The Church Fathers and Pantera

The issue of Jesus’ parentage is of supreme importance in trying to identify the historical man behind the myth that was created after his death. The Christian sources refer to Jesus as the “son of Mary” or the “son of Joseph”, with Mark atypically referring to Jesus by his mother’s name, causing doubt about the role of Joseph as his father. Other gospels correct this to avoid the assumptions that would naturally arise. Matthew’s gospel includes a genealogy for Joseph’s family true and Luke for Mary’s to prove Jesus’ genealogical lineage to David. Matthew’s genealogy includes references to many characters which also arise suspicion.

All of this suggests that the Christian sources are not entirely comfortable with the issue of Jesus’ family. Non-Christian sources indicate an entirely different tradition of who Jesus’ father was. This is found in the Pantera tradition, which is first found textually in the 2nd century CE with Celsus’ writings (preserved in Origen’s response) and the Tosefta, supplemental material to the collection of Jewish oral law known as the Mishnah. While Celsus’ work is only preserved in the later Origen, most scholars regard Origen’s preservation of the text as authentic. Celsus presents the idea that Mary had Jesus through a Roman soldier named Pantera.

Celsus (Contra Celsum 1.32)
But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that “when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera;” and let us see whether those who have blindly concocted these fables about the adultery of the Virgin with Panthera, and her rejection by the carpenter, did not invent these stories to overturn His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost: for they could have falsified the history in a different manner, on account of its extremely miraculous character, and not have admitted, as it were against their will, that Jesus was born of no ordinary human marriage. It was to be expected, indeed, that those who would not believe the miraculous birth of Jesus would invent some falsehood. And their not doing this in a credible manner, but (their) preserving the fact that it was not by Joseph that the Virgin conceived Jesus, rendered the falsehood very palpable to those who can understand and detect such inventions.

Celsus presents this argument impersonating a Jew. It seems likely, then, that this was common knowledge among Jews and a sort of anti-Gospel tradition about Jesus’ origins, perhaps reflecting their beliefs about his origins. However, the specifically Jewish sources from the earlier period do not reflect the idea that Pantera was a soldier. This was either rejected by the rabbis and they wanted to preserve the name Pantera without any sort of negativity attached to it or the story was so well-known that no mention of Pantera’s role as a soldier did not need to be explicitly stated.

Only one of the Gospels, Thomas, seemingly makes a direct mention of the Jewish tradition surrounding Jesus:

Thomas 105
He who knows the father and the mother will be all the son of a harlot.

Bauckham (2004) interprets this as suggesting that “the Jewish charge of illegitimacy against Jesus was due to his acknowledgment of his heavenly Father and Mother (rather than – presumably – his supposed earthly parents). Again Jesus is taken as a model for his disciples preferring heavenly to earthly relationships” (p. 54).

This seems to echo an episode in John where the issue of Jesus’ father is referenced.

John 8:39-47
They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, you would do^[a] what Abraham did, ⁴⁰ but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹ You are indeed doing what your father does.” They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one Father, God himself.” ⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God, and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. ⁴³ Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. ⁴⁴ You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.^[b] 46 Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.”

The Gospel of the Hebrews refers to the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ mother:

(Origen, Commentary on John 2.12.87 [on John 1:3]):
And if any accept the Gospel of the Hebrews — here the Savior says: Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away on to the great mountain Tabor.

In any case, the Tosefta presents a fairly non-polemical reference to Jesus as “son of Pantera.”

Tosefta (T Chullin 2:22-24
Flesh which is found in the hand of a Gentile is allowed for use; in the hand of a heretic it is forbidden for use. That which comes from a house of idolatry, lo, this is the flesh of sacrifices of the dead, because they say, “Slaughtering by a heretic is idolatry, their bread is Samaritan bread, their wine is wine offered, their fruits are not tithed, their books are books of witchcraft, and their sons are bastards.” One does not sell to them or receive from them, or take from them or give to them; one does not teach their sons trades, and one does not obtain healing from them, either healing of property or healing of life. The case of R. Eliazar ben Damah, whom a serpent bit. There came in Jacob, a man of Chephar Sama, to cure him in the name of Yeshua ben Pandira, but R. Ishmael did not allow it. He said, “You are not permitted, ben Damah.” He said, “I will bring you a proof that he may heal me.” But he had not finished bringing a proof when he died. R. Ishmael said, “Happy you are, ben Damah, for you have departed in peace and have not broken through the ordinances of the wise; for upon every one who breaks through the fence of the wise, punishment comes at last, as it is written, ‘Whosoever breaks a fence, a serpent shall bite him’ (= Ecclesiastes 10.8).” (also in Jerusalem Talmud, Avodah Zara 2.2: 2)

The name, Pantera, or variations is found in ossuary evidence from the time period (Siebeck, p. 301). The alternative endings -i or -a are common in translating Greek names into Aramaic.

Before discussing the Church Fathers’ response to this accusation, the idea that Pantera is a pun on the Greek, parthenos, used by Christians in their reading of the Septuagint to justify the idea that Jesus was born of a “virgin” as reflected in their understanding of biblical prophecy. While there are some cases of nicknames occurring in rabbinic literature, it is not a frequent occurrence. There are nicknames given to rabbis with the same name, for example, Yosef ben Shimon (Gittin 24b; Bava Metzia 18a). There is the case of Shimon ben Nanos (Simon son of the midget), which is unusual in the Talmudic corpus and the nickname is directed to the father. The Jewish Encyclopedia explains more about this character:

Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanna of the second generation; contemporary of R. Ishmael and R. Akiba, with whom he often engaged in halakic discussions. He is often mentioned merely by the name “Ben Nanos.” He acquired a high reputation on account of his intimate knowledge of Jewish civil jurisprudence; and R. Ishmael said that whoever wished to occupy himself with the study of this branch of the Law ought to learn from Simeon b. Nanos (B. B. x. 8). Several of Simeon’s sayings bearing on civil law have been preserved (B. B. vii. 3, x. 8; Sheb. vii. 5), as well as some of his opinions on other halakic subjects (Bik. iii. 9; Shab. xvi. 5; ‘Er. x. 15; Giṭ. viii. 10; Men. iv. 3). Neither the names of his teachers nor those of his pupils are known.

It is not unimaginable that the Rabbis were conversant in Greek, in fact, it is quite likely. Many coins in Greek have been found from the 1st century CE, beginning with the Hasmoneans, until exclusive Greek coinage under the Herodians. A number of papyri have been found in Greek that were written by Jews. Sacred literature such as the Greek versions of Daniel and Esther were composed around this time, including the Septuagint, as well as non-sacred writers, such as Josephus, among many others. Archaeological and textual evidence confirms the importance of Greek, “according to the latest statistics on published inscriptions, 68% of all of the ancient Jewish inscriptions from the Mediterranean world are in Greek (70% if one counts as Greek bilingual inscriptions with Greek as one of the languages)… Even in Jerusalem, probably the most linguistically Semitic of the Jewish cities, the number of epitaphs in Greek is approximately equal to the number in Semitic languages (Porter, p 221-222). The Rabbis of Palestine certainly knew Greek. The number of Greek loanwords into Hebrew increases during the Rabbinic period, although Aramaic was the primary language of rabbinic circles. Several thousand Greek loanwords are found throughout rabbinic literature in the Mishnah, Talmuds, etc. covering material culture, civil and legal administration, military, architecture, including lexical categories that are easily borrowed, such as adjectives, adverbs, verbs, and nouns. The type and frequency of borrowing suggests a prolonged multilingual contact between languages (Janse 2014).

However, there is little evidence for the idea of the Rabbis coining a pun from one language into the other, as would need to be the case for the “Pantera = parthenos” pun.

The Church Fathers felt it necessary to respond to these traditions. The general approach is to claim that “Pantera” was a family name of Jesus’, either from his maternal or paternal lineage. Epiphanius seems to link this to Joseph, while later writers, such as John of Damascus link it to Mary’s lineage.

Epiphanius, St. Anastasii, Questiones, MPG: Vol. 89. Col. 811
For thus, on the one hand, Joseph was the brother of Cleophas, while on the other he was the son of Jacob, of whom additionally was called by the surname Panther. So that these two were born from the one surnamed Panthera

John of Damascus
“Panther begat Barpanther, so called. This Barpanther begat Joachim: Joachim begat the holy Mother of God.

Of course, modern scholarship is reluctant to entertain any consideration of the Pantera stories. However, this does not mean that all scholars have ignored it. Most famously, James Tabor generally accepts the story of the Roman soldier, Pantera, as being the father of Jesus, through archeological discoveries. He writes about it in his book, The Jesus Dynasty. James Tabor points to the work of Hugh Schonfield, who summarized his theories vis-a-vis the Pantera traditions:

Schonfield (According to the Hebrews, 142-50) offers an intriguing explanation which dovetails nicely with Tabor’s discussion of Luke’s genealogy (The Jesus Dynasty, 48-56) and also avoids any alleged wrongdoing on the part of Mary. Passing over the putative philological rationalization of Pandera as an Aramaic transliteration of the Greek Panthēra, Schonfield takes Panthera as a family name, stemming from the great-grandmother of Jesus: Estha who, upon the death of Matthan (Matthew’s genealogy; or Matthat in Luke’s), married a Syrian convert to Judaism by the name of Melchi, from the family Panthera (cognomen). So, for Schonfield, this matches both the reference in Epiphanius and John of Damascus of a Barpanther. This also places Jesus in the line of Nathan. Schonfield argues that, since Jesus’ (northern Gentile) heritage would have been frowned upon, many Jewish opponents began calling him by his family name instead of Jesus the Nazarene.

Teaching of Jacob (634 CE) – “…she is the daughter of David and not Theotokos, for Mary is a woman, daughter of Joakim, and her mother was Anna. Now Joakim is son of Panther, and Panther was brother of Melchi, as the tradition of us Jews in Tiberias has it, of the seed of Nathan, the son of David, of the seed of Judah.”

In any case, the Pantera traditions, while neglected by modern scholars, were not ignored by Christians throughout history. They acknowledged this as something that should be addressed and worked these ideas into orthodox understandings of Jesus and his role.

Bauckham, Richard. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. London: T&T Clark International (2004).

Hugh Schonfield, a Forgotten Ossuary, and the Origin of the Jesus Son of Pantera Traditions