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Journal of Theological Interpretation

Volume 10, no. 2  •  Fall, 2016

volume 10, number 2  •  Fall, 2016

Origen, Scripture, and the Imprecision of “Supersessionism”
Michael G. Azar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Reading the Rules of Knowledge in the Story of the Fall:
Calvin and Reformed Epistemology on the Noetic Effects of Original Sin
Gratian Vandici . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Allegory and Empiricism:
Interpreting God’s Two Books in Newtonian England
David Ney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Augustine’s Deer Visits the Ophthalmologist:
Exercising the Eyes of Faith in Enarrationes in Psalmos 41
Gerald P. Boersma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Christophanic Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization:
Daniel 3 (the Fiery Furnace) as a Test Case
Bogdan G. Bucur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
“One Like a Son of Man” in the Court of the Foreign King:
Daniel 7 as Pointer to Wise Participation in the Divine Life
Tim Meadowcroft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Habakkuk and the Problem of Suffering: Theodicy Deferred
Philip Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
The King Arrives, but for What Purpose?
The Christological Use of Zechariah 13–14 in Mark 13
K. R. Harriman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
The Message to the Merchants in James 4:13–17 and Its Relevance for Today
Thomas More Garrett, OP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016) 227–244

Christophanic Exegesis
and the Problem of Symbolization:
Daniel 3 (the Fiery Furnace) as a Test Case

Bogdan G. Bucur
Duquesne University

Abstract — Aside from other strands in its rich history of interpretation,

the episode of the three youths in the fiery furnace (Dan 3) was inter-
preted by early Christians as a theophany (or rather, more specifically, a
manifestation of the Logos-to-be-incarnate, a “Christophany”), as a fore-
shadowing of the mystery of the incarnation, and, especially in Byzantine
hymns about “the three youths equal in number to the Trinity,” as an allu-
sion to the Trinitarian God. The current scholarly concepts, however, fail
to distinguish properly between the various types of exegesis involved in
each of these cases and obscure the importance of the earliest and most
enduring Christian exegesis of OT theophanies.
Key Words — theophany, Daniel 3, rewritten Bible, Christophany, Christological,
Trinitarian, midrash

The well-known episode of the three youths in the fiery furnace con-
tains much material that early Christian exegetes found congenial to their
theological interests: contrast and conflict between virtuous adherents to
the biblical faith and religiously oppressive state power, perseverance in
faith and victory even at the cost of persecution and death, the fiery furnace
that holds the youths but does not consume them, the salutary intervention
of a heavenly agent described as having the appearance of an angel or son
of God (Dan 3:25 MT: ‫ָהין‬ ִ ‫אל‬
ֱ ‫;דמֵה ְלבַר־‬
ּ ָ Dan 3:92 OG, ὁμοίωμα ἀγγέλου θεοῦ;
Dan 3:92 Th., ὁμοία υἱῷ θεοῦ), 1 and the fact that there are three men united
in thought and action. These strands in our text’s rich history of interpreta-
tion have already received significant scholarly attention, most recently in
the thorough study by Martine Dulaey. 2 The following contributes to the

1. Greek text in Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum

Gottingensis editum 16.2: Susanna Daniel Bel et Draco, ed. J. Ziegler (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1958), 133.
2. Martine Dulaey, “Les trois hébreux dans la fournaise (Dn 3) dans l’interprétation
symbolique de l’église ancienne,” RevScRel 71 (1997): 33–59. See also Dennis Tucker, “The

Offprint from:
Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2
© Copyright 2016 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.
228 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

discussion by focusing on the Christological and Trinitarian use of Dan 3

and, as the subtitle indicates, by raising the question of symbolization.
Some early Christians detected in the triad of Hebrew youths a trans-
parent Trinitarian allusion. Others insisted on the theophanic aspect of
Dan 3 and understood the heavenly agent in the furnace to be none other
than the Logos-to-be-incarnate. I argue that scholars have generally failed
to apply a sharp enough focus to the multilayered exegetical tradition and
its diverse strategies of appropriating the HB as Christian Scripture, so
as to distinguish adequately between the Christological exegesis of OT
theophanies and other strands of interpretation. Indeed, neither “allegory”
nor “typology” nor the more recent terms figural and figurative capture the
epiphanic dimension of the texts under discussion, as these are understood
by many exegetes in late antique and medieval, especially Byzantine, Chris-
tianity. A recent proposal, similarly critical of the current scholarly termi-
nology—namely, the categorization of this kind of exegesis as an example
of “rewritten Scripture” literature—is also unwarranted. I conclude that,
for the time being at least, the term Christophanic exegesis might be service-
able in highlighting the type of symbolization at work in Christological
interpretations of OT theophanies.

Christ in the Fiery Furnace

Early Christian writers, from Irenaeus to Romanos the Melodist and
from Tertullian to Prudentius, consistently identified Christ, the Logos, as
the heavenly agent (whether “son of God,” for the majority who use Theo-
dotion, or, for the few who use the OG, “angel”—understood, via Isa 9:6, as
“the angel of great counsel”) who entered the furnace and saved the three
youths. A large dossier of relevant passages has already been assembled by
Dulaey. 3 I will only add a few observations.
First, when the episode of the fiery furnace is referred to, it is usually
as part of a constellation of theophanic passages that are all understood,
despite their obvious differences, as similar manifestations of the Logos-
to-be-incarnate, Jesus Christ: the three visitors of Abraham, Jacob’s dream
of the ladder, Moses at the burning bush, the giving of the Law on Sinai,
and prophetic visions such as Isa 6, Ezek 1, and Dan 7. A telling example
occurs in Hippolytus’s Commentary on Daniel, in a section that opens with
the question “who was this angel?” and continues with a litany of bibli-
cal references: it was none other than the one who rained fire on Sodom,
drowned the Egyptians, appeared to Isaiah and to Ezekiel, the “the angel
of the Lord” and “angel of great counsel,” who remains unnamed in Dan 3
“because Jesus had not yet been born of the Virgin” (οὐδέπω γὰρ ἦν ἐκ τῆς

Early Wirkungsgeschichte of Daniel 3: Representative Examples,” JTI 6 (2012): 295–306, who

discusses mainly martyrdom.
3. Dulaey, “Les trois hébreux dans la fournaise,” 42–46.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 229

Παρθένου γεγενημένος ὁ Ἰησοῦς). 4 More specifically, it was the Logos prior

to his incarnation (ἄσαρκον) who pricked King Nebuchadnezzar’s heart
and enabled him to perceive that luminous entity, “like a son of God,” in
anticipation of the time when the Gentiles would see the Logos incar-
nate (ἔνσαρκον). 5 The second observation concerns the endurance of the
“Christophanic” exegesis along the centuries.

Hymnographic and Iconographic Exegesis

This interpretation of the fiery furnace was eventually absorbed into
the theology popularized by the hymnography of Romanos the Melodist, 6
so that it is not surprising to encounter it in numerous hymns that remain
in use today in communities of the Byzantine tradition:
Ineffable wonder! He who in the furnace delivered the holy youths
from the flame, is laid in the tomb a lifeless corpse for the salvation
of us who sing, “God, our Redeemer, blessed are you!” 7
He who delivered the Young Men from the flames took flesh and came
upon the earth. Nailed to the Cross, he granted us salvation, the God
of our fathers, alone blessed and greatly glorified. 8
The Offspring of the Mother of God (ὁ τόκος τῆς Θεοτόκου) saved the
innocent Youths in the furnace. Then he was prefigured, but now in
reality he gathers the whole world which sings, “Praise the Lord, his
works, and highly exalt him to all the ages.” 9
The Lord who protected the Youths in the flame of fire of the burn-
ing furnace, and came down to them in the form of an angel (ἐν μορφῇ
ἀγγέλου συγκαταβάντα τούτοις), praise and highly exalt to all the ages. 10
Master, who delivered the Holy Youths from the fire . . . you smash all
the bonds of death, and you raise all who from every age were among
the dead, who worship, O Christ, your eternal Kingdom. 11

4. Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel 2.32–34 (GCS n.s. 7:118–28).

5. Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel 2.33 (GCS n.s. 7:122).
6. See Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 26, 29 (SC 99:396, 398, 402): “This is not
an angel, but rather the God of the angels. He showed himself in the form of an angel, who
is to come into the world. . . . He shows himself now and point us to the image of things to
pass.”
7. Canon of Holy Saturday, Ode 7, Eirmos. For Byzantine hymnographic texts I am using
the Greek text printed in the ecclesiastical editions of the Oktoēchos, Triodion, Pentēkostarion,
and Menaia, and the English translation of Ephrem Lash—the best available today, offered
online at www.anastasis.org.uk.
8. Canon of the Holy Cross for Third Sunday in Lent, Ode 7.
9. Canon of Akathist (ascribed to 9th-century Joseph the Hymnographer), Ode  8,
Eirmos.
10. Canon for the Sunday of Antipascha (Thomas Sunday), Ode 8, Eirmos.
11. Sunday of the Forefathers, Prosomion at Lord I have cried.
230 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

The harp of the youths theologized concerning the Almighty, the God
of all Who manifestly appeared to them in the furnace as they chanted
a hymn, saying: “Blessed is the God of our fathers!” 12
Having watched as the three youths were cast into the furnace, the
king beheld a fourth appear, Whom He called the Son of God; and he
cried out to all: “Blessed is the God of our fathers!” 13
You saved the Youths who hymned you in the furnace of fire; blessed
are you, the God of our fathers! 14
[Y]ou [Mary Theotokos] appeared as the source of joy, since you con-
ceived in your womb him who once appeared in Babylon and beyond
all understanding preserved unburned the Youths unjustly cast into
the furnace. 15
Compared to hymnography, which, echoing most patristic exegetes, opted
clearly for a Christological interpretation of the fourth figure, visual exe-
gesis is significantly more ambiguous. Daniel 3 is one of the earliest icono-
graphic themes and can be found in frescoes of the Roman catacomb of
Priscilla as early as the second (Capela Graeca) and third (Cubiculum of the
Velatio) centuries. 16 The fourth figure, however, is not always part of the
composition. When it is, the heavenly agent is either (most often) an angel,
or Christ in anthropomorphic or angelomorphic appearance. 17 A shift took

12. Canon of the Three Holy Youths, Sticheron in Ode 7, stanza 2.

13. Canon of the Three Holy Youths, Sticheron in Ode 7, stanza 3.
14. Canon of the Ascention (ascribed to John of Damascus), Ode 7, Irmos.
15. Canon of the Forefeast of the Nativity, Ikos.
16. On the visual exegesis of the fiery furnace episode in Daniel, see Carlo Carletti, I
tre giovani ebrei di Babilonia nell’arte cristiana antica (Brescia: Paideia, 1975), together with the
biting criticism and additions by Marguerite Rassart-Debergh, “Les trois Hébreux dans la
fournaise dans l’art paléochrétien. Iconographie,” Byzantion 48 (1978): 430–55; idem, “Les trois
Hébreux dans la fournaise en Égypte et en Nubie chrétiennes,” Rivista degli studi orientali 58
(1984): 141–51; Colum Hourihane, “De Camino Ignis: The Iconography of the Three Children
in the Fiery Furnace in Ninth-Century Ireland,” in From Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the
Early Christian to the Late Gothic Period and Its European Context, ed. C. Hourihane (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 61–82; Hans Reinhard Seeliger, “ΠΑΛΑΙ ΜΑΡΤΥΡΕΣ:
Die drei Jünglinge im Feuerofen als Typos in der spätantiken Kunst, Liturgie und patrist-
ischen Literatur,” in Liturgie und Dichtung: Ein interdisziplinäres Kompendium II (St. Ottilien:
EOS, 1983), 257–334; Kathleen M. Irwin, “The Liturgical and Theological Correlations in the
Associations of Representations of the Three Hebrews and the Magi in the Christian Art of
Late Antiquity” (PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1985); Ann T. Walton, “The Three
Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace: A Study in Christian Iconography,” in The Medieval
Mediterranean: Cross-Cultural Contacts, ed. M. J. Chiat and K. L. Reyerson (St. Cloud, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 57–66; Kathleen Corrigan, “The Three Hebrews in the
Fiery Furnace: An Early Byzantine Icon at Mt. Sinai,” in Anathemata Erotika: Studies in Honor
of Thomas Matthew, ed. J. D. Alchermes et al. (Mainz: von Zabern, 2009), 93–103.
17. Moreover, in the sixth-century Murano ivory diptych and seventh-century encaustic
icon at Sinai, the long staff of the protective angel ends in a cross, “symbolizing and anticipat-
ing the saving act of Christ” (Walton, “Three Hebrew Children,” 62).
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 231

place in the second half of the first millennium, which inclined the bal-
ance toward the latter option. Nevertheless, an overall ambiguity persists
in iconography, since in frescoes and illuminations the fourth figure bears
different inscriptions: sometimes “angel of the Lord,” sometimes “arch­
angel Michael,” sometimes “Jesus Christ” (IC XC). The same ambiguity oc-
curs, although to a lesser degree, in the visual representation of the related
tradition about Abraham in the furnace: 18 most manuscript illuminations
show Jesus intervening to save the patriarch from the fiery furnace; some,
however, show an angel. 19

Polymorphic Christology
The biblical text of Dan 3 is characterized by a certain ambiguity: it
is “the angel of the Lord” who comes “down into the furnace” (3:49), but
his spectacular mastery over the elements suggests divine intervention; the
king refers to him as “man” (3:92, “four men”) but describes his appearance
as being similar to that of an angel (OG) or son of God (Theodotion). 20
Exegetes throughout the ages did, in fact, seize on these ambiguities.
Jewish sources debate whether it was divine or angelic intervention
that saved Abraham and, later, the three youths in the furnace. In the early
decades of the first century AD, 3 Macc 6:2, 6 has no doubt that it was the
“king, dread sovereign, most high, almighty God” who rescued Daniel and
his companions. The roughly contemporary Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum
mentions Nathaniel, “the angel in charge of fire” ( LAB 38.3). 21 Some cen-
turies later, Exodus Rabbah thinks it was Gabriel who came down to deliver
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Genesis Rabbah, by contrast, states that it

18. Neh 9:7, Vulg.: Tu ipse Domine Deus qui elegisti Abram et eduxisti eum de igne Chaldeorum;
Tg. Ps-Jon. Gen 11; 15:7; LAB 6; 23:5; Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 26; Gen. Rab. 34.9; 38.13; 44.13; Cant.
Rab. 1.13; b Pes. 118a; b. Eruvin 53a; cf. Jub 12.12–15 (Abraham sets fire to the house of idols, and
escapes the city); Quran, Sura 21.68–69; 37.95–97. According to Geza Vermes (Scripture and
Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies [Leiden: Brill, 1973], 88) the legend arose when readers of
Gen 15:7 (“I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans” interpreted “Ur”
(‫ )אור‬as “flame” (‫ ;אוּר‬see Isa 50:11; Ezek 5:2), and thus “created a legend out of a pun.”
19. E.g., German MS 245 at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, fol. 59v. See Joseph Gutmann,
“Abraham in the Fire of the Chaldeans: A Jewish Legend in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic
Art,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 7 (1973): 342–52. Christian iconography of Abraham in the
fiery furnace only begins in the early 14th century with the Speculum humanae salvationis whose
text and illustrations revolve around the typological relation between the Old and the New
Testament. “Abraham in the fiery furnace,” alongside “Moses leading the people out of Egypt”
and “Lot’s escape from Sodom,” is juxtaposed to the antitype of Christ leading the souls of
Hades. The text in the Speculum reads, “Behold, God prefigured this liberation of man. Once
he liberated the patriarch Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans.”
20. Cf. Dan 6:22: “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths” (Theodotion); “the
Lord has saved me from the lions” (OG).
21. On the dating of these works, see H. Anderson, “3 Maccabees,” OTP 2:509–29, esp.
p. 515–16; Howard Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum with
Latin Text and English Translation, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 199–209.
232 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

was the Lord who saved Daniel, whereas Abraham had been rescued by the
Archangel Michael. Finally, the Babylonian Talmud (b. Pes. 118a–b) has the
Lord intervening to save Abraham and sending Gabriel to rescue the three
youths (notwithstanding an attempt by “Yurkami, the prince [in charge] of
hail” to gain the mission for himself ). 22
As for Christian writers, Romanos the Melodist states the traditional
view that the fourth youth was no mere angel but Christ in angelomorphic
guise. In stanza 25, however, the Melodist proposes what appears at first a
fanciful midrash on Dan 3:
Standing as a choir in the midst of the furnace, the children changed
the furnace into a heavenly church, singing together with the angel
to the maker of the angels (ψάλλοντες μετ’ ἀγγέλου τῷ ποιητῇ τῶν
ἀγγέλων), and imitating the entire liturgy of the bodiless ones. When,
however, they found themselves filled with the all-holy Spirit from
having worshipped (ἐκ τῆς λατρείας), they beheld something else, more
fearsome still: the very one they had seen as angel was constantly
changing his appearance, so that they saw him now as divine, now as
a human, and he was now giving commands, now supplicating together
with them (καθ’ ἑκάστην ἠλλοίου τὴν μορφήν, καὶ ὁτὲ μὲν θεῖος, ἄλλοτε
δὲ ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἑωρᾶτο, καὶ ποτὲ μὲν ἐκέλευε, ποτὲ δὲ συνικέτευεν). 23

The exegetical problem facing Romanos is the following: on the one hand,
the fourth youth joins the three Hebrews in their place of suffering and
prayer; on the other hand, Christian tradition sees here the divine pres-
ence of the Logos-be-incarnate. How, then, can the “Lord” also be a fellow-
supplicant? Evidently, the episode of the fiery furnace offers Romanos the

22. Exod. Rab. 18.5: “Gabriel came down to deliver Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.” Gen.
Rab. 44.13: “R. Eliezer b. Jacob said: Michael descended and rescued Abraham from the fiery
furnace. The Rabbis said: The Holy One, blessed be He, rescued him; thus it is written, ‘I am
the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees.’ And when did Michael descend? In the
case of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah” (Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 1.369). b. Pes.
118a-b: “R. Johanan also said: . . . when the wicked Nimrod cast our father Abraham into the
fiery furnace, Gabriel said to the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! Let me
go down, cool [it], and deliver that righteous man from the fiery furnace.’ Said the Holy One,
blessed be He, to him: ‘I am unique in My world, and he is unique in his world: it is fitting for
Him who is unique to deliver him who is unique.’ But because the Holy One, blessed be He,
does not withhold the [merited] reward of any creature, he said to him, ‘Thou shalt be privi-
leged to deliver three of his descendants.’ R. Simeon the Shilonite lectured: When the wicked
Nebuchadnezzar cast Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the fiery furnace, Yurkami, Prince
of hail, rose before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to Him: ‘Sovereign of the Universe!
Let me go down and cool the furnace and save these righteous men from the fiery furnace.’
Said Gabriel to him, ‘The might of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not thus [manifested], for
thou art the Prince of hail, and all know that water extinguishes fire. But I, the Prince of fire,
will go down and cool it within and heat it without, and will thus perform a double miracle.”
23. Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 25 (SC 99:396).
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 233

opportunity for oblique remarks on the paradox of the incarnation. And

it is precisely this point that allows us to connect the seemingly bizarre
notion of a polymorphic Christ in this kontakion to what Romanos writes
elsewhere:
Let us all raise our eyes to God in heaven, as we cry like Jeremiah:
the One who appeared on earth, this is our God, who also willingly
lived among men [cf. Bar 3:38], and underwent no change, who showed
himself in different shapes (ἐν μορφαῖς) to the prophets, whom Ezekiel
contemplated like the form of a man on the fiery chariot, and Daniel
as a son of man and ancient of days, proclaiming the ancient and the
young to be one Lord: The One who appeared and enlightened all
things. 24
In this text, drawn from the Melodist’s Second Kontakion on Theoph-
any, Romanos interprets the vision in Dan 7 (the Son of Man advancing to
receive universal and eternal authority from the Ancient of Days) as a proc-
lamation of the one Lord—specifically, the one-who-would-be-incarnate, Je-
sus Christ—simultaneously young and old, son of man and ancient of days:
ἀνθρώπου ὑιὸν καὶ παλαιὸν ἡμερῶν, τὸν ἀρχαῖον καὶ νέον ἕνα Κύριον. Leaving
aside the Christological interpretation of the Ancient of Days, which is
well established in early Christian tradition, 25 the implicit identification
of Christ as both Son of Man and Ancient of Days is also nothing new in
early Christian literature. It falls, rather, within the category of “polymor-
phic Christology,” current in scholarship on Christian origins 26 as an apt
descriptor of what one encounters, for example, in the apocryphal Acts
of the Apostles, Justin Martyr’s Dialogue, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Pas-
sion of Perpetua and Felicitas, and other early Christian texts. 27 Perhaps the

24. Romanos, Second Kontakion on Theophany 15 (SC 110:288).

25. Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Son of Man and the Ancient of Days: Observations on the
Early Christian Reception of Daniel 7,” Phronema (forthcoming).
26. See Gedaliahu Guy Stroumsa, “Polymorphie divine et transformations d’un my-
thologème: l’Apocryphon de Jean et ses sources,” VC 35 (1981): 412–34; Paul Foster, “Polymor-
phic Christology: Its Origins and Development in Early Christianity,” JTS 58 (2007): 66–99;
Hugues Garcia, “La polymorphie du Christ: Remarques sur quelques définitions et sur de
multiples enjeux,” Apocrypha 10 (1999): 16–55; idem, “L’enfant vieillard, l’enfant aux cheveux
blancs et le Christ polymorphe,” RHPR 80 (2000): 479–501.
27. In the Shepherd of Hermas, the Son appears in a series of visions under the mysteri-
ous μορφή of the “church,” first as an old woman, later as a young maiden who retains, how-
ever, the white hair of her former appearance. In the apocryphal Acts, Christ’s appearance is
adapted to the spiritual abilities and needs of his interlocutors: Acts of John 73; 76; 87–90; Acts
of Peter 5; 20; Acts of Thomas 27; 48; 153; Acts of Peter and Andrew 2, 16; Martyrdom of Matthew
1; 13; 24; 26. Justin describes Christ as an old man in the putative first-person account of his
conversion from Platonism to Christianity (Dial. 8.1). See Andrew Hofer, “The Old Man as
Christ in Justin Dialogue with Trypho,” VC 57 (2003): 1–21. Two of the visions in the Passion of
Perpetua and Felicitas offer descriptions of Jesus as simultaneously young and old. He is, first,
234 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

most striking anticipation of the “aged infant” or “infant God” theme of

the hymns and icons is the following text in the Acts of Peter: “that you
may love him, this Great and Small One [lit., “smallest one,” minimum] . . .
this Young Man and Old Man, appearing in time, yet utterly invisible in
eternity; whom a human hand has not grasped, yet is held by his servants,
whom flesh has not seen and now sees . . . who was before the world and is
now perceived in time . . . to him be praise in all eternity. Amen.” 28
Let us return to the paradoxical vision of the three youths, as imagined
by Romanos—Christ “constantly changing his appearance, so that they saw
him now as divine, now as a human, and he was now giving commands, now
supplicating together with them”—and compare it to the description of
the transfigured Christ in the Acts of John 90:
At another time he took me and James and Peter to the mountain,
where he used to pray, and we beheld such a light on him that it is not
possible for a man who uses mortal speech to describe what it was
like. . . . Now I, because he loved me, went to him quietly as though
he should not see, and stood looking upon his back. And I saw that he
was not dressed in garments, but was seen by us as naked and not at all
like a man; his feet were whiter than snow, so that the ground there was
lit up by his feet, and his head reached to heaven; so that I was afraid
and cried out, and he turned and appeared as a man of small stature. 29
I submit that, like this NT apocryphon, the hymn of Romanos offers an
example of “polymorphic Christology.” The connection between writings
of the second and third centuries, sometimes of dubious orthodoxy, and
hymnographic productions of later centuries, should not surprise. Apoc-
ryphal texts featuring a polymorphic Christ retained their popularity, so
that polymorphic Christology was still a real—albeit heretical—theological
option in the ninth century, eliciting Photius of Constantinople’s criticism.
As Gretchen Kreahling McKay puts it, “While Photius mentions these

“a white-haired man sitting in the middle of it [an enormous garden] (cf. Rev 1:14), dressed
in shepherd’s clothes, a big man, milking sheep. And standing around were many thousands
dressed in white” (4.8); later (12.1–3), he is “appeared to be an aged man. He had white hair
and a youthful face,” seated on a throne (“we stood before the throne”) inside “a place whose
walls seemed to be made of light” (cf. Rev 21:18), surrounded by angels who sing an unceasing
Trisagion (cf. Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8). Clearly, the enthroned Lord and the Trisagion are derived from
Isa 6, the “many thousands” recall Dan 7:9, and the description of the Lord as both youthful
and white-haired owes to Dan 7, filtered through Rev 1. For the Latin text and English transla-
tion, see Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 107/127, 114/131.
28. Acts of Peter 20; English translation in The Apocryphal New Testament, ed. J. K. Elliott
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 414; Latin text in Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. Richard A. Lip-
sius, 2 vols (Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1891), 1:68.
29. Acts of John 90, English translation in The Apocryphal New Testament, 317. Greek text
in CCSA 1:193, 195.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 235

texts in order to condemn them as erroneous, his obvious knowledge of

them suggests that copies of apocryphal literature were available for Byz-
antine theologians to study as late as the ninth century.” 30

“Mystic Initiate of the Triple Light of the

One Lordship”: Trinitarian Symbolism
The prophet Daniel is also remembered liturgically as a Trinitarian
theologian par excellence, a “mystic initiate of the triple light of the one
Lordship.” 31 This characterization owes in part to a Trinitarian exegesis of
the apocalyptic vision in Dan 7, but it was also influenced by the Trinitarian
meaning derived from the episode of the three youths in Dan 3. One popu-
lar and influential text is the Ode 8 Eirmos of the Canon of the Exaltation
of the Cross: “Bless, children equal in number to the Trinity (τῆς Τριάδος
ἰσάριθμοι), God the Father [and] Creator; praise the Word who came down
and changed the fire into dew; and highly exalt unto the ages the all-holy
Spirit who gives life to all.” 32 Composed by Cosmas of Maiouma in the
eighth century, this hymn is sung several times during the liturgical year
as part of the abbreviation of the Canon known as the katabasias, and was
also incorporated in the Service of the Furnace. 33 Its message is certainly
Trinitarian, but there is little depth to the connection between the triad of
youths and the Trinity. There is perhaps more sophistication to Romanos
the Melodist’s description of the three youths as “the three-essence per-
fume blend” (ἡ τρίμυρος εὐωδία) and “the three-branched root” (ἡ τρίκλωνος
ῥίζα), inasmuch as triad and unity are fused so as to suggest the mystery
of the Trinity. 34 Other hymns, however, offer more theological substance:
In number and faith of the divine Trinity (ἀριθμῷ καὶ πίστει τῆς θείας
Τριάδος) the Youths in the furnace overthrew godlessness and in sym-
bols revealed beforehand to the world the mysteries of God that were
to be. 35

30. Kraehling McKay, “Christ’s Polymorphism in Jerusalem, Taphou 14: An Examination

of Text and Image,” Apocrypha 14 (2003): 185. See Photius, Cod. 114 (Photius, Bibliothèque, ed.
and trans. René Henry, 9 vols. [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960], 2:85). See also Éric Junod,
“Actes apocryphes et hérésie: le jugement de Photius,” in Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres: Chris-
tianisme et monde païen, ed. François Bovon et al. (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 11–24.
31. Sunday Midnight Service, Tone 5, Ode 4, troparion 1: “Mystic initiate of the triple
light of the one Lordship, Daniel saw Christ as judge going towards the Father and the Spirit
who revealed the vision” (Μυεῖται τῆς μιᾶς Κυριότητος τὸ τριφαὲς ὁ Δανιήλ Χριστὸν κριτὴν
θεασάμενος, πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα ἰόντα, καὶ Πνεῦμα τὸ προφαῖνον τὴν ὅρασιν). The Canon of the
Midnight Office for Sundays was penned in the ninth century by Metrophanes of Smyrna.
32. Canon of the Exaltation of the Cross, Ode 8, Eirmos. Translation mine.
33. On this topic, see Andrew Walker White, Performing Orthodox Ritual in Byzantium
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
34. Romanos, Kontakion on the Three Youths 3 (SC 99:366); 21 (SC 99:390).
35. Canon of the Forefathers, Ode 1, stanza 5.
236 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

The pattern (προχάραγμα) of your virginity saved those equal in number

to the Trinity (ἰσαρίθμους Τριάδος); for in virgin bodies they trampled­
down the flame, O Maiden, as they cried: Bless, praise the Lord. 36
When the spiritual sun of righteousness was yet to shine forth from
a virginal womb, the three youths equal in number to the Trinity (τῆς
Τριάδος ἰσάριθμοι) shone upon us beforehand out of the fiery furnace,
like stars most luminous, prefiguring in themselves the awesomeness
of the mystery. 37
“The three youths, equal in number to the Trinity”: because the Bible
speaks of three young men in the Babylonian furnace, the Trinitarian con-
nection seems pretty straightforward. Nevertheless, the characterization
of the three youths as “equal in number to the Trinity” is only a marginal
gloss, not at all necessary to the theological coherence and integrity of the
statement. What the three youths signify is not the Trinity, but the mys-
tery of the incarnation: “when the spiritual sun of righteousness was yet to
shine forth from a virginal womb”; similarly, in the second quotation above,
“the mysteries of God that were to be,” which the three youths reveal, are
not the mysteries of Trinity, but the “pattern” (προχάραγμα) of the incar-
nation and of virginity. As a matter of fact, a similar hymn, sung on the
Sunday of the Forefathers of Christ, uses the same “core” analogy between
the furnace and the incarnation without connecting the three youths to the
Trinity, 38 and the Canon of the Three Youths speaks about the Word made
visible in the furnace symbolically. 39
In other hymns, the Trinitarian and incarnational associations of the
furnace episode are affirmed explicitly and juxtaposed:
By the dew of the Spirit God’s Youths rejoicing as in rain walked
mystically in the midst of the flame, typifying in advance the Trinity
and Christ’s incarnation (ἐν αὐτῇ προτυπώσαντες, τὴν Τριάδα καὶ τὴν
σάρκωσιν Χριστοῦ). 40

36. Canon to the Theotokos for Sundays in Tone 4, Ode 8, stanza 3.

37. Τοῦ νοητοῦ ἡλίου τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἐκ παρθενικῆς νηδύος ἀνίσχειν μέλλοντος ὡς ἀστέρες
παμφαεὶς προλάμπουσιν ἡμῖν ἐκ τῆς καμίνου τοῦ πυρός οἱ τῆς Τριάδος ἰσάριθμοι Νεανίαι τὸ ξένον
τοῦ μυστηρίου ἐν ἑαυτοῖς προτυπώσαντες. This hymn was composed by Nicholas Malaksos in
the 16th century and is prescribed to be sung in tone 6 at the end of the Matins service on the
Feast of the Prophet Daniel (at “Glory . . . Now and ever . . .” of the Matins Aposticha). For
unclear reasons, it is now present in the Slavonic and Romanian Menaia, but not in the Greek.
See Enrica Follieri, Initia hymnorum ecclesiae Graecae, 5 vols. (Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vati-
cana, 1963), 4:273.
38. Sunday of the Forefathers, Prosomion at Lord I have cried: “The faithful, Holy Youths
in the furnace of fire, as in dew, mystically prefigured your coming from the Virgin, which
shone forth for us without burning.”
39. Canon of the Three Youths, Ode 1, stanza 1 (my translation): “Let us praise the
Word without beginning, born from the Father before all ages in a manner befitting God
[θεοπρεπῶς], who was made visible in symbol [συμβολικῶς] to the youths in the furnace.”
40. Sunday of the Forefathers, Prosomion at Lord I have cried.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 237

The three youths prophetically traced the image of the Trinity (τῆς
Τριάδος εἰκόνα) in the flame, dipping the pen of faith in immaterial
ink; and they mystically beheld the Word’s extreme condescension to
earth (τὴν . . . ἄκραν εἰς γῆν συγκατάβασιν). 41
Once again, the suggested link between the divine presence in the furnace
and the incarnation appears distinct from (and, at least in my opinion)
more sophisticated than the simple connection between “three youths”
and the Trinity. This leads us to the topic announced in the title: the prob-
lem of symbolization.

The Problem of Symbolization

From the materials presented so far, it seems clear that two broad
exegetical avenues can be distinguished in the Christian reception of
Dan  3. The first is a reading of the text interested in establishing Dan  3
as a theophany, or rather, more specifically, a manifestation of the Logos-
to-be-incarnate, a “Christophany.” This approach is characteristic of the
widespread early Christian identification of the Logos-to-be-incarnate as
subject of all OT theophanies. A second approach directs the reader’s gaze
to “the children equal in number to the Trinity” and detects here a transpar-
ent Trinitarian allusion.
The Trinitarian interpretation can easily be categorized as an “allegori-
cal” reading in the tradition of Philo and Origen, in that a certain detail
of the narrative is interpreted as a textual cue to find a deeper theological
meaning. As for the connection between the fiery furnace and the womb of
Mary Theotokos, one could call it “typological,” in the older usage popular-
ized by Jean Daniélou, or “allegorical” (in a broad sense) or “figurative,” to
use more recent scholarship. 42

41. Feast of Prophet Daniel (December 17), Kathisma hymn at Matins.

42. Older scholarship (most famously Jean Daniélou) insisted on a sharp opposition
between “allegory” and “typology” in order to distinguish between interpretations, such as
Philo’s, in which the connection between sign and signified does not presuppose and require
a link between Old and New Testament, and interpretations for which such a link is funda-
mental. “Typology” is said to answer to the specifically Christian necessity of relating the
OT to the life of the church; it depends on history, gives value to “history” (that is, the bibli-
cal account), and respects history and the literal sense. By contrast, “allegory,” which has its
origin in the exegesis of Homeric literature (and, later, of Plato’s dialogues) and seems to have
been adopted by Christians in Alexandria together with the Philonian corpus, evacuates or
seeks to obliterate the historicity and relevance of the OT text. See Erich Auerbach, “Figura,”
ArchRom 22 (1938): 436–89, English translation in idem, Scenes from the Drama of European
Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 11–76, esp. pp. 29, 36, 42; G. W. H.
Lampe, “The Reasonableness of Typology,” in G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe, Essays
on Typology (Naperville: Allenson, 1957), 9–38; Jean Daniélou, “Traversée de la Mer Rouge et
baptême aux premiers siècles,” RSR 33 (1946): 402–30; idem, “Qu’est-ce que la typologie?”
in L’Ancien Testament et les chrétiens, ed. P. Auvray et al. (Paris: du Cerf, 1951), 199–205; idem,
“Typologie et allégorie chez Clément d’Alexandrie,” SP 4 / TU 79 (1961): 50–57; idem, The
238 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

Things are, however, more complicated in the case of the straightfor-

ward identification of the “Lord” who descends in the furnace in human or
angelic form with Jesus Christ. Only a few scholars have problematized the
distinctiveness of this approach. In a book published in 1965 and met with
undeserved neglect, A. T. Hanson argued in favor of a distinction between
“typology” and what he called “real presence.” 43 His views were echoed
four decades later by Charles Gieschen’s essay on “the real presence of the
Son before Christ” in pre-Nicene writers. 44 Today, Larry Hurtado provides
the clearest distinction among three exegetical approaches to the OT char-

Theology of Jewish Christianity, 3 vols. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964), 2:237–53;
Raoul Mortley, Connaissance religieuse et herméneutique chez Clément d’Alexandrie (Leiden: Brill,
1973), 39–49: “Symbolisme, allégorie et mythe”; Folker Siegert, “Homerinterpretation, Tora-
Unterweisung, Bibelauslegung: Vom Ursprung der patristischen Hermeneutik,” SP 25 (1993):
159–71, esp. pp. 170–71.
Most scholars today reject the opposition between the terms “typology” and “allegory”
as historically unfounded and therefore misleading, and prefer to view typological exegesis as
a species of allegory. See Henri de Lubac, “‘Typologie’ et ‘allégorisme,’” RSR 34 (1947): 180–
247; Henri Crouzel, “La distinction de la ‘typologie’ et de ‘l’allégorisme,’” BLE 65 (1964): 161–
74; Manlio Simonetti, Lettera e/o allegoria: Un contributo alla storia dell’esegesi patristica (Rome:
Institutum Patristicum “Augustinianum,” 1985), 24–25 n32; idem, “Allegoria,” in Dizionario
patristico e di antichità cristiane, ed. A. de Bernardino, 3 vols. (Casale Monferrato: Marietti,
1983–88), 1:140–41; Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 118; David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in An-
cient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California, 1992), 15–17, 255–58; John O’Keefe, “Al-
legory,” and Richard A. Norris Jr., “Typology,” in The Westminster Handbook to Origen, ed. J. A.
McGuckin (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 49–50, 209–11. Frances Young prefers
the term “figural allegory” (Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997], 198), and distinguishes between its several subtypes (p.
192). It remains clear, however, that despite the problematic opposition of “typology” and
“allegory,” the distinction that Daniélou wanted to account for is real and must be expressed
somehow. An excellent study of this problem (Peter Martens, “Revisiting the Allegory/Typol-
ogy Distinction: The Case of Origen,” JECS 16 [2008]: 283–317) concludes with the following
recommendation: “first, that we discontinue using ‘typology’ and ‘allegory’ as labels for better
and worse forms of nonliteral exegesis respectively; second, that we find alternative labels for
these two forms of nonliteral interpretation; and third, that we develop a conversation around
the criteria for successful nonliteral scriptural interpretation” (p. 316). Some scholars do, in-
deed, propose other terms for the same distinction. Dawson (Christian Figural Reading and the
Fashioning of Identity [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002]) uses “figural” and “figu-
rative,” and ranges Origen’s terms typos, hyponoia, and allegoria under the former. Lewis Ayres
(Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006], 34–38) distinguishes between grammatical and figurative readings.
Acknowledging Dawson’s opposition of “figural” and “figurative” (he describes the latter as
“an exegesis that begins with the plain text but loses the link with it” [p. 38]), Ayres writes: “I
prefer to speak more simply of figural and bad figural exegesis”—whereas the decision about
what makes “good” or “bad” figural reading “is established within a tradition’s development
and internal argument” (p. 38).
43. A. T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (London: SPCK, 1965).
44. Charles Gieschen, “The Real Presence of the Son before Christ: Revisiting an Old
Approach to Old Testament Christology,” CTQ 68 (2004): 103–26.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 239

acteristic of “second-century proto-orthodox Christians” (for example,

Justin Martyr): first, “proof texts” drawn from the prophets; second, “a
wider ‘typological’ reading of the Old Testament as filled with figures and
event that foreshadow Jesus”; and, third, “the interpretation of Old Testa-
ment accounts of theophanies as manifestations of the pre-incarnate Son
of God.” 45 It is the latter approach that requires a more precise designa-
tion, because, as Brevard Childs insisted, this manner of reading Scripture,
typical of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyon, is “distinctive from simple
typology” and “cannot be identified immediately as allegory.” 46
Indeed, the current scholarly terms fail to capture the epiphanic di-
mension of the text as read by many early Christian exegetes. Whether
Christological, Trinitarian, or Mariological interpretations, the difficulty
consists in understanding what kind of symbolization undergirds these
various readings. The main distinction runs, I believe, between the inter-
pretation of Dan 3 as either presenting an “icon” of the Trinity or “foreshad-
owing” the incarnation, and the interpretation of Dan 3 as a Christophany.
In the former two cases, the divine presence is a matter of exegetical and
theological convention; in the latter case, by contrast, Christian exegesis
sets forth an epiphanic self-evidence—or, as Hanson and Gieschen under-
stood very well, a “real presence.” 47
To clarify this point further, it may prove useful to resort to the con-
trast between “conventional” and “epiphanic” presence in Alexander
Schmemann’s analysis of liturgical symbolism. Schmemann speaks of a
shift from one type of symbolization to another—in his words, from symbol
to symbolism, from “ontological/real/eschatological symbol” to “illustrative
symbolism.” In the older type of symbolization, “the empirical (or ‘visible’)

45. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 565–66.
46. Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 2004): “Justin resorts to an interpretation of the Old Testament theophanies
. . . an approach distinctive from simple typology. Accordingly, Christ encountered Abraham
at Mamre, wrestled with Jacob at the Jabbok, and spoke with Moses at the burning bush”
(p. 38); “Irenaeus is at pains to demonstrate from Old Testament theophanies that the Son of
God was actually present and active in Israel’s history, and thus he existed before his incarna-
tion. . . . This inherited exegetical approach cannot be identified immediately as allegory, if
understood in its later medieval form. . . . The approach is not dependent upon any specific
New Testament citation and clearly was developed before the evangelical traditions took the
written form of a New Testament” (p. 50).
47. In the words of Hippolytus, the “angel” who rescued the youths in the furnace was
none other than the Lord of the patriarchs and prophets, the God of Israel, unnamed in the
OT “because Jesus had not yet been born of the Virgin.” Or, as Clement of Alexandria explains
to the broad readership of his Paedagogue, the difference between the Logos present in OT
theophanies as “that hidden angel, Jesus” (ὁ μυστικὸς ἐκεῖνος ἄγγελος Ἰησοῦς) and the incarnate
Logos is, quite simply, that the incarnate Logos was born (γεγέννηται; τίκτεται [Clement of
Alexandria, Paed. 1.7.59.1 (SC 70:214, 216)]).
240 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

and the spiritual (‘invisible’) are united not logically (this ‘stands for’ that),
nor analogically (this ‘illustrates’ that), nor yet by cause and effect (this ‘means’
or ‘generates’ that), but epiphanically. One reality manifests and communicates
the other, but . . . only to the degree to which the symbol itself is a par-
ticipant in the spiritual reality and is able or called upon to embody it.” By
contrast, “illustrative symbolism” is the sign of something that exists not
logically but only by convention, just as there is no real water in the chemi-
cal symbol H2O. 48 By analogy, it is one thing to say that the three Hebrew
youths provide for the reader an image of the Holy Trinity—an allusion, a
reminder (or, in Monty Python theology, “three youths—nudge nudge, wink
wink, say no more!”). It is another to say that the heavenly presence in the
furnace “foreshadows”—anticipates, announces, provides a sketch of—the
presence of the Logos in the womb of the Theotokos. And it is a different
matter altogether to affirm that Dan 3 narrates a real encounter with the
Word of God, which also points to the Logos-to-be-made-man. Similarly,
in depictions of Abraham in the fiery furnace, the Abraham-Christ parallel­
(“typology”) should be distinguished from the depiction of Christ as the
angel who rescued Abraham. 49

Jesus in the Fiery Furnace: Not “Rewritten Bible”!

The early Christian reception history of Dan 3 is similar to that of
other two major theophanies: the divine appearance at Mamre (Gen 18) and
the vision of Isaiah (Isa 6). In both cases, an “epiphanic” Christological in-
terpretation—Abraham entertaining Christ and two accompanying angels;
Isaiah seeing Christ flanked by two seraphim—later gave way to a reading
favoring Trinitarian symbolism. In two recent studies of these passages,
and in an older one discussing, more broadly, the exegesis of theophanies
in Byzantine hymnography, 50 I have argued (1) that the straightforward
identification of the “Lord” in the two OT texts with the “Lord Jesus” is
not accounted for by the categories of either “typology” or “allegory,” and
(2) that such “epiphanic” Christological readings could be viewed as a form

48. See Alexander Schmemann, “Symbol and Symbolism in the Byzantine Liturgy: Litur-
gical Symbols and Their Theological Interpretation,” in his Liturgy and Tradition, ed. T. Fisch
(Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1990), 115–28; cf. idem, The Eucharist, Sacrament of the Kingdom (Crest-
wood, NY: SVS, 1983), 38–39.
49. As a matter of fact, it is quite clear that the Christological and Trinitarian interpre-
tations of Dan 3 are distinct layers of interpretation. Fusing these two layers would render a
theologically incoherent picture, in which Christ is both “foreshadowed” by one of the three
youths, and “truly present” as the fourth.
50. Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Early Christian Reception of Genesis 18: From Theophany
to Trinitarian Symbolism,” JECS 23 (2015): 245–72; idem, “I Saw the Lord: Observations on the
Early Christian Reception of Isaiah 6,” ProEccl 23 (2014): 309–30; idem, “Exegesis of Biblical
Theophanies in Byzantine Hymnography: Rewritten Bible?” TS 68 (2007): 92–112.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 241

of “rewritten Bible.” This proposal seems to have been well received in

scholarship. 51
My argument was that the Christological exegesis of OT theophanies
“follows the logic of ‘rewritten Bible’ literature.” Just as the Wisdom of
Solomon identifies the heavenly agent at work in the Exodus events as
Lady Wisdom, just as the Book of Jubilees has Moses receive the Law from
the Angel of the Presence, and just as Philo identifies the theophanic agent
as the Logos, so also do numerous Christian exegetical, doctrinal, hymno-
graphic, and iconographic works identify the central character in biblical
theophanies as Jesus Christ. 52 As a second relevant element of comparison,
I pointed to the claim, implicit in “rewritten Bible” literature, of its being
the result of charismatic, performative exegesis. 53 I remain convinced that
current scholarly categories are not suited for an accurate description of
the exegetical phenomenon under discussion, but I have changed my mind
on the appropriateness of using the term rewritten Bible.
This term was coined by Geza Vermes in 1961 and used by scholars
dealing mainly with Second Temple pseudepigrapha, such as the Book of
the Watchers (in 1 Enoch), the book of Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon,
the Targums, Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, or Pseudo-Philo’s Liber antiqui-
tatum biblicarum. 54 Although it is true that scholarship has been using this
term somewhat ambiguously both for a literary genre and for an exegeti-
cal strategy, 55 it is quite clear that, if it is to retain any explanatory power,
“rewritten Bible” must refer to the production of actual texts—“narratives

51. See Daniel Lynwood Smith, “Questions and Answers in the Protevangelium of James
and the Gospel of Peter,” in Sacra Scriptura: How “Non-Canonical” Texts Functioned in Early Juda-
ism and Early Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Lee Martin McDonald (London:
Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 183: “While Rewritten Scripture is often associated with Sec-
ond Temple Jewish works like Jubilees and Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, we are following
the growing trend of investigating its applicability to non- Jewish sources. . . . Perhaps the
most outstanding example would be found in Bogdan Bucur’s treament of Byzantine hym-
nography as Rewritten Scripture.”
52. Bucur, “Early Christian Reception of Genesis 18,” 270; idem, “I Saw the Lord,” 327.
53. Ibid., 328, quoting David E. Aune, “Charismatic Exegesis in Early Judaism and Early
Christianity,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and
C. A. Evans (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 126–50 (here, p. 130).
54. For a presentation and discussion of numerous examples, see Geza Vermes, Scripture
and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 67–126; Michael Segal, “Between
Bible and Rewritten Bible,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10–28; idem, Rewritten Bible Reconsidered: Proceedings of the Confer-
ence in Karkku, Finland, August 24–26 2006, ed. Antti Laato and Jacques van Ruiten (Åbo: Åbo
Academy University Press, 2008).
55. I am indebted here to the astute and richly documented article by Anders
Klostergaard Petersen, “Rewritten Bible as a Borderline Phenomenon—Genre, Textual Strat-
egy, or Canonical Anachronism?” in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish
Studies, FS Florentino García Martínez, ed. Anthony Hiljorst, Emile Puech, and End Eibert
Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 285–306.
242 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

following a sequential, chronological order” that “cover a substantial por-

tion of Scripture,” according to a widespread definition of the genre. 56 But
this is precisely not the case of the Christian exegesis of the fiery furnace
episode (or the Mamre theophany, or Isaiah’s vision). In the case of early
Christian exegesis, the “rewriting” in question is a metaphor for “interpre-
tation,” because the Christologically “rewritten” episode of the fiery fur-
nace is not a new text but a new reading of the existing text.
There are, of course, similarities between “rewritten Bible” and early
Christian exegesis (and, for that matter, early Rabbinic exegesis). One simi-
larity would be the variety of solutions to the ambiguity of having the sal-
vific agent display divine mastery over the elements but appear “like an
angel.” Nevertheless, despite the similar exegetical strategies displayed in
the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (which specifies that the agent was Na-
thaniel), the Exodus Rabbah (which states that it was Gabriel), and Chris-
tian exegesis (which sees Jesus present in the furnace), only the first can be
considered “rewritten Scripture,” because it actually constitutes a coher-
ent alternative text. A more apt analogy would be that between patristic
“Christophanic exegesis” (the term I would myself propose) and rabbinic
midrash—which, of course, is not considered “rewritten Bible.” 57
If Christophanic exegesis is accepted as a form of “rewritten Bible,”
then the same would apply to midrash. However, it would automatically
become necessary to find yet another, more specific, term to designate the
kind of literature for which Vermes coined the term “rewritten Bible” in
the first place: “a narrative that follows Scripture but includes a substantial
amount of supplements and interpretative developments.” 58 This erosion
of the descriptive power of the concept derives from its metaphorization.
The root problem is to have allowed “rewritten” to stand for “interpreted.”

56. Philip S. Alexander, “Retelling the Old Testament,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing
Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 99–121 (here, pp. 116–17).
57. This is evident for classical midrash: “unlike rabbinic midrash, [in ‘rewritten Bible’
literature] the actual words of Scripture do not remain highlighted within the body of the
text, either in the form of lemmata, or by the use of citation-formulae” (Alexander, “Retell-
ing the Old Testament,” 116). It is true, as Steven D. Fraade observes (“Rewritten Bible and
Rabbinic Midrash as Commentary,” in Current Trends in the Study of Midrash, ed. C. Bakhos
[Leiden: Brill, 2006], 59–78 [here, 62]), that midrash “may be viewed as containing aspects
of ‘rewritten Bible’ beneath its formal structure of scriptural commentary” (e.g., expansive
paraphrase, filling in scriptural gaps, removing discomforting details, identifying anonymous
with named persons and places). Nevertheless, the distinction between midrash and rewritten
Bible remains true even of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer, despite the latter’s many similarities with
Jubilees or LAB. See Rachel Adelman, The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe De-Rabbi Eliezer and the
Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 5–19; idem, “Can We Apply the Term ‘Rewritten Bible’ to
Midrash? The Case of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer,” in Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms,
or Techniques? A Last Dialogue with Geza Vermes, ed. J. Zsengellér (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 295–317.
58. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, 326.
 Bucur:  Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization 243

My observations about the performative character of the Christologi-

cal interpretation of OT theophanies—perhaps especially about Isa 6—are
perfectly applicable to the fiery furnace episode in Daniel. The perfor-
mative aspect is especially evident in Romanos’s Kontakion on the Three
Youths 25, discussed above. The Christian community at worship is engaged
in a performative reenactment and extension of the story in Dan  3, me-
diated and sustained by ritual, hymnography, and iconography. They rec-
ognize their location—the liturgy of the church—as the furnace and the
pneumatic experience underlying worship (“they found themselves filled
with the all-holy Spirit from having worshipped”) as the dew in the furnace,
and, most importantly, they acknowledge and renew their participation in
the spiritual “now” of Christ’s saving descent as contemporaries of the
three youth. It is this kind of environment that the HB (in our case, Dan 3)
was reenvisioned Christologically and appropriated as Christian Scripture.

Conclusions
The episode of the three youths in the fiery furnace and its early Chris-
tian history of interpretation has received a fair amount of attention in
scholarship. The foregoing pages have contributed to this ongoing discus-
sion by focusing on the Christological and Trinitarian usage of Dan 3. The
episode of the three youths in the fiery furnace (Dan 3) was interpreted
by early Christians as a theophany (or rather, more specifically, a manifes-
tation of the Logos-to-be-incarnate, a “Christophany”), as a foreshadow-
ing of the mystery of the incarnation, and, especially in Byzantine hymns
about “the three youths equal in number to the Trinity,” as an allusion to
the Trinitarian God.
I have argued that the type of symbolization that undergirds these two
exegetical avenues should be more clearly distinguished. If the Trinitarian
interpretation can easily be categorized as an “allegorical” reading in the
tradition of Philo and Origen, whereas the connection between the fiery
furnace and the womb of Mary Theotokos would be an example of what
Daniélou used to call “typology,” and which more recent scholarship would
see as a form of “allegorical” or “figurative” reading. However, the straight-
forward identification of the heavenly agent who descends in the furnace
with Jesus Christ defies the usual categorization. The current terms are
unsatisfactory because they fail to capture the epiphanic dimension of the
text as read by many early Christian exegetes. This observation opened up
the discussion of Dan 3 to a consideration of the exegesis of OT theoph-
anies generally.
The recent proposal to view the Christological interpretation of OT
theophanies as “rewritten Bible” literature is not acceptable because it
treats the “rewriting” in question metaphorically—it designates the pro-
duction not of a new text but of a new reading of the existing text—and
244 Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016)

thereby erodes the descriptive power of the concept. In short, if Chris-

tophanic exegesis is a form of “rewritten Bible,” then so is midrash, and
it becomes necessary to find yet another term to designate the kind of
literature for which Vermes coined the term “rewritten Bible”: “a narrative
that follows Scripture but includes a substantial amount of supplements
and interpretative developments.” 59
The lack of an adequate scholarly term is not a trivial issue. Without
recognizing the phenomenon and crafting an appropriate concept to des-
ignate it, we are blind to a fundamental theological assumption of a large
strand of early Christian literature and, therefore, remain unable to grasp
an important factor in the development of early Christian theology. For my
part, I think that, for the time being at least, the term Christophanic exegesis
may be serviceable in designating a performative, experientially (liturgi-
cally) located exegesis that discerns and affirms the presence of Christ—
not a literary reality but an epiphanic “real presence”—in the theophanic
accounts of the OT (Dan 3, in the case at hand) and in the very act of
exegeting such texts.

59. Ibid.