Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (110 page)

11.
Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus: Intertextuelle Studien zur Intention und Rezeption der Pastoralbriefe
(Göttingen/Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Academic Press, 2004); see also her shorter study, “The Fictitious Self-Exposition of Paul: How Might Intertextual Theory Suggest a Reformulation of the Hermeneutics of Pseudepigraphy?” in
The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice
, ed. Thomas L. Brodie et al. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006), pp. 113–32.

12.
Merz, “Fictitious Self-Exposition,” p. 117.

13.
Margaret M. Mitchell, “Corrective Composition, Corrective Exegesis: The Teaching on Prayer in 1 Tim 2, 1–15,” in Karl Paul Donfried, ed.,
1 Timothy Reconsidered
(Leuven: Peeters, 2008), pp. 41–62.

14.
The strongest arguments are that the views expressed in the verses stand at odds with Paul’s overall view that women could be active in the church—as seen in his comments from Romans 16, as an obvious example—and more specifically with his exhortation earlier in
chapter 11
, which is reconciled with the injunctions of 14:34–35 only with severe difficulty. The fact that the passage in
chapter 14
flows even better without the verses in question exacerbates the problem. But the debates rage on. For a rather weak argument that there is textual support for the omission, see Gordon D. Fee,
The First Epistle to the Corinthians
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), ad loc. A recent study that supports the view that the passage is interpolated is Pervo,
Making of Paul
, pp. 46–48, with a nice chart giving the parallels of the two passages.

15.
As often noted, it is difficult to understand 3:11 as referring to anything other than women deacons, given the context of 3:8–10 on the one hand and 3:12 on the other. But why then are qualifications for the women deacons not mentioned?

16.
Translation of Stephen J. Davis, “A ‘Pauline’ Defense of Women’s Right to Baptize? Intertextuality and Apostolic Authority in the Acts of Paul,”
JECS
8 (2000): 453–59.

17.
Stevan L. Davies, “Women, Tertullian and the Acts of Paul,”
Semeia
38 (1986): 139–43. His argument is that unlike what Tertullian indicates about the work produced by the Asia Minor presbyter, the surviving Acts of Paul was not written in Paul’s name, does not give Thecla the right to baptize, was not written to augment Paul’s fame, and did not come to be held in disgrace among the proto-orthodox circles to which Tertullian belonged. See then the responses of A. Hilhorst, “Tertullian on the Acts of Paul,” in Jan Bremmer, ed.,
The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla
(Kampen: Pharos, 1996), pp. 150–63; and Willy Rordorf, “Tertullien et les Actes de Paul.”

18.
Hilhorst, “Tertullian on the Acts of Paul.”

19.
H. H. Mayer,
Über die Pastoralbriefe
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913). Dennis Ronald MacDonald,
The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983).

20.
In addition to MacDonald,
Legend and the Apostle
, see Richard Bauckham, “The Acts of Paul as a Sequel to Acts,”
The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting
, ed. Bruce Winter and Arthur Clark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993); pp. 105–52; and Carston Looks,
Das Anvertraute bewahren. Die Rezeption der Pastoralbriefe im 2 Jahrhundert
(Munich: Hebert Utz, 1999), pp. 435–52.

21.
“Pastoralbriefe und Acta Pauli,”
SE
5 (1968): 309. Rohde goes on to argue that the AP is not necessarily polemicizing against the message of Paul in the Pastorals, since there is so little direct polemic in AP, as opposed to Pastorals. Rather than being principally polemical—even if there are anti-Gnostic traces—the legends are by and large edificatory and entertaining. Rhodes’s view may be true, but there is little reason to deny that the views of the Acts are antithetical to those set forth in the Pastorals, and vice versa.

22.
See note 19.

23.
Legend and the Apostle
, p. 63.

24.
See note 3.

25.
Depending, that is, on whether a forger can commit plagiarism, given the circumstance that he is not actually claiming someone else’s work to be his own, as he is writing it in the name of another. See p. 14.

26.
See Joseph Mueller, “The Ancient Church Order Literature: Genre or Tradition?”
JECS
15 (2007): 337–80.

27.
See the full study of twelve texts in B. Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
.

28.
Ibid., p. 344.

29.
Ibid., p. 270.

30.
Georg Schöllgen, “Der Abfassungszweck der frühchristlichen Kirchenordnungen: Anmerkungen zu den Thesen Bruno Steimers,”
JAC
40 (1997): 55–77.

31.
“An keiner Stelle deutlich, daß sie die Absicht haben, das Leben in ihren Gemeinden umfassend zu regeln. Von einer ‘prätendierten Universalität der Ordnung’ kann keine Rede sein,” “Der Abfassungszweck,” p. 64.

32.
P. 69.

33.
“Die Pseudepigraphie ist zudem ein deutliches Argument gegen die Widerspiegelungstheorie: warum sollte eine Kirchenordnung, die nichts anderes im Sinn hat, als die Gemeindepraxis zu ‘verschriftlichen,’ dies nicht unter dem Namen ihres tatsächlichen Verfassers bzw. seiner Gemeinde tun, statt sich in die Gefahr zu begeben als Betrugsmanöver entlarvt zu werden?” … “Die geliehene Autorität der Apostel soll der Schrift die Verbindlichkeit verleihen, die der Verfasser bei einer orthonymen Veröffentlichung nicht hätte erreichen können.” Both quotations p. 76.

34.
As Schöllgen argues elsewhere concerning the relationship of scripture citation and pseudepigraphic authorship in the Didascalia: “The apostolic frame obviously serves the purpose of making the Didascalia’s interpretation of Scripture binding vis-à-vis competing interpretations.” (“Der apostolische Rahmen dient ganz offensichtlich dem Zweck, die Schriftinterpretation der Didaskalie gegen konkurrierende Interpretationen verbindlich zu machen.”) “Pseudapostolizität und Scriftgebrauch in den ersten Kirchenordnungen,” in G. Schöllgen and G. Schölten, eds.,
Stimuli: Exegese und ihre Hermeneutik in Antike und Christentum
. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1996), p. 117.

35.
See pp. 344–50.

36.
Charlotte Methuen, “Widows, Bishops and the Struggle for Authority in the
Didascalia Apostolorum,” JEH
46 (1995): 213.

37.
Didascalia
, p. 43.

38.
Schöllgen, “Der Abfassungszweck,” p. 68; on Osiek and Methuen, see pp. 389–90 below.

39.
A “not” has inadvertently dropped out of Stewart-Sykes’s translation of 3.1.1 (“Widows who are to be appointed: should be less than fifty years of age”!).

40.
Carolyn Osiek, “The Widow as Altar: The Rise and Fall of a Symbol,”
SecCent
3 (1983): 168.

41.
Methuen, “Widows, Bishops, and the Struggle for Authority,” p. 200.

42.
“The Widow as Altar,” p. 168.

43.
“Widows, Bishops, and the Struggle for Authority,” p. 203. Methuen argues as well that the Didascalia is specifically directing its polemic against a group of women as known from the Acts of Thomas.

44.
Osiek, “The Widow as Altar,” pp. 168–69. See also Bonnie Bowman Thurston, “The Widows as the ‘Altar of God,’” SBLSP 24 (1985): 279–89.

45.
See pp. 14–19.

46.
For that reason I will not be giving them a separate treatment, even though they too are falsely written in the names of the apostles.

47.
Thomas A. Kopecek, review of Marcel Metzger,
Les Constitutions Apostoliques
, vol. 1 in
JTS
38 (1987): 209.

48.
Translation of James Donaldson in
ANF
.

49.
“Über die apostolischen Constitutionen, oder neue Untersuchungen über die Bestandtheile, Entstehung und Zusammensetzung, und den kirchlichen Werth dieser alten Schrift,”
ThQ
11 (1829): 397–477, esp. p. 410.

50.
Compiled by Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
, pp. 119–20.

51.
“
Hom. in diem natalem Domini nostri Jesu Christi
,” in Migne
PG
49, 351, cited in Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
, p. 121 n. 61.

52.
See Metzger,
Les constitutions apostoliques
, vol. 2, pp. 10–110; Metzger, “La théologie des Constitutions apostoliques par Clément,”
RevScRel
57 (1983): 33–36; and especially Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
, pp. 122–29, to whom I am especially indebted in my survey here.

53.
Translation of Henry Percival from Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds.,
NPNF
, second series, vol. 14 (reprint edition Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994; American edition original, 1900), p. 361.

54.
Franz X. Funk,
Die Apostolischen Konstitutionen. Eine literar-historische Untersuchung
(Rottenburg: W. Bader, 1891), pp. 105–7, 367.

55.
“Notes on the Apostolic Constitutions,”
JTS
16 (1915): 54–61 and 523–38.

56.
“Le texte du ‘Gloria in excelsis,’
RHE
44 (1949): 439–505.

57.
“Zur Herkunft der Apostolischen Konstitutionen,” in
Mélanges liturgiques offerts au R. P. dom Bernard Botte à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire de son ordination sacerdotale (4 juin 1972)
(Louvain, Abbaye du Mont César, 1972). For the views of S. Schwartz and J. Lebreton, see Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
, p. 125.

58.
Polycarpi et Ignatii epistolae
(Oxford: Leonard Lichfield, 1644), LXIII–LXIV

59.
Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel nebst Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts
(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1884), 244–65.

60.
Dieter Hagedorn,
Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973).

61.
P. lii.

62.
See further the discussion of the Pseudo-Ignatian letters on pp. 460–80.

63.
“The view that the compiler and his school took recourse to pseudepigraphy for the purpose of surreptitiously imposing Arian doctrines and formulae is untenable in light of a complete examination of the Apostolic Constitutions and the local historical context.” (“Que la compilateur et son atelier aient recouru à la pseudépigraphie pour imposer subrepticement les thèses et les formules ariennes, cette opinion ne peut tenir devant un examen complet des CA et du contexte historique local.”)
Les constitutions apostoliques
, vol. 2, p. 11.

64.
Les constitutions apostoliques
, vol. 2, p. 18.

65.
See note 47.

66.
“Als stärkstes Argument der Authentizität ist die in der CA doppelt vorkommende Warnung vor pseudepigraphischen Schriften zu werten.” Steimer,
Vertex Traditionis
, pp. 132–33.

67.
Frankfurt am Main, 1691, pp. 304–14.

68.
In
Geschichte des Kirchenrechts
1 (Giessen, 1843), pp. 107–32.

69.
The Apostolic Church Order: The Greek Text with Introduction, Translation and Annotations
(Strath-field, Australia: St Pauls, 2006).

70.
Vertex Traditionis
, p. 65.

71.
Apostolic Church Order
, p. 78.

72.
There is nothing to require Speyer’s judgment that the document was produced in order to replace the Didache. Instead, it simply gives the Two Ways teaching a different iteration, and combines it with a church order. See Speyer,
Literarische Fälschung
p. 223.

73.
Faivre attempts to find clever connections between what each apostle says and what is known about that apostle from other sources (“Apostolicité et pseudo-apostolicité dans la ‘Constitution ecclésiastique des apôtres’: L’art de faire parler les origines,”
RevScRel
66, 1992, 19–67). Thus, for example, Cephas speaks about the role of women in part because in 1 Cor. 9:5 he is connected with a wife; and Andrew talks about the symbolic theological connection of the deaconate between men (ANΔPAEI) and women. In most instances, including these two, the connections appear to be a considerable stretch and fail to convince.

74.
Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel
, pp. 210–16.

75.
Translations are taken from Stewart-Sykes,
Apostolic Church Order
.

76.
T. Schermann,
Eine Elfapostelmoral oder die x-Rezension der “beiden Wege”
(Munich: Lentner 1903); Stewart-Sykes,
Apostolic Church Order
, p. 34.

77.
Stewart-Sykes conjectures that the text originally involved an injunction for the women not to prophesy standing, lest they become physically out of control;
Apostolic Church Order
, pp. 113–14, n. 46.

78.
Stewart-Sykes proposes an alternative translation, “supporting women in chains,” and suggests that if followed the passage may refer to some kind of exorcistic ministry, a view he then rejects.

79.
Apostolic Church Order
, p. 49. It should be noted that the polemic is not an assertion of too much authority exercised specifically by deaconesses, as Jean Daniélou suggested (
The Ministry of Women in the Early Church
, London: Faith Press, 1961, p. 20). As Roger Gryson pointed out (
The Ministry of Women in the Early Church
, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1976, p. 48), deaconesses are not mentioned here. The office of deaconess instead may have emerged from just the roles to which women were restricted in documents such as this.

80.
“Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip,” in
Which Mary? The Marys of Early Christian Tradition
, ed. F. Stanley Jones (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 82–83.