Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (78 page)

61
. As both Dale Martin and Joel Marcus have pointed out to me, in private communications. After the public confrontation Paul leaves Antioch and never mentions it as part of his mission field again. Moreover, had he won a resounding victory, he surely would have stressed the point with his readers.

62
. William Sanger Campbell,
The “We” Passages in the Acts of the Apostles: The Narrator as Narrative Character
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007); Claus-Jürgen Thornton,
Der Zeuge des Zeugen: Lukas als Historiker der Paulusreisen
, WUNT 56 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991); Jürgen Wehnert,
Die Wir-Passagen der Apostelgeschichte: Ein lukanisches Stilmittel aus jüdischer Tradition
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989).

63
. Samuel Byrskog, “History or Story in Acts—A Middle Way? The ‘We’ Passages, Historical Intertexture, and Oral History,” in
Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse
, ed. Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), p. 263.

64
. P. 264 Byrskog makes the mistake, however, of assuming that the “we” passages contain information that the author received “from people who had been involved”; p. 266. Unfortunately he provides no argument that the passages come from a source instead of from an authorial decision.

65
. The classic study, which is still very much worth reading, is P. Vielhauer, “On the Paulinisms of Acts,” in
Studies in Luke Acts
, ed. Leander Keck and J. Louis Martyn (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1966), pp. 33–50.

66
. Among the many, many scholars who have taken some such line since the days of Dibelius, Barrett can be taken as representative: C. K. Barrett,
The Acts of the Apostles
, ICC, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), p. xxix.

67
. Claus-Jürgen Thornton,
Der Zeuge des Zeugen
. Thornton firmly differentiates this view from the traditional “itinerary” hypothesis. On Thornton’s case against forgery, see further note 107.

68
.
Die Wir-Passagen der Apostelgeschichte
.

69
. A. J. M. Wedderburn, “The ‘We’-Passages in Acts: On the Horns of a Dilemma,”
ZNW
93 (2002): 78–98.

70
. Thornton does claim that there are distinct features of the passages—more references to the “hosts” of the apostles and more precise designations of time, for example—but these could just as well be verisimilitudes required by the nature of the material. That is to say, they are standard fare among forged narratives. Stylistically the passages are not different from the rest of the narrative, showing authorial unity.

71
. “‘We’ and ‘I’ Passages in Luke-Acts,”
NTS
3 (1957): 128–32.

72
. Darryl Schmidt, “Syntactical Style in the ‘We’-Sections of Acts: How Lukan is it?”
SBLSP
28 (1989): 300–308.

73
. Ample refutations of Wehnert’s claims along these lines (involving the first-person intrusions in Ezra and Daniel) can be found in the reviews of Chris Matthews,
JBL
110 (1991): 355–57; and Gerard Mussies in
Filologia Neotestamentaria
6 (1993): 70–76.

74
. E. Plümacher, “Wirklichkeitserfährung und Geschichtsschreibung bei Lukas: Erwägungen zu den Wir-Stücken der Apostelgeschichte,”
ZNW
68 (1977): 2–22; Vernon K. Robbins, “By Land and by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages,”
Perspectives on Luke-Acts
, ed. C. H. Talbert (Macon, GA: Mercer University, 1978), pp. 215–42.

75
. “By Land and by Sea,” p. 217.

76
. See, for example, John Reumann, “The ‘Itinerary’ as a Form in Classical Literature and the Acts of the Apostles,” in
To Touch the Text: Biblical and Related Studies in Honor of Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J
, ed. M. P. Horgan and P. J. Kobelski (New York: Crossroad, 1989), pp. 335–57; and Susan Marie Praeder, “The Problem of First Person Narration in Acts,”
NovT
29 (1987): 193–218.

77
. Reumann, “The ‘Itinerary,’” p. 357.

78
. Praeder, “The Problem,” p. 210.

79
. Ibid., p. 212. It might be noted that whereas Praeder has shown the problem of the first-person narratives in Acts, and uncovered the weaknesses of the various solutions, she comes up with no compelling solution of her own.

80
.
Histories of Polybius
, XII. 25g–h; translation of W. R. Paton, in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), vol. 4.

81
. It should be noted that Polybius is referring to the need for historians to have the
kinds
of experience necessary for the
kinds
of things they describe (military battles, political intrigues, etc.). But the same applies to the author of Acts: Does he have any personal experience of the missionary field that allows him to talk about it? Even more, does he have the experience of accompanying this particular missionary in his work?

82
. See further pp. 421–25.

83
. Translation of Ehrman and Ple
š
e,
Apocryphal Gospels
, pp. 371–87.

84
. Translation of J. K. Elliott,
Apocryphal New Testament
, pp. 593–612.

85
. Translation of Marvin Meyer,
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
, pp. 487–97.

86
. Ibid., pp. 107–32.

87
. Ibid., pp. 23–30.

88
. Translation Ehrman and Ple
š
e,
Apocryphal Gospels
, pp. 31–71.

89
. Ibid., pp. 3–23.

90
. Ehrman and Ple
š
e,
Apocryphal Gospels
, pp. 73–113.

91
. See further pp. 493–502.

92
. Translation of
ANF
, 1.129–31.

93
. Translation of Herbert Musurillo,
Acts of the Christian Martyrs
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 194–213.

94
. Campbell,
The ‘We Passages,’
p. 30.

95
. Ibid., p. 43. Where I disagree with Campbell is in his claim that the author of Acts—or of any of these other books he deals with—is interested purely in literary, narratological matters, and not with establishing precisely the historicity of his account. The prologue of Luke is clear evidence, in my judgment, that the author’s interests are not purely literary.

96
. Translation of Marcus Dods in
ANF
, vol. 2.

97
. “Das erzählte Subjekt eines Textes … wird phasenweise zum erzählenden Subjekt, nimmt den Platz des Autors ein und verbürgt dadurch dem Leser die unbedingte Zuverlässigkeit der Darstellung.… Wer könnte die eigene Geschichte besser und genauer erzählen als der Betroffene selbst?” Wehnert,
Die Wir-Passagen
, pp. 182–83.

98
. “Once More St. Luke’s Prologue,” in
Essays on the Gospel of Luke and Acts,” Neot
7 (1973): 14.

99
. Wedderburn, “The We Passages,” p. 85.

100
. All possible allusions to Acts from early Christian writings (including those in the NT) up to Irenaeus can be found in C. K. Barrett,
The Acts of the Apostles
, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 1.30–48.

101
. Translation in Roberts and Donaldson, eds.,
ANF
.

102
. On the date of the Muratorian Fragment, see p. 91, n. 70.

103
. Translation of Bruce M. Metzger,
The Canon of the New Testament
, pp. 305–6.

104
. Translation of Peter Holmes,
ANF
, 3.

105
. For discussion (and this translation) see Fitzmyer,
Luke
, pp. 38–39. Metzger dates this prologue to the end of the fourth century, not to the second.

106
.
Acts of the Apostles
, 2.xxvii.

107
. “Die Wir-Erzählung der Apostelgeschichte enthalten nichts, was antike Leser nicht für völlig realistisch gehalten hätten. Sie konnten darin nur einen Bericht über die wirklichen Erlebnisse des Autors erblicken. Hätte der Autor die in Wir-Form geschilderten Reisen gar nicht mitgemacht, so wären seine Erzählungen darüber—auch nach antiken Verständnis—Lügen.” Thornton, p. 141. Thornton places a lot of stock in the testimony of Irenaeus and argues that his testimony must reflect tradition from the early second century. Moreover, if the book of Acts was itself written in the reign of Titus or Domitian, then historical Luke and others like Timothy would have been alive, making it implausible, in his judgment, that someone would have ascribed it to Luke, unless he really wrote it. There is nothing persuasive in this argument. False ascriptions could indeed occur during an author’s lifetime (it is not even an
in
scription). We have ample evidence of actual forgeries in the alleged author’s lifetime: witness Galen, Martial, and 2 Thessalonians. Moreover, there is no reason to think that the historical Luke would have been physically present in the sundry places where this narrative was circulated, to make certain that no one said it was his. And what evidence, actually, do we have about the historical Luke—for example, the date of his death? None at all.

108
. Thus, among many others, Praeder, “The Problem of First-Person Narrative.”

109
. Thus Thornton,
Der Zeuge des Zeugen
.

110
. The argument is forcefully advanced in ibid.

111
. Thornton’s argument that the author really was a companion of Paul fails to convince, in part because his objections to the notion that the author tried to mislead his readers about his identity fall flat. Among other things, he claims that (1) a pseudonymous book would not be written in the lifetime of the alleged author. Yet we know of flat-out forgeries contemporary with their alleged authors. (2) The author would have claimed to be an eyewitness in the preface of the work. But how do we know what an author would have done? And why should we tell him what he should have done? (3) First-person narratives were not used to establish the credibility of historical accounts. This is just wrong. (4) If he were a fictional author, he would have dedicated it to a better-known person, such as Seneca. Again, we have no reason for thinking that we know what an anonymous author would have done, and he clearly had other compelling reasons for dedicating the book to Theophilus.

I
n the previous chapter I noted that the apostle Paul appears to have had as many enemies as friends. We have seen a good deal of what those who revered Paul had to say about him, both by producing forgeries in his name (as in the Deutero-Pauline epistles) and by pseudonymously supporting him and his message, however it was understood, either subtly (as in 1 Peter) or not so subtly (as in 2 Peter and Acts). In this chapter we turn to Paul’s literary opponents, who attacked Paul’s person and message in the guise of authorized, usually apostolic, writings. Here again, some of the writings, such as the Epistula Petri, which introduces the Pseudo-Clementine
Homilies
, are transparent in their attack on the unnamed Paul; others are far subtler in their polemic, such as the New Testament book of Jude. And a number fall somewhere along the spectrum between these two.

In all cases it must be remembered that the polemic against Paul may not be opposition to the Paul as he has been reconstructed by modern scholars from the seven undisputed letters (the so-called real Paul). Ancient readers knew nothing about this modern consensus of an authentic Pauline corpus or the views that could result from applying historical-critical methods to it. They interpreted and attacked the Paul that had come down to them in writings (some of them forged) and in the oral tradition—skewed as he and his message may have been in these media.

We begin with the most discussed canonical instance of anti-Paulinism, the New Testament letter of James, asking whether it is in fact directed against Paul (real or imagined) and, of particular relevance to our present concerns, whether it can be considered a forgery.

The letter of James begins simply enough: “James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings” (1:1). A number of
persons are named James in the New Testament, including the father of Joseph (Jesus’ “father,” Matt. 1:16), the son of Zebedee (Matt. 4:21 etc.), the son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3 etc.), the father of Jude (Luke 6:16), and, most famously, the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3 etc.). There is a compelling two-pronged argument that the author of this short letter intends his readers to understand that he is the best known James, Jesus’ brother, the head of the church in Jerusalem. On one hand, the author does not further identify himself, to indicate which James he is, in a world where the name was exceedingly common. This must mean that he can assume—at least he thinks he can assume—that his readers will know “which” James he is. That would work if this were a letter written to his own close-knit community, for whom further identification would be unnecessary. But the letter is addressed instead—this is the second prong—to the twelve tribes of the dispersion. That is, it is going everywhere.

There have been protracted debates about the ostensible recipients of the letter. Obviously it is not being sent to the twelve Jewish tribes, since these no longer existed; and there is nothing to suggest that it was being sent to non-Christian Jews around the world, as its interests are Christian (even though Christ himself is mentioned only twice). More plausibly, then, the letter is being addressed to Jewish Christians scattered throughout the empire or, possibly, to Christians in general. Since there is nothing uniquely Jewish about the letter (nothing non-Jewish either), perhaps the final option is the best.

With respect to authorship, in any event, the point is that this is a letter intended to be read far and wide by someone who simply calls himself “James” without indicating which James he was; the recipients would have no way of knowing his identity unless they assume he is “that” James: the most famous one of all, the brother of Jesus in charge of the mother church in Jerusalem. It is worth noting in this connection that this particular James is often named in the New Testament without further qualifier (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Cor. 15:7; Gal. 2:12).