Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (121 page)

32.
Without compelling reason, Judith Lieu asserts the contrary: that “the assertion that ‘we have heard … we have seen’ is not a claim to an eyewitness experience of the historical ministry of Jesus made by a group of the original disciples.” Her logic is the same as Brown’s and Schnackenburg’s (see the preceding note): that since this author was not an eyewitness, he could not be claiming to be one. She too, then, fails to consider the possibility that the author wants to portray himself as an eyewitness, precisely in order to validate his claims about the real fleshly existence of Christ. As a result, she proposes a rather obscure and romantic understanding of the first-person pronoun in the prologue: “its chief effort is to invite its readers to be attuned to the echoes and associations of the unequivocal authority of sensory experience, to attest it, and to determine whether they will affirm it and, by affirming it, whether they will shape their own lives by the pattern of consequences that the rest of the letter will trace.” In response I would say that this is precisely not the “chief effort” of the author. He instead wants his readers to know that he is an authority who has actually experienced the incarnate word of life as a physical, tangible entity, so that they can rest assured that Christ really did come in the flesh. See Judith Lieu,
I, II, and III John: A Commentary
, NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), pp. 35–43, quotation pp. 40–41.

33.
See note 24.

34.
See the discussion in Brown,
Epistles of John
, pp. 9–10.

35.
I, II, and III John
, p. 3.

36.
A. Plummer,
The Epistles of S. John
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1886), p. 14.

37.
See notes 31 and 32 above; John Painter,
1, 2, and 3 John
. SP (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002), pp. 129–30.

38.
Strecker,
Johannine Letters
, p. 14. It should be noted that the author’s claim is quite different from that of the author of the Fourth Gospel, who does indeed say “we beheld his glory” (1:14), but does not claim to be an actual eyewitness. On the contrary, he appears to be claiming to speak of the glory revealed to all believers; he is one who has believed “without seeing” (20:29). Evidence for this interpretation comes at the end of the Gospel, where the author clearly indicates that he was not one of the disciples (20:30–31), and at the scene of the crucifixion where the author indicates that he himself is not the one who observed the event but that he derived his information from one who had (19:35).

39.
Indeed, Strecker can maintain that a different author produced 1 John, on the basis of the facts that he does not call himself a
, that the letter is of a different form (critically), and that there are different views of theology and church discipline (“what one finds here is an independent author in the Johannine school tradition”;
Johannine Letters
, p. xl). I do not find this view persuasive, in part because I think 2 John 7 is difficult to explain if not from the same author as 1 John 4:2–3. But it is not at all implausible that the author sent a general letter into broader circulation, claiming to be an eyewitness to what he attests, rather than simply to a single house church.

40.
Eusebius,
H.E
. 6.25.10.

41.
A case could be made that the anonymous author of 1 John wanted to be known not only as a disciple who was in Jesus’ physical presence, but also as the author of the Fourth Gospel; hence his attempt to imitate the Prologue of his predecessor.

42.
In Polycarpionam epistolarum Ignationarum syllogen annotationes
(Oxford), p. 29. For a full sketch of the manuscript tradition, see Vahan Hovhanessian,
Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy
(New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 3–10.

43.
Histoire critique de la république des lettres
Tome X (Amsterdam/Utrecht, 1714), pp. 148–71.

44.
J. Zohrab,
Astuatsashunch’ Matean Hin Ew Nor Ktakarants’
(= Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; Venice: Srboyn Ghazaru, 1805; reprinted Delmar: Caravan Books, 1984), pp. 25–27.

45.
In
part II
of
Collection of Authentic Records Belonging to the Old and New Testament
(London: William Whiston, 1727).

46.
See Rowland E. Prothero,
The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals
, IV (New York: Scribner’s, 1900), pp. 429–33.

47.
Das Sendschreiben der Korinther an den Apostel Paulus und das dritte Sendschreiben Pauli an die Korinther
(Heidelberg: C. F. Winter, 1823). For further information on manuscript discoveries, summarized here, see Steve Johnston, “La Correspondance apocryphe entre Paul et les Corinthiens: un pseudépigraphe paulinien au service de la polémique anti-gnostique de la fin du II siècle” (M.A. thesis, University of Laval, 2004), 1–30; and Hovhanessian,
Third Corinthians
, pp. 3–10.

48.
“The Pseudo-Ephremian
Commentary on Third Corinthians:
A Study in Exegesis and Anti-Bardai-sanite Polemic,” in
After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers
, ed. Gerrit J. Reinink and Alexander Cornelis Klugkist (Louvain: Peeters, 1999), pp. 51–63.

49.
See the discussion in Hovhanessian,
Third Corinthians
, pp. 6–9.

50.
Acta Pauli: Aus der Heidelberger Koptischen Papyrushandschrift Nr. 1
(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1905), pp. 125–45.

51.
Papyrus Bodmer X–XII
(Geneva: Bibliotheque Bodmer, 1959). See as well his “La Correspondance apocryphe de saint Paul et des Corinthiens,” in
Littérature et théologie pauliniennes
(Louvain: Desclée de Brouwer, 1960), pp. 217–23.

52.
Adolf Harnack, “Die apokryphen Briefe des Paulus an die Laodicener und Korinther,” in
Apocrypha IV
, 2nd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1931), pp. 6–23.

53.
“There are reasons to suppose that the correspondence was not written by the same author as the Acts of Paul.” A. F. J. Klijn, “The Apocryphal Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians,”
VC
17 (1963): 13.

54.
One might be tempted to postulate, further, that the two letters were composed independently of one another. The second letter, from Paul to the Corinthians, can easily stand on its own, apart from the earlier set of inquiries of the first letter; moreover, in this letter Paul mentions neither the first letter nor the heretics who are its principal concern. In addition, whereas the first letter assumes that Paul has already been delivered from his legal troubles (“the Lord has delivered you from the godless,” v. 8), in the second he is in prison (v. 1) and in chains (v. 34). The differences between the letters, however, are as difficult to explain on the hypothesis of the first being written later as an introduction to the second as on the standard view that both were written together, as a unit. Moreover, the opening statement of the second letter does appear to preserve an allusion to the first: “I marvel not that the teachings of the evil one had such rapid success” (in possible reference to “they overthrow the faith of some”).

55.
Gerard Luttikhuizen, “The Apocryphal Correspondence with the Corinthians and the Acts of Paul,” in Jan Bremmer, ed.,
The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla
(Kampen: Pharos, 1996), pp. 75–92.

56.
Translations are taken from J. K. Elliott,
Apocryphal New Testament
.

57.
The letter presents an interesting notion of the incarnation, unlike anything in Paul’s New Testament letters. Here God is said to have sent the Holy Spirit into Mary so that Christ could be born of her (vv. 5, 13–14). God also sent a “portion of the Spirit” into the Jewish prophets, as a kind of preliminary to the sending of the Spirit into Mary. This appears to be a kind of Spirit Christology comparable to the Logos Christology of contemporary thinkers such as Justin (where the Logos is in the Greek philosophers, but becomes fully manifest in Christ).

58.
At least, no scholar of the Western world. For anyone with residual doubts, S. Johnston devotes fifty-five pages to a demonstration (“La Correspondance apocryphe,” pp. 78–133).

59.
In my judgment M. Rist is precisely wrong to claim that the author’s “indistinct echoes of Paul’s words” were not “designed to give his composition an appearance of authenticity.” See M. Rist, “III Corinthians as a Pseudepigraphic Refutation of Marcionism,”
Iliff Review
26 (1969): 55.

60.
Rist, “III Corinthians,” p. 58. Rist gives six very good points of comparison with what is known of Marcion and one with Apelles. Klijn (“Apocryphal Correspondence”), however, makes a valid objection to this view: Apelles maintained that one angel, not a plural number of angels, was the creator. Rist sees this as a trivial difference.

61.
Hérésie et orthodoxie selon la correspondance apocryphe entre les Corinthiens et l’Apôtre Paul,” in
Orthodoxie et Hérésie dans l’Eglise ancienne
, ed. H. D. Altendorf.
Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie
17 (1993): 21–63.

62.
“Über den apokryphen Briefwechsel des Apostels Paulus mit den Korinthern,”
Theologische Boten
(1896).

63.
Rist, “III Corinthians,” pp. 130–31.

64.
“Apocryphal Correspondence,” p. 22.

65.
Ibid., p. 91. Italics his.

66.
“L’ensemble des conceptions gnostiques qui circulaient à son époque.”
La correspondance apocryphe.”
p. 222. A different approach to establishing the opposition is proposed in a recent study by Benjamin White, who suggests that rather than trying to identify the false teachers by what is said about them, it may be better to see how “Paul” is being constructed as their opponent; as it turns out, this Paul is very much like the Paul of the Pastoral epistles and of Irenaeus. The opponents, then, take contrary views. Benjamin L. White, “Reclaiming Paul? Reconfiguration as Reclamation in 3 Corinthians,”
JECS
17 (2009): 497–523.

67.
Johnston gives a nice synoptic comparison of the two passages, but points out a key difference: whereas 1 Clement is simply interested in demonstrating that there will be a resurrection, 3 Corinthians stresses that it will specifically be a resurrection “of the flesh.”

68.
In support, for example, of Walter Bauer’s claim that the problem addressed by 1 Clement is a group of Gnostics in Corinth. See
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
, pp. 105–6.

69.
See p. 433 below.

70.
See note 66.

71.
Quotations taken from the translation of Birger Pearson in Marvin Meyer, ed.,
Nag Hammadi Scriptures
.

72.
See Birger Pearson, “Melchizedek,” in Marvin Meyer, ed.,
Nag Hammadi Scriptures
, pp. 597–98.

73.
The fragmentary reference to the name Gamaliel is secure, in light of the rest of the text. The verb is unfortunately missing; “snatch away” is Pearson’s hypothesis. In any event, the Sethian focus is clear.

74.
Here and in the pages that follow I will use the translation of Knut Schäferdiek, in Schneemelcher,
New Testament Apocrypha
, vol. 2.

75.
Translation of Charles Allberry,
A Manichaean Psalm-Book
Part II
(Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1938), 191.

76.
Ign. Eph. 7.2; my own translation,
Apostolic Fathers
, vol. 1 in LCL.

77.
“… die einfachste Lösung [scheint] die Annahme zu sein, daß in Melch der Grad der sekundären Verchristlichung der sethianischen Gnosis eine solche Stärke erreicht hat, daß es zu einer kategorialen Grenzüberschreitung gekommen ist und der Sethianismus hier seinen gnostischen Charakter verloren hat. Das heißt, Melch würde einen verchristlichten Sethianismus repräsentieren, der überhaupt nicht mehr gnostisch ist.” “Melchisedek (NHC IX, 1), in Hans-Martin Schenke, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, and Ursula Ulrike Kaiser, eds.,
Nag Hammadi Deutsch
, 2nd ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), p. 475.

78.
See Carl Schmidt,
Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung. Ein katholisch-apostolisches Sendschreiben des 2. Jh
. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1919).

79.
Le testament en Galilée de notre-Seigneur Jésus Christ
(Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912).

80.
See further Charles E. Hill, “The
Epistula Apostolorum:
An Asian Tract from the Time of Poly-carp,”
JECS
7 (1999): 1–53. J. de Zwaan bypasses the dating provided by chapter 17 in favor of the issues raised and resolved concerning the Quartodeciman controversy, but as a result dates the work almost certainly too late to 195
CE
; “Date and Origin of the Epistle of the Eleven Apostles,” in
Amicitiae Corolla: A Volume of Essays Presented to James Rendel Harris, D.Litt., on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday
, ed. H. G. Wood (London: University of London Press, 1933), 344–55. So too J. K. Elliott’s claim that the “consensus” places the text in the third quarter of the second century does not take chapter 17 with sufficient seriousness (
The Apocryphal New Testament
, p. 556). Options for the location of the composition are almost literally all over the map, Asia, Syria, and Alexandria being the leading suspects. In addition to the articles of Hill and de Zwaan, see A. Stewart-Sykes, “The Asian Context of the New Prophecy and of
the Epistula Apostolorum
”
VC
51 (1997): 416–38.