 415–16; N. Bondioli, ‘Roman Religion in the Time of Augustus’, Numen 64 (2017) 49-63, at 52; Cornwell, ‘Die Pax Romana’, 17–21.
40 Although it could be argued that this is unlikely given the tradition that Paul was executed at Rome during the reign of Nero, and especially in relation to the so-called ‘Neronian Persecution’, Brent D. Shaw notes that this particular tradition is heavily reliant on Eusebius, who presents conflicting evidence, while ‘the testimony of other later witnesses on Paul's stay in Rome are variable and even contradictory’ (‘The Myth of the Neronian Persecution’, JRS 105 (2015) 72–100, at 78 n. 24). Indeed, Christopher P. Jones suggests that it seems to be ‘a tradition based on slender evidence’ (‘The Historicity of the Neronian Persecutions: A Response to Brent Shaw’, NTS 63 (2017) 146–52, at 152). There is, in fact, far more uncertainty regarding what happened to Paul in Rome, and when and how he died, than is often assumed. See L. P. Pherigo, ‘Paul's Life after the Close of Acts’, JBL 70 (1951) 277–84; T. M. Troftgruben, ‘Ending “in an Unhindered Manner” (Acts 28:31): The Ending of Acts within its Literary Environment’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009) 24–6; J. A. Harrill, ‘Saint Paul and the Christian Communities of Nero's Rome’, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero (ed. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenberg, and C. Littlewood; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 276–89.
41 P. Fredriksen, ‘Philo, Herod, Paul, and the Many Gods of Ancient Jewish “Monotheism”’, HTR 115 (2022) 23–45, at 25–30; cf. R. W. L. Moberly, ‘How Appropriate is “Monotheism” as a Category for Biblical Interpretation?’, Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (ed. L. T. Stuckenbruck and W. North; London: T&T Clark, 2004) 216–34.
42 Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, 80.
43 See Neyrey, J. H., Render to God: New Testament Understandings of the Divine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004) 245Google Scholar. Marguerat suggests that the snake symbolises an evil power over which Paul has triumphed (Die Apostelgeschichte, 845).
44 On the ambiguous ending to the book of Acts see, for example, Brosend, W. F. ii, ‘The Means of Absent Ends’, History, Literature and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. Witherington, B. iii; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 348–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barrett, Acts, 1236, 1249; Marguerat, D., ‘The Enigma of the Silent Closing of Acts (28:16-31)’, Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke's Narrative Claim upon Israel's Legacy (ed. Moessner, D. P.; Harrisburg: TPI, 1999) 284–304Google Scholar; Alexander, Acts, 206; Pervo, Acts, 688; Troftgruben, ‘Ending’; Harrill, ‘Saint Paul’, 280–1.