Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (111 page)

81.
Apostolic Church Order
, p. 53.

82.
Ibid., p. 54.

83.
“Surtout, elle donne aux matériaux plus récents une autorité égale à celle des matériaux authentiques,” “Apostolicité et pseudo-apostolicité,” pp. 64, 66.

84.
See pp. 335–37.

85.
Robert G. Hall, “The
Ascension of Isaiah:
Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early Christianity,”
JBL
109 (1990): 289. Hall provides an interesting assessment of the text, but much of it comes through a rather flat mirror reading, in which any description of Isaiah and his school is taken to refer to the prophetic author and his real-life school. This is taking the approach developed by J. Louis Martyn for his reading of the Fourth Gospel to an extreme (see Martyn,
History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel
, New York: Harper and Row, 1968). For critique, see Greg Carey, “The Ascension of Isaiah: An Example of Early Christian Narrative Polemic,”
JSP
17 (1998): 65–78.

86.
Translation of C. Detlef G. Müller, in Schneemelcher,
New Testament Apocrypha
.

87.
It appears less likely that the author is objecting to the leaders rejecting the writings of the Old Testament prophets, since the focus is on “these my visions”—that is, the visions recorded in this very book, and hence specifically “Christian” prophecy made in the names of the prophets of old.

88.
Thus Henriette W. Havelaar, ed.,
The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter (Nag-Hammadi Codex VII, 3)
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999).

89.
Translations are those of James Brashler and Roger A. Bullard in Robinson,
NHL
.

90.
See Havelaar,
The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter
, ch. 6. For an argument that seven heretical groups are under attack, and that the polemic against the bishop and deacons is specifically directed against a Manichaean group, see Michel Tardieu, “Hérésiographie de l’Apocalypse de Pierre,’ in
Histoire et conscience historique dans les civilisations du Proche-Orient ancient
(Leuven: Peeters, 1989), pp. 33–39.

91.
Leiden: Brill, 1978.

92.
On Martyn,
History and Theology;
Brown,
Community of the Beloved Disciple
(New York: Paulist, 1979).

93.
Birger A. Pearson, “The Apocalypse of Peter and the Canonical 2 Peter,” in
Gnosticism and the Early Christian World
, ed. James Goehring et al. (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990), pp. 67–74; in reference to Terrence V. Smith,
Petrine Controversies in Early Christianity: Attitudes towards Peter in Christian Writings of the First Two Centuries
(Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1985), pp. 43–54, 137–41.

94.
Havelaar is not convinced that there is any relationship between the two works at all.
Coptic Apocalypse
, ch. 5.

95.
Pearson, “Apocalypse of Peter,” p. 68.

96.
For use of NT materials in the Apocalypse of Peter, see Havelaar,
Coptic Apocalypse
, ch. 5.

97.
P. 71.

98.
P. 71.

99.
Some scholars have argued that the Apocryphon of James from codex 1 of the Nag Hammadi Library has a polemical bent similar to the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter. Madeleine Scopello in particular has urged that the figure of Peter in the text is portrayed as a somewhat dull and unreceptive recipient of Jesus’ revelation, in contrast to the hero of the text, James. In this view, the ultimate point of the text is that Gnostics require no intermediaries for salvation, unlike the members of the proto-orthodox church, who require the ecclesiastical structure to be saved. This may, however, be an overreading of the book in a polemical direction not warranted by the text itself. (Madeleine Scopello, “The Secret Book of James,” Introduction in Marvin Meyer, ed.,
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
, pp. 19–22.) By contrast, see also Donald Rouleau,
L’Épître apocryphe de Jacques (NH I, 2)
, Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi, Section “Textes” 18 (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval; Louvain: Peeters, 1987), pp. 25–27, who stresses that in the account, Peter as well as James is set apart by Jesus to receive his revelation, and they both receive it equally; the other disciples ask both of them what the revelation was at the end, and they both reply and give the right answer. It is true that Peter betrays a misunderstanding of Jesus, but James too is represented as not comprehending Jesus and his message (
chs. 5
–
6
).

100.
“Commemoration gnostique de Sem.” In
La commemoration
, ed. Ph. Gignoux (Louvain: Peeters, 1988), pp. 219–23. Tardieu dates the text to the end of the fourth century, as an attack on the post-Constantinian church.

101.
“The Paraphrase of Shem,” in Marvin Meyer, ed.,
Nag Hammadi Scriptures
, pp. 437–47.

102.
Translations are taken from Roberge, “Paraphrase of Shem.”

103.
Ibid., p. 445.

104.
P. 445. Roberge goes on to make the less plausible suggestion that the polemic may instead have focused on Elchasaites, with their practice of multiple baptisms and therapeutic baths.

105.
J.-D. Dubois, “Contribution à l’interprétation de la Paraphrase de Sem,”
Deuxième journée d’études coptes
(Louvain: Peeters, 1986), pp. 150–60.

N
one of the theological controversies of the second and third Christian centuries was as heated or prolonged as the debate over the status of the flesh, both the real flesh of Jesus before and after his resurrection and the flesh of his followers, alternately spurned and embraced by Christians of varying persuasion. The debates over the flesh were carried out not only in the realm of the heresiological literature—with famous stands taken by such stalwart advocates of orthodoxy as Irenaeus and Tertullian—but also within a surprising number of forged texts from the period. We have, as a result, apostolic pseudepigrapha that take positions on both ends of the spectrum, some arguing against the “grotesque” notion that Christ was a man of real flesh and that his resurrection—and that of his followers—involved a reanimation of the flesh, and others arguing with equal vehemence the opposite view, that Christ’s incarnation was fully in the flesh, as was his resurrection, in anticipation of the fleshly resurrection of his followers, yet to be. As might be expected, we have fewer surviving representatives of the former position, in no small measure because its supporters succumbed and their literary advocacies were, as a result, relegated to the trash heaps of perverse theological curiosities. We begin with these few apostolic denigrations of the flesh.

I have already discussed one important aspect of the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter in the preceding chapter, as this striking revelation to Peter of the true nature of the crucifixion of Jesus was written, in no small measure, to oppose the hierarchical developments within the proto-orthodox community. The treatise attacks
not only church leaders, however, but also anyone who maintains that Christ was really a man of the flesh, whose bodily torment and death had any role to play in human salvation. It is no accident that the separationist Christology of the text—in which a clear demarcation is made between the fleshly shell of the Savior and his true inner essence—is placed on the pen of Peter, otherwise celebrated as the leader of the proto-orthodox community that this author opposes.

The Petrine authorship of the book is established in its opening sentence, “As the Savior was sitting in the temple … he said to me, ‘Peter, blessed are those above belonging to the Father. …’”
¹
One is immediately drawn to parallels in the canonical traditions, especially the apocalyptic discourse of Mark 13, given at the explicit request of Peter and other disciples while overlooking the Temple. The connections to 1 Peter (whose author was “a witness to Christ’s sufferings”) and yet more extensively 2 Peter, have already been discussed.

Early on in the treatise the polemical tone is set. It is the ones who “belong to the Father” who are blessed; and Peter is reminded that the Savior intended that those “who are from the life … may hear my word and distinguish words of unrighteousness and transgression of law from righteousness” (70.24–32). And so there is a clear difference between the true teaching of the Savior and teachings that derive from elsewhere. So too these sundry teachings differentiate groups of alleged followers from one another. Only a few (the “remnant”) hear the true revelation of Christ and so come to saving knowledge: “From you I have established a base for the remnant whom I have summoned to knowledge” (71.19–21). Those without this knowledge are “blind ones who have no guide” (72.12–13). These “others” are polemicized against throughout: they “say evil things against each other” (74.26–27) and “are divided among themselves” (82.33). The object of attack, as we have seen, is the proto-orthodox community headed by the deceived “bishops and deacons” (79.25–26).

The group is misguided not only because they follow blind leaders who are “dry canals” (79.31) but even more because they subscribe to false views, insisting on the importance of the fleshly body of Christ and on the salvific significance of his death. Looking only to the externals, they do not see the true, inner, hidden meaning of both Christ and his crucifixion. To illustrate this problem at the outset, the author presents the strange scene in which the Savior instructs Peter to see precisely by putting his hands over his eyes, and to hear by placing his hands over his ears (72.10–73.22). After an initial confusion, Peter comes to understand the point. What seems to be happening in the physical world of sensation in fact masks what is really happening, as can be detected not through the physical senses, which need to be obliterated, but through spiritual insight, which comes only when one turns from the outward and physical. Only some people
can see: those who abandon the importance of flesh and the physical nature of existence. It is those who look with their physical eyes who are blind (“If you want to know their blindness, put your hands upon your eyes … and say what you see”; 72.13–17).

The primary target of the author’s polemic is the false teaching about the importance of Christ’s (real) death. The blind leaders of the opposition, and their followers, called the “men of the propagation of falsehood” err because they “cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure” (74.11–15). That is to say, they think that it is the crucifixion that brings salvation (the dead Jesus instead of the living one). On the contrary, those who hold such views “will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error and into the hand of an evil cunning man and a manifold dogma and they will be ruled heretically” (74.16–22).

The alternative Christology proposed by the author is not, strictly speaking, docetic (i.e. phantasmal), but separationist, in which the outer shell of the man Jesus, which gets crucified, is of no ultimate significance for salvation; it is the real Jesus, the inner spiritual being, that matters.
²
That the suffering of the shell has no connection with the real savior is a view found in other Nag Hammadi treatises as well, including the First Apocalypse of James (5.3, 5.31.17–18), the Second Apocalypse of James (5.4), and the Letter of Peter to Philip (8.2).
³
The view is portrayed with particular poignancy here, in the famous culminating scene of the tractate, where Peter observes the crucifixion of Jesus from afar, while speaking to the Savior:

When he had said those things, I saw him seemingly being seized by them. And I said, “What do I see, O Lord, that it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one glad and laughing [above] the tree. And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?”

The Savior said to me, “He whom you saw [above] the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute, being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness.” (81.3–23)

To his increased amazement, Peter then sees “someone about to approach us resembling him, even him who was laughing.” This one was filled “with a Holy Spirit” and is also said to be the Savior. “And there was a great ineffable light
around them and the multitude of ineffable and invisible angels blessing them.” This one—seemingly yet another image of Christ—explains:

He whom they crucified is the first-born, and the home of demons, and the stony vessel in which they dwell, of Elohim, of the cross, which is under the Law. But he who stands near him is the living Savior, the first in him, whom they seized and released, who stands joyfully looking at those who did him violence, while they are divided among themselves. Therefore he laughs at their lack of perception, knowing that they are born blind. So then the one susceptible to suffering shall come, since the body is the substitute. But what they released was my incorporeal body. But I am the intellectual Spirit filled with radiant light. He whom you saw coming to me is our intellectual Pleroma. (82.4–83.13)

There are numerous well-known ambiguities about this passage. Among other things, although interpreters are broadly agreed that there is a clear and fundamental distinction made between the material body of Christ and his real spiritual self, there are strong disagreements about the nature and unity of the latter, with some scholars such as Luttikhuizen thinking that it (the nonmaterial part) consists of two essences, corresponding more or less to soul and spirit, and others such as Havelaar who speak of a “tripartite Savior,” comprising the “intellectual Pleroma,” the “intellectual or Holy Spirit” and the “incorporeal body or living Savior” that is connected to the material body.
⁴
This disagreement is not of vital significance for my purposes here. What matters instead is the differentiation drawn between the material part of Christ, which is crucified, and the spiritual part(s), which cannot and do not suffer. The fleshly part of Christ is “the home of demons” and belongs to “Elohim” the creator God of this world. It is of no real importance to the living Jesus. Those who think they can harm the living Jesus are “blind” and do not “know what they are saying” (81.30–32). That is why the Savior “laughs at their lack of perception, knowing that they are blind” (83.1–3). The opponents of Christ think they have destroyed the Savior, but in fact they have only put themselves to shame. It is not the fleshly body of Jesus—and thus his physical death—that ultimately matters. That was a charade. What matters is the inner Jesus, the spiritual Savior who escapes torment and cannot be killed.