Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (67 page)

76
. Bauckham claims that since “Testaments” were by their nature fictional in character, it is “very implausible to suppose that most Jewish readers were so naïve as to read such speeches as accurate historical reports or that their authors were so naïve as to expect them to be so read.” This, again, is history by assertion. What, exactly, makes either naïvety implausible? He goes on to claim that 2 Peter, itself a Testament, was meant as an “entirely transparent fiction” (2
Peter and Jude
, p. 134), offering in support the point that the false teachers are spoken of in the present tense, rather than the conventional future tense—a sign to the readers of the book’s fictional status. In response, it is hard to see how he can have it both ways (Testaments were read as fictions; this book differs from Testaments in a way to make readers take it as a fiction), making him appear to be grasping at straws. Moreover, if the author did not mean for his readers to take his identity seriously, it is difficult indeed to see why he roots his authority in a personal experience of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, a real experience in contrast to the fantasies of the false teachers. Far more convincing is the counterposition of J. Frey, “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild.”

77
. We are fortunate to have a Greek fragment, POxyr 654, that is to be given primacy. There is, unfortunately, an important lacuna at 1.15, normally filled with 0eou, for “kingdom of God,” but which DeConick argues should be filled with oupavou, for “kingdom of heaven.” If she is wrong, then the saying is even more closely tied to Luke 17:21. But she makes a good case: the lacuna has room for fourteen to seventeen letters; the standard reconstruction provides only twelve, whereas hers provides fifteen. April DeConick,
The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation
(London: T&T Clark, 2006), 51.

78
. The Coptic reads “those who draw you” (NETSOK). DeConick argues for a semitic original from NGD, meaning either to draw or to lead; the Greek, then, mistranslated the text, leading to the Coptic.
Original Gospel
, p. 52.

79
. “The Gospel of Thomas, Saying, 3, and Deuteronomy XXX.11–14,”
ExpTim
78 (1976–77): 151–52.

80
. Translations taken from Ehrman and Plese,
Apocryphal Gospels
, pp. 303–35. Here, however, I have accepted DeConick’s reconstruction of the text; see note 77 above.

81
. Uwe-Karsten Plisch is wrong to say that lines 1–3 and 4–5 are unrelated. Knowing oneself means to recognize the fact that the kingdom is within; failing to know oneself is to lack the kingdom.
The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with Commentary
, tr. Gesine Schenke Robinson (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008), pp. 43–44.

82
. It may be worth noting that although the polemic is directed in part against an apocalyptic notion—even if modified in the direction of personal eschatology—the notion that Endzeit gleicht Urzeit—is central to Jewish apocalyptic thought, as recognized as early as Hermann Gunkel (
Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit: eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen. 1 und Ap. Joh. 12;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1895).

83
.
Original Gospel of Thomas
, p. 102.

84
. Trans. G. W. Butterworth,
Origen on First Principles
(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973).

85
. Richard Valantasis makes the interesting argument that by stripping off their clothes and trampling on them the disciples will see (i.e., come to know) not Jesus, but others of Jesus’ followers. His reasoning is that since Jesus is described as “the living one” (“the living Jesus” of the prologue) then he could not also be the “son of the living one.” His son must, then, be one like him: his followers.
The Gospel of Thomas
(London: Routledge, 1997), p. 113. It is probably better, though, to see the Son of the Living One as “the Son of God,” since, after all, the Father too is described as a “living one,” as in Saying 3 (“sons of the living father”).

86
.
Gospel of Thomas
, p. 113.

87
. Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Garments of Shame,”
HR
5 (1966): 217–38; April DeConick and Jarl Fossum, “Stripped Before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas,”
VC
45 (1991): 123–50.

88
. See DeConick,
Original Gospel of Thomas
, 116.

89
. Ibid., p. 183. Plisch argues that the text as we have it originally read ANASTASIS—resurrection—but was accidentally altered through scribal error.
Gospel of Thomas
, p. 132.

90
. Translation of Marvin Meyer,
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
(New York: HarperCollins, 2007).

M
ost of the literary forgeries we have considered to this stage have involved the teachings of Paul. There were, of course, other Christian teachers, already in the first century, who claimed to represent the “true” understanding of the emerging Christian tradition more adequately than Paul. It may not be surprising, then, to find that a number of literary forgeries arose in the period, alternatively championing or challenging Paul’s authority. In this chapter we will consider forgeries produced in support of the “Apostle to the Gentiles”; in the chapter that follows we will look at forgeries that call his authority, and his message, into question.

Two of the forgeries that we will be considering in this chapter are controversial among investigators today, one because many scholars question whether it has anything to do with Paul, his message, and his authority (1 Peter), the other because, in the judgment of most scholars, it makes no obvious authorial claim and so cannot be thought of as forged (the Acts of the Apostles). I will advance reasons for thinking that both scholarly opinions are wrong: these books are very much concerned with salvaging the image and authority of Paul, and both are best understood as forgeries.

Scholarship on 1 Peter has advanced dramatically since 1976, when J. H. Elliott declared it the “exegetical step-child” of the New Testament.
¹
By 2004 Eugene Boring could note that during the preceding quarter-century more than sixty commentaries
on the epistle had appeared in English and the major languages of Europe.
²
One of the hotly debated issues in the period involved the question of authorship, an issue that goes far back in the history of its modern investigation. Already in 1788 Semler, who did not deny the letter to Peter, indicated that the letter closely paralleled the teachings of Paul and could be seen as a Pauline “imitation.”
³
It was another twenty years before the Petrine authorship of the book was first challenged by H. H. Cludius, who maintained that the attribution of the letter to Peter was the result of a textual corruption in 1:1, where an original
was altered to read
⁴
As we will see, since Cludius’s day others too have proposed different textual changes of 1:1 to explain that the attribution is mistaken.

It is widely held today that the book was not written by Simon Peter. Boring claims that this is the general opinion among critical scholars, outside the ranks of those who disallow forgery in the New Testament on general principle.
⁵
A number of arguments are typically advanced for pseudepigraphy, some of them stronger than others. Among the more subsidiary are the following. First, there is almost nothing to suggest that Christianity had spread in Peter’s day throughout the provinces of Asia Minor named in 1:1, making it highly unlikely that he, the historical Peter, would have written to churches there; moreover other traditions notably do not associate Peter with Christians in the general region. Next, if Peter himself had written the letter, it is very hard indeed to explain that in his references to “Christ” he gives no indication that he was his companion throughout his ministry; in fact, he gives no indication whatsoever that he had any personal knowledge of Jesus or his teachings (not even in 5:1, as we will see). Moreover, rather than identifying himself as a companion of Jesus, the author indicates that he is a “presbyter” (5:1), an office otherwise not associated with Peter, who appears rather to have been a missionary-apostle. Relatedly, the book shows that at the time of its composition “presbyters” were running the church as episkopoi (5:1–5;
, v. 2). There is no evidence of this kind of structured leadership of the churches during the lifetime of Peter, although obviously it became the model of Pauline churches by the time of the Pastorals, some decades after Peter’s death. Furthermore, the author uses the term
Christian
(4:16) as if it were in established usage, even though it is otherwise not attested, for example in the writings of Paul, until closer to the end of the first century, in the book of Acts.

This final point relates to a much stronger argument against Petrine authorship. By the time this letter was written, it had become commonplace for followers of Jesus to suffer persecution “as a Christian,” simply “for the name” (4:12–17). There is nothing to suggest that the mere name “Christian” was ground for persecution in apostolic times. Even in the later accounts of the book of Acts, there is no instance in which followers of Jesus suffered persecution “for the name.” On the contrary, Christians are punished for what is recognized, correctly or incorrectly, as wrongdoing. The same can be said about the earliest instance we have of imperial opposition to the Christians under Nero, the persecution that, traditionally, is thought to have led to Peter’s own martyrdom. As Tacitus makes abundantly clear, Nero rounded up the Christians of Rome and subjected them to brutal treatment and execution not because they were Christians per se, but because of arson (a false charge, according to Tacitus;
Annals
15.44). It is not until we get to the famous correspondence of Pliny with Trajan around 112
CE
that we find any instance of Christians persecuted simply for bearing the name Christian (Book 10). By Pliny’s time it was known that calling oneself “Christian” meant something. Specifically it meant refusing to reverence and sacrifice to the gods of the state. That is why Pliny employed a simple device to decide whether persons who denied being Christian were telling the truth: all they had to do was repeat prayers he provided and offer incense to the image of the emperor. Those who refused to do so hung on to the name Christian; those who complied forsook the name. This does not mean that we can facilely locate 1 Peter to the time of Pliny. It simply means that the recognition that the name Christian was ground for persecution cannot be located anywhere near the lifetime of Peter himself. When the recognition arose afterward is uncertain, but it probably happened sometime between Nero and Trajan, and the book is accordingly best located to that period.

Supporting evidence comes in the argument advanced most convincingly by C. Hunzinger, that the veiled reference to Rome in the epithet “Babylon,” named as the place from which the author writes (5:13), makes sense only after 70
CE,
years after Peter’s death.
⁶
That “Babylon” must refer to Rome is shown by the facts that (1) elsewhere in both Jewish and Christian texts (Rev. 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2, 10, 21) “Babylon” is a codeword for Rome, and (2) Peter is never associated in any of our traditions with either Mesopotamia or Egypt (where there was another Babylon), whereas he is frequently connected with Rome, indeed as its first bishop.