Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (16 page)

7
.
Prolegomena;
CAG XII/1, 13, 4–14, 4. Greek text and German translation in Baum,
Pseudepigraphie
, pp. 239–41.

8
. There may be some confusion over how the term is used in one of our key authors, Eusebius, since in his famous account of canonical writings in
H.E
. 3.25 he lists the Shepherd of Hermas as a
a seemingly inappropriate term for an orthonymous writing. But in fact the term may be entirely appropriate, since Eusebius seems to have followed his hero Origen in assuming that the Hermas claimed as the book’s author was to be identified as the companion of Paul from Romans 16:14 (
H.E
. 3.3). Eusebius may have “known” that the author was not “that” Hermas, and therefore the book—along with the Acts of Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache of the Apostles, and Barnabas—is not by the person named. Like these others, then, it is a
not fathered by the person named as its author. David Nienhuis (
Not By Paul Alone: The Formation of the Catholic Epistle Collection and the Christian Canon
, Waco: Baylor University, 2007, p. 65) is off the mark when he thinks that Eusebius means that the Shepherd is not a “legitimate offspring of the historic, apostolic church.” This understanding stretches the meaning of the term in an idiosyncratic direction, failing to consider its typical usage both in Eusebius and in the broader Greco-Roman world. The term refers to authorship, not to standing within a religious tradition.

9
. We will consider a host of examples later. For now it is enough to cite the suggestion (not meant in humor) of I. Howard Marshall, that instead of pseudonymity and pseudepigraphy—terms that employ the suggestion of falsehood—we use the more neutral terms allonymity and allopigraphy. His suggestion is rooted in his belief that if someone other than Paul wrote the Pastoral epistles, he did not mean to deceive anyone about it. I will have more to say about that—I think he is precisely wrong—in a later chapter. For now, I might simply ask which set of terms is true to the ancient discourse about the phenomenon and which one injects modern sensitivities into it. See I. Howard Marshall,
The Pastoral Epistles
, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), pp. 83–84.

10
. It should not be objected that since the Ascension of Isaiah is being recorded by Sebna the Scribe (1.5) Isaiah cannot be the author. Sebna is allegedly taking dictation in some form, as typically happened when authors “wrote” books. When the account turns to the first person, it is clear that Isaiah himself is doing the dictation. But this is simply an authorial ploy, a claim to be Isaiah by someone living 850 years later.

11
. Stephen Gero, “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Study of the Textual and Literary Problems,”
NovT
13 (1971): 46–80, esp. p. 59.

12
. See the discussion on pp. 505–6.

13
. “Die zuletzt genannte Form der Schriftstellerei, bei der ein Gott als der Urheber des schriftlichen Denkmals angesehen wird, kann als mythische oder ‘religiöse Pseudepigraphie’ bezeichnet werden. ‘Echt’ ist sie so lange, wie der Glaube an einen Gott als Offenbarer lebendig erlebt wird.… ‘echte’ religiöse Pseudepigraphie [konnte] nur noch dort auftreten, wohin die rationale Denkweise noch nicht gedrungen war, das heißt vornehmlich in den Randgebieten der griechisch-römischen Welt.”
Literarische Fälschung
, p. 36.

14
. “Daraus hat sich ergeben, daß eine große Anzahl psn Schriften nur aus religiösen und religions-psychologischen Entstehungsgründen zu erklären ist. Aus der Eigenart mythischen Denkens und echter religiöser Ergriffenheit gewinnt der Verfasser für sein Vorgehen eine solche Überzeugungskraft, daß von bewusster Täuschung keine Rede sein kann, ja daß ihm die moralische Wahrheitsfrage gar nicht zum Problem wird und er darum seine Entlarvung nicht befürchten konnte.” Josef A. Sint,
Pseudonymität im Altertum: Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe
(Innsbruck: Universitätverlag Wagner, 1960), p. 163.

15
. Speyer claims that one can determine if a writing falls under the category based on “observations concerning language, style, composition and not least of all the psychology of such a writing” (Beobachtung von Sprache, Stil, Komposition und nicht zuletzt der Psychologie einer derartigen Schrift; p. 37). But he never explains the criteria that are to be used in making the judgment on these, or any other, grounds. As a result, the corpus of “genuine religious pseudepigrapha” appears to be a group of writings determined on the basis of a critic’s “best guess.”

16
. “Donc, l’hypothèse de la pseudépigraphie religieuse qui est ‘echt’ est non seulement gratuite, elle est inutile.” E. J. Bickerman, “Faux littéraires dans l’antiquité classique en marge d’un livre récent,” in
Studies in Jewish and Christian History
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), p. 197.

17
. Horst R. Balz, “Anonymität und Pseudepigraphie im Urchristentum: Überlegungen zum literarischen und theologischen Problem der urchristlichen und gemeinantiken Pseudepigraphie,”
ZTK
66 (1969): 412–13.

18
. Pier Franco Beatrice, “Forgery, Propaganda and Power in Christian Antiquity,”
JAC.E
33 (2002): 45.

19
. K. Aland, “The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries,”
JBL
12 (1961): 44.

20
. Ibid., pp. 44–45.

21
. Ibid., pp. 48.

22
. “Anonymität und Pseudepigraphie,” p. 419.

23
. David G. Meade,
Pseudonymity and Canon: An Investigation into the Relationship of Authorship and Authority in Jewish and Earliest Christian Tradition
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), p. 43; italics his.

24
. Meade,
Pseudonymity and Canon
, p. 72; cf. p. 102 and passim. Italics his.

25
.
The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity
(New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 66.

26
. Harry Y. Gamble, “Pseudonymity and the New Testament Canon,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphy und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 359, 361.

27
. See n. 35 below.

28
. R. Hercher,
Epistolographi Graeci
(Paris: A. F. Didot, 1873; reprinted Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1965); C. D. N. Costa,
Greek Fictional Letters
(New York: Oxford, 2001); Patricia A. Rosenmeyer,
Ancient Epistolary Fictions
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Other useful studies include Herwig Görgemanns, “Epistolography,”
Brill’s New Pauly
(Leiden: Brill, 2010); M. Hose,
Kleine griechische Literaturgeschichte
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1999); M. Luther Stirewalt,
Studies in Ancient Greek Epistolography
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993).

29
. Costa,
Greek Fictional Letters
, p. xiv.

30
. There are debates over the genre of the “epistolary novel,” that is, the use of fictional letters in order to create a coherent narrative. Rosenmeyer, for example, contends that there is only one set of letters that fits the description, the letters of Chion. (This obviously raises the question of how a genre with one literary representative is actually a genre.) Hose,
Kleine griechische Literaturgeschichte
finds seven.

31
. Rosenmeyer,
Ancient Epistolary Fictions
, p. 195.

32
. Ibid., p. 207.

33
. Ibid., p. 202.

34
. Martina Janssen, “Antike (Selbst-)Aussagen über Beweggründe zur Pseudepigraphie,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 131–35.

35
. This is the argument of the editor of the major critical edition, Claude W. Barlow,
Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam
(Rome: American Academy, 1938): “Although the emphasis in a rhetor’s school was upon oratory and the characteristic method of attaining oratorical perfection was by discussion and declamation, it seems nevertheless that writing as well as speaking must have formed a part of the training. The Correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul might then be considered as an exercise on a fictitious subject assigned by the teacher. … The possibility should also be mentioned that the Correspondence is the work of more than one hand, perhaps of two or three scholars in the same school, working in competition on a set problem” (p. 92). I owe this reference to Pablo Molina. See further discussion on pp. 520–27 below.

36
. Syme,
Emperors and Biography
, pp. 1–16.

37
. See pp. 11, 13, 76, 95.

38
. Theodor Hopfner,
Über die Geheimlehren von Jamblichus
. (Leipzig: Theosophisches Verlagshaus, 1922), p. x. For evaluation, see Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon, and Jackson B. Hershbell, trs. and eds.
Iamblichus On the Mysteries
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), p. xxviii.

39
.
Iamblichus
, p. xxviii.

40
. Ibid., p. xxx.

41
. See her full discussion of pseudonyms, “Antike (Selbst-)Aussagen,” pp. 137–47.

42
.
Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 34.

43
. Diogenes Laertius,
Lives
1.112.

44
. Translation of Donald A. Russell in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2002).

45
. Translation of J. C. Rolfe in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1914).

46
. Thus Speyer (p. 38 n. 4), for example, notes the following: B. Capelle, “Un homiliaire de l’evêque arien Maximin,”
RBén
34 (1922): 81–108, and “Les homélies ‘De lectionibus euangeliorum’ de Maximin l’arien,”
RBén
40 (1928): 49–86: works of the Arian Maximus were transmitted as works of Maximus of Turin; and P. Courcelle,
Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques
, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1964), pp. 293–302: a poem attributed to Paulinus of Nola was actually written by Paulinus of Pella.

47
. Olympiodorus
Prolegomena;
CAG XII/1, 13, 4–5; Elias
In Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Categorias Commentaria
(ed. A. Busse: Berlin, 1900), 128.1–22.

48
. These and all translations of Eusebius are drawn from G. A. Williamson,
Eusebius: The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine;
rev. and ed. Andrew Louth (London: Penguin, 1965).

49
. See V. Buchheit, “Rufinus von Aquileja als Fälscher des Adamantiosdialogs” in
ByzZ
51 (1958): 314–28.

50
. Speyer,
Literarische Fälschung
, p. 40; the reference from Wilamowitz occurs in note 4:
Göttingenische gelehrte Anzeigen
158 (1896), p. 634 n. 1.

51
. Theodoret,
Haer, Fab. Comp
. 2.5; J. B. Lightfoot,
The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Poly-carp
,
part 1
,
Clement
, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1889), pp. 377–80.

52
. Translation of C. B. Gulick in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1969).

53
. Miroslav Marcovich.
Pseudo-Iustinus: Cohortatio ad Graecos, de Monarchia, Oratio ad Graecos
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990).

54
. Thus the so-called thirty-seventh letter of Jerome, containing a dialogue of Jerome and Augustine, came to be assigned to Jerome himself, even though the author clearly differentiates himself from Jerome. So too the Dialogue
Contra Felicianum Arianum
came to be attributed to the main speaker Augustine, even though it was probably by Vivilius of Thapsus (see Ficker,
Studien zu Vigilius von Thapsus
1897, pp. 77–79). In a similar way, the Dialogue
Adversus Fulgentium Donatistam
was also assigned to Augustine (see C. Lambot, “L’écrit attribute à S. Augustin
Adversus Fulgentium Donatistam
” in
RBén
58 [1948], 177–222, esp. 183–84). On all these, see Speyer,
Literarische Fälschung
, pp. 32–33.