Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (23 page)

Nowhere can this paradoxical situation be seen more clearly than in the famous incident of Serapion and the Gospel of Peter. Eusebius later narrates the event, from his first-hand knowledge of Serapion’s autobiographical account, which is only partially quoted for us in the
Ecclesiastical History
(
H.E
. 6.12). Upon visiting the Christian community in the village of Rhossus, Serapion initially approved of their use of the Gospel of Peter, reasoning that if Peter had written a Gospel, it was obviously acceptable for liturgical use. Only after returning to Antioch did Serapion learn that the book had heretical tendencies. Procuring a copy for himself, he came to see that whereas most of it was perfectly acceptable, parts were definitely susceptible of a docetic reading. It was precisely on these grounds that he forbade the further use of the book and appears to have referred to it as the “so-called” Gospel of Peter

Here then is our symbiosis between literary author and authoritative literature: the Gospel would be authoritative had it been written by Peter; but the possibly heretical contents show that it could not have been written by Peter. And so the book is not authoritative. Eusebius himself adopts a similar line of thought, as when he attacks heretical forgeries in the names of the apostles Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, which “do not have the apostolic character”
H.E
. 3.25.6–7) “while the ideas and implication of their contents are so irreconcilable with true orthodoxy that they stand revealed as the forgeries of heretics.” Both the style and contents are non-apostolic, and so they lack apostolic authority.

This understanding of the symbiotic relationship between authorial claims and authoritative contents did not originate with Eusebius, or with Serapion before him. It goes all the way back in the proto-orthodox heresiological tradition. Irenaeus, for example, attacks heretics for forging books in the names of others to lead their followers astray: “Besides those passages, they adduce an untold multitude of apocryphal and spurious writings [inenarrabilem multitudinem apocryphorum et perperum scripturarum, quas ipsi finxerunt], which they have composed to bewilder foolish men and such as do not understand the letters of the Truth” (
Adv. Haer
. 1.20.1).
⁶⁹

So too Tertullian: the fourfold Gospel of the orthodox is superior to the forgeries of Marcion—the heretic’s creations are later in date than the apostolic writings and so must be seen as corruptions of an older truth (
Adv. Marc
. 4.5). And his contemporary, the author of the Muratorian Fragment, who rejects the letters to the Alexandrians and to the Laodiceans on the basis of their contents: they contain Marcionite teachings, were therefore not originally written by Paul, and so cannot be accepted as authoritative.
⁷⁰

The same view can be seen at the end of our period of concern, or just after, for example in the works of Augustine. Augustine uses a strictly historical argument in order to show that the theurgic letter allegedly written by Jesus to his disciples Peter and Paul could not be authentic: Paul was not one of Jesus’ earthly followers. The forger of the letter must have been misled by seeing a Christian painting of the two apostles with Jesus and assumed then that the three were companions
during Jesus’ earthly life. Since they were not, Jesus would not have written to the two of them:

How, then, is it possible that Christ could have written those books which they wish to have it believed that He did write before His death, and which were addressed to Peter and Paul, as those among His disciples who had been most intimate with Him, seeing that up to that date Paul had not yet become a disciple of His at all? (
De cons. evang
. 1.10)
⁷¹

As a result, the letter and the magical practices it supports were forged. In consequence, they have no authority. The authority of the writing resides in its authorship; and authorship is decided, at least in part, by the writing’s contents. It is a two-way street.

As I pointed out earlier, however, this two-way street presented a problem to the early Christian critics, since it was a path accessible to just about anyone. No one saw that more clearly than Augustine himself, who protested against his Manichaean opponent Faustus: “Sinfulness has made you so deaf to the testimonies of the scriptures that you dare to say that whatever is brought forth from them against you was not said by the apostle but was written by some interpolator or other under his name” (
Contra Faust
. 33.6). Since authority resided in authorship, the easiest way to deny authority was to reject authorship. It is precisely this conundrum that made the literary and historical critical endeavors of the early Christian critics so vitally important. These faithful intelligentsia were not simply engaged in antiquarian endeavors when deciding which works were justifiably attributed to their alleged authors. This was theological discourse of the highest order, since authority resided in authorship. And so the contents of a work mattered insofar as they were genuinely penned by an authoritative figure. If the authorial claims were false, however, the text lost all claim to authority. Establishing the credibility of authorial claims was, as a result, central to the entire theological enterprise. It really did matter who wrote what.

1.
None more so than Wolfgang Speyer and Norbert Brox, but including such recent scholars as Margaret Janssen and Armin Baum. See note 27 below.

2.
Xenophon appears to have published a book of Thucydides claiming it was his own (depending on how one reads the text; 2.57), and Aeschines, a follower of Socrates, published work he had received from Socrates’ wife Xanthippe as if it were his own (2.60).

3.
For a relatively succinct summary and discussion, see Speyer,
Literarische Fälschung
, pp. 150–68.

4.
Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Pseudepigraphy, Authorship, and the Reception of ‘The Bible’ in Late Antiquity,” in
The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity
, ed. Lorenzo DiTommaso and Lucian Turcescu (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 478.

5.
See Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, “The Reliability of Josephus Flavius: The Case of Hecataeus’ and Manetho’s Accounts of Jews and Judaism: Fifteen Years of Contemporary Research (1974–1990),”
JSJ
24 (1993): 215–34. For the famous but disputed letter of Judah Maccabee in 2 Maccabees, see Ben Zion Wacholder, “The Letter from Judah Maccabee to Aristobulus: Is 2 Maccabees 1:10b-2:18 Authentic?”
HUCA
49 (1978): 89–133.

6.
This is another case of non-pseudepigraphic forgery: the author does not say that his name is Solomon, but he claims to be a Jewish king who built a temple, and he describes events from Solomon’s lifetime. The Muratorian fragment famously assigns the book to Solomon’s friends—without denying that it implicitly claims instead to be by Solomon himself—but accepts it as canonical. Its authorship was doubted throughout the early church, for example by Origen in his
Commentary on John
8, 37 (20.4.26); Jerome,
In libros Salom
. Praef; and Augustine (
Doctr. Christ
. 2, 8): “For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach.”

7.
Among the extensive works of scholarship, see especially the full study of Sylvie Honigman,
The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas
(London: Routledge, 2003).

8.
See especially Martin Hengel, “Anonimität, Pseudepigraphie und Literarische Fälschung in der Jüdisch-Hellenistischen Literatur,” in
Pseudepigrapha I
, ed. Kurt von Fritz (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1972), pp. 231–308; Morton Smith, “Pseudepigraphy in the Israelite Tradition,” also in
Pseudepigrapha I
, ed. von Fritz, pp. 189–215; and Eibert Tigchelaar, “Forms of Pseudepigraphy in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 85–101.

9.
London: SCM, 1964.

10.
Thus Christopher Rowland,
The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity
(New York: Crossroad, 1982), who argues, among other things, that “a distinctively Jewish interpretation of pseudonymity is difficult to uphold,” p. 66.

11.
Meade,
Pseudonymity and Canon
, pp. 5–7.

12.
See, for example, John Collins, “Pseudepigraphy and Group Formation in Second Temple Judaism,” in Esther G. Chazon and Michael Stone, eds.,
Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 43–58.

13.
“Pseudepigraphy and the Periodization of History in Jewish Apocalypses,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 61–83; quotation p. 82.

14.
“Pseudepigraphy Reconsidered,”
Review of Rabbinic Judaism
9 (2006): 1–15.

15.
Ibid., pp. 12–13.

16.
Except for such works as Revelation and the Shepherd, which were not forged.

17.
See J. H. Charlesworth, ed.,
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
, vol. 1,
Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 773–995.

18.
As Anthea Portier-Young has pointed out to me, there is a possible exception with the Testament of Moses, in which Moses instructs Joshua to write down his words and deposit them in earthenware jars for safekeeping. Presumably the Testament itself is to be a replication of these words. See
TMoses
, 1.14–18.

19.
“In epistolam S. Petri Secundam Enn.,”
PG
39 1774A.

20.
1 Clement may be seen as exceptional as well, in that it claims to be written by a group in Rome, and may well have been, by at least someone there. But since no authorial name is attached, it is perhaps best seen as anonymous.

21.
“Die Zeit der neutestamentlichen Pseudepigraphie.” “Anmerkungen zur Pseudepigraphie im Neuen Testament,”
NTS
23 (1967): 76.

22.
Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1998, pp. 213–37.

23.
Against Heresies
—
Book I
, trans. John J. Dillon (ACW; New York: Newman Press, 1992).

24.
See p. 64.

25.
As will be abundantly clear in the chapters that follow.

26.
Thus, e.g., Meade,
Pseudonymity and Canon;
Terry L. Wilder,
Pseudonymity, The New Testament, and Deception: An Inquiry into Intention and Reception
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004); and most helpfully Baum,
Pseudepigraphie und literarische Fälschung
.

27.
See the bibliography. I would include under this rubric, as some of the most useful contributions: J. S. Candlish, “On the Moral Character of Pseudonymous Books,”
Expositor
4 (1891): 91–107; 262–79; Alfred Gudeman, “Literary Frauds Among the Greeks,” in
Classical Studies in Honor of Henry Drisler
(New York: Macmillan, 1894), pp. 52–74; idem, “Literary Frauds Among the Romans,”
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association
25 (1894): 140–64; Arnold Meyer, “Religiöse Pseudepigraphie als ethisch-psychologisches Problem,”
ZNW
35 (1936): 262–79; earlier in
Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie
86 (1932): 171–90; Frederik Torm, “Die Psychologie der Pseudonymität im Hinblick auf die Literatur des Urchristentums,”
Studien der Luther Akademie
, Heft 2 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932), pp. 7–55; Gustav Bardy, “Faux et fraudes littéraires dans l’antiquité chrétienne,”
RHE
32 (1936): 5–23; 275–302; Kurt Aland, “The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries,”
JTS
12 (1961): 39–49; Wolfgang Speyer, “Religiöse Pseudepigraphie und literarische Fälschung im Altertum,”
JAC
8/9 (1965–66): 88–125; H. R. Balz, “Anonymität und Pseudepigraphie im Urchristentum,”
ZTK
66 (1969): 403–36; Martin Hengel, “Anonimität, Pseudepigraphie und ‘Literarische Fälschung’ in der Jüdisch-Hellenistischen Literatur,” in
Pseudepigrapha I
, ed. Kurt von Fritz (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1971), pp. 231–308; Morton Smith, “Pseudepigraphy in the Israelite Tradition,”
in Pseudepigrapha I
, ed. Kurt von Fritz, pp. 189–215; Bruce M. Metzger, “Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha,”
JBL
91 (1972): 3–24; M. Rist, “Pseudepigraphy and the Early Christians,” in
Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of A. P. Wikgren
;
Novum Testamentum Supplement
, ed. David Edward Aune (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), pp. 75–91; Franz Laub, “Falsche Verfasserangaben in neutestamentlichen Schriften: Aspekte der gegenwärtigen Diskussion um die neutestamentliche Pseudepigraphie,”
TTZ
89 (1980): 228–41; Pokorny, P. “Das theologische Problem der neutestamentlichen Pseudepigraphie,”
EvT
44 (1984): 486–96; 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); Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “Memoire et pseudepigraphie dans le christianisme,”
RTP
125 (1993): 41–63; Pier Franco Beatrice, “Forgery, Propaganda and Power in Christian Antiquity,”
JAC.E
33 (2002): 39–51; Michael E. Stone, “Pseudepigraphy Reconsidered,”
Review of Rabbinic Judaism
9 (2006): 1–15; Martina Janssen, “Antike (Selbst) Aussagen über Beweggründe zur Pseudepigraphie,” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, pp. 125–79. See, in fact, all the essays, many of them lengthy, in the last-named volume.